The Yale expositor., 1897-09-24


kSGpcA. XNA the heavens. He
ESAlHJVE speaks with voice,
Tsrts&T with eye, with
hand with foot.
His silence often is loud as thunder,
and his life is a dirge or doxology.
There is no such thing as negative in
fuence. We are all positive in the
place we occupy, making the world
better or making 1t worse, on the
Lords side or on the devils, making
up reasons for our blessedness or ban
ishment and we have already done
work in peopling heaven or hell. !
hear people tell of what they are going
to do. A man who has burned down
city might as we'll talk of some evil
that he expects to do, or a man who has
saved an empire might as well talk or
some good that he expects to do. BY
the force of your evil influence you
have already consumed infinite values;
or you have by the power of a right
influence, won whole Kingdoms for
God.
It would be absurd for me. by elab-
crate argument, to prove that the
world is off the track. You might as
we'll stand at the foot of an embank-
ment, amid the wreck of capsized
rail-train, proving by elaborate argu-
ment that something is out of order.
| Adam tumbled over the embankment
! sixty centuries ago, and the whole
race, in one long train, has gone on
! tumbling in the same direction. Crash!
crash! The only question now is, by
what leverage can the crushed thing
| be lifted? BY what hammer may the
fragments be reconstructed? l want
TO show you how we may turn many
| TO righteousness, and what will be our
future pay for so doing.
First We may turn them by the
charm of a right example. A child
coming from a filthy home was taught
at school to wash it's face. 1t went
home so much improved in appearance
that it's mother washed her face. And
when the father of the household came
home and saw the improvement in
| domestic appearance, he washed his
| face. The neighbors, happening in,
saw the change, and tried the same ex-
| pertinent, until all that street was puri-
| fed, and the next street copied its ex-
ample and the whole city felt the re-
suit of one schoolboy washing his face.
| That is a fable, by which we set forth
that the best way to get the world
washed of it's sins and pollution is to
have our own heart and life cleansed
and purified A man with grace in his
heart and Christian cheerfulness in his
face and holy consistency in his be-
havior is a perpetual sermon; and the
sermon differs from others in that 1t
has but one head, and the longer it
runs the better.
Again: We may turn many to right
eousness by prayer. There is no such
detective as prayer, for no one can
hide away from it. 1t puts its hand
on the shoulder of man ten thousand
miles off. 1t alights on a ship mid
Atlantic The little child cannot UNI
derstand the law of electricity, or how
the telegraph operator, by touching the
| instrument here, may dart a message
under the sea to another continent:
nor can we, with our small intellect,
understand how the touch of Chris
tian's prayer shall instantly strike
soul on the other side of the earth. You
! take ship and go to some other country.
and get there at eleven o'clock in the
morning. You telegraph to America
and the message gets here at six
o'clock the same morning. In other
words it seems to arrive here five
prayer. God says Before they call.
will hear" To overtake a loved one
on the road, you may spur up a lather-
ed steed until he shall OUTRAGE the one
that brought the news to Client; but
a prayer shall catch 1t at one gallon.
A boy running away from home may
take the midnight train from the coun-
try village and reach the seaport in
time to gain the ship that sails on the
morrow; but mothers prayer will
be on the deck to meet him, and in
the hammock before he swings into it.
and at the capstan before he winds the
rope around, and on the sea, against
the sky, as the vessel ploughs on
toward it. There is mightiness in
prayer. George Muller prayed a COM
pany of poor boys together, and then
he prayed up an asylum in which they
might be sheltered He turned his face
toward Edinburgh and prayed and
there came a thousand pounds. He
turned his face toward Dublin and
prayed, and there came a thousand
pounds. The breath of Elijah's prayer
blew all the clouds off the sky. and It
was dry weather. The breath OF Eli
jah's prayer blew all the clouds to-
gether and IL was wet weather. Pray
er, in Daniels time, walked the cave
as a lion-tamer. 1t reached up, and
took the sun by its golden bit, and
stopped 1t, and the moon by it's silver
bit. and stopped it.
We have all yet to try the full power
OF prayer. The time will come when
the American Church will pray with
its face toward the West and all the
prairies and inland cities will surrend-
er to God; and will pray with face
toward the sea, and all the islands
and ships will become Christian. Pa
rents who have Wavward sons will get