The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1898-11-18

breaks in q new place. That MAJ goes
into q second wrestle with evil habit
and IS flung, and all hell cackIes at
the moral defeat. Il told you sol"
say many good people who have no
faith in the reformation Of a fallen
man. Il told you SOL" You made a
great fuss about his restored home,
but I knew it would not last. You
can't trust these fellows who have
once gone wrong. So with this unfor-
tunate, things get worse and worse,
and his family have to give up the
house, and the last valuable goes to
the pawnbroker's shop. But that nm
fortunate man is sauntering along the
street one Sunday night, and he goes
mp to a church door, and the congrega-
ton are singing a second hymn, tho
one just before sermon, and it is vii.
liam Cowper's glorious hymn:
There is a ountaiu filled with blood
Drawn from Emauuel's veins
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
IIe goes into the yestibule of the
church and stops there, not feeling
well enough dressed to 60 among the
worshipers, and he hears the minister
say: .'You viii find the words Of my
text in Luke, the nineteenth chapter
and tenth verse: THE Son Of Man is
come to seek and save that which was
lost The listener in the vestibuIe
says: "If any man was ever lost, / am
lost, and the Son Of Man came to save
that which is lost, and He has found
me, and He will take me out Of this
lost condition. Oh, Christ have mercy
ON mel" The poor man has courage
now to enter the main audience room,
and he sits down on the first seat by
the door, and when at the close of the
service the minister ONE down the
aisle, the poor man tells his story;
and he is encouraged and invited to
come again, and the way is cleared for
hin8 for membership in a Christian
church, and he feels the omnipotence
of what Peter, the apostle, said when
he spoke of those kept by the power
of God through faith unto complete
salvation" Yet he is to have one more
wrestle before he is free from evil
habits, and he goes into it, not in his
own strength, for that has failed him
twice, but in the strength of the Lord
God Almighty. The old habit seizes
him, and he seizes it, and the wres.
tiers bend backward and forward, and
from side to side, in awful struggle,
until the moment comes for his lib
Grafton; and, with both arms infused
with strength from God, he lifts that
habit, swings it in the air, and hurls it
into the perdition from which it came,
and from which it never again will
rise. Victory! Victory! through oul
Lord Jesus Christ! Hear it, all We
wrestlersl lit threw him twice, but
the third time he threw it; and, by
the grace of God, threw it so hard he
is as safe now as if he had been ten
years in Heaven. Oh, I am so glad
that Paul in my text suggests the
wrestler and the power Of the third
throw.
All military men win tell you that
there is nothing more unwise than to
underestimate an army, In estimat-
ing what we have to contend with, the
most Of the reformers do not recog-
nize the biggest opposers, They talk
about the Agposticism, and the Athe-
ism, and the M~aterialism, and the
Brahminism, and the Mohammedun.
ism as well as the more agile and OF.
gpnized and endowed w~ickedness OF
our day, But these are only a part OF
The hostilities arrayed against God
and the best interests Of humanity.
The invisible hosts are far more mum.
erous than the visible. It is not so
much the bottle; it is the demon OF
the bottle. 1t Is not so much the
roulette table; IL is the demon of the
roulette table. 1t is not 50 much the
act Of stock gambling as it is the de.
mon of stock gambling. It is the
great host of spiritual antagonists Ted
on by Aziel, or Lucifer, or Beelzebub
, or Asmodeus, or A|hrimales, or Abad.
+ don, Just as you please to call the
, leader i~nfernalistic. Can you doubt
/ that the human agencies Of evil are
t backed up by Plutonic ]ngencies2 II
it were only a common war-steed
: with painting n%ostril, and Haunting
r name, and Gathering hoof, rushing
upon us, perhaps we might clutch hin
1 by the bit, and hurl him back upor
4 Isis launches, but it is the black horse
Y cavalry Of perdition who dash down
4 and their viders swing swords which
though Invisible, eleave individuals
and homes, and nations / tell you
' Paul was right when he suggested
that we wrestle, not with pigmies, but
with giants that viii down us, unless
o the Lord Almighty is N coadjutor
e BLESSED be God that we have now ant
y further on will have in the 4Birhfia