The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1898-11-16

@eSts the wrestler 2n" ti!G power VI IilC
third throw.
But notice that my text suggests that
the WrestlerS on the other side IN the
great struggle for the world 5 redemp-
ton have all the forces of demonology
to help them, We wreStle not against
flesh and blood. but against principali-
ties. against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this world. against
spiritual wickedness in high places :
All military men will tell that there
is nothing more unwise than to under
estimate an army. In estimating what
we have to contend with the most Of
the reformers do not recognize the big
sest opposers. They talk about the
agnosticism, and the atheism, and the
matcrialism, and the Nihilism, and the
Pantheism, and the Brahmanism, and
the Mohammedanism. as we'll as the
more agile and organized and endowed
wickedness of our day.
But these are only part Of the hos
tilities arrayed against God and the
best interests of humanity. The invis-
ible hosts are far more numerous than
the visible It's not so much the bot
tie: it is the demon of the bottle. 1t is
not so much the roulette table; it is
the demon of the roulette table. 1t is
not so much the act of stock gambling
as it is the demon of stock gambling.
It's the great host of spiritual antago-
nists led on by Aziel or Lucifer or Beel-
zebub or AsmodeuS or Ahrimanes Or
Abadden, just as you please to call the
leader infernalistic. Can you doubt
that the human agencies of evil are
backed up by Plutonic agencies? If it
were only co mmon war steed, with
painting nostril and Haunting name and
Gathering hoof, rushing upon US, per-
haps we might clutch him by the bit
and hurl him back upon his launches,
but it is the black horse cavalry of per-
dition who dash down, and their riders
swing swords which, though invisible,
cleave individuals and homes and ma
-tions. l tell you Paul was right when
he suggested that We wrestle not with
pygmies, but with giants that will down
US unless the Lord Almighty is our CO.
adjutor. Blessed be God that We have
now and further on will have in mightier
degree that divine help!
The time is coming-I know it will
quicken your pulses when [ mention it
when the last mighty evil Of the
world will be grappled by righteous
ness and thrown. Which of the great
evils will survive all the others | know
not, whether war or revenge or fraud or
lust or imtemperance or gambling OF
Sabbath desecration. 1t will not be
survival of the fttest, but the sur
vival of the worst. It will be the evil
the most thoroughly intrenched, most
completely reinforced, most patronized
by wealth aud fashion and pomp, most
applauded by all the principalities and
powers and rulers of darkness. 1t will
stand, with grim visage, locking down
upon the graves of all the other slain
acknowledgements dug by the hot
shovels Of despair and surmounted by
such epitaphiology as this: 1T biteth
like serpent and stingeth like an ad-
der" ''The wages Of sin is death. "
Her house inclineth unto death and
her paths unto the dead There is a
way that seemeth right to a man, but
the end thereof is death" Yes! | i'm
agine We have arrived at the time
when we may say, Yonder stands the
last and only great evil of all the world
to be wrestled down. 1t stands not
only looking upon the graves of all the
entombed and epitaphed iniquities of
the world, but ever and anon gazing up
ward in defiance Of the heavens and
shaking its fist at the Almighty, saying:
Nothing can put me down. l have
seen all the other enemies of the hu
man race vested down and destroyed,
but there is no arm or foot, human OF
angelic or deifc that can throw me. |
have ruined whole generations, and |
swear by all the thrones Of diabolism
that I will ruin this generation. Come
on, all We churches and all ye reforma-
tory institutions and all ye legislatures
and all ye thrones! | challenge you.
l plant my feet on this redhot rock of
the worlds woe. I stretch forth my
arms for the mightiest wrestle any
world has ever seen. Come on, come
onr'
Then righteousness will accept the
challenge, and the two mighty wrestlers
will grapple, while all the galleries OF
earth and heaven look down from one
side, and all the fiery chasms of perdi-
tion look up from the other side. The
two wrestlers sway to and fro and turn
this way and that, and now the monster
evil seems the mightier of the two. and
now righteousness seems about to trl-
umph. The prize is worth struggle,
for it is not chaplet of laurel or palm,
but the rescue of world and wreath
put on the brow by him who promised,
''8e thou faithful unto death, and |
will give thee crown" Three worlds
earth, heaven and hell-hold their
breath while waiting for the result of
this struggle, when, with one mighty
swing of an arm muscled with omnipo
tence, righteousness hurls the last evil
first on it's knees and then on its face,
and then rolling off and down with a
crash wilder than that with which Sam
son hurled the temple of Dagon when
he got hold Of its two chief pillars. but
more like the throwing of satan out Of
heaven, as described by John Milton:
Him the Almighty power flung
Headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combu ustion, down
To bottomless perdition there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire
Who burst defy the Omnipotent to arms.
Nine times the space that measures day and
night
To mortal man, he. with his horrid crew.
Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confouuded, though immortal.