Connecticut western news., 1898-11-10

glanG. Anu, my ITlenuS, II we uO uOt want ourselves to be thrown i'll this wrestle with the sin and error of the world, we had better get ready by Christian discipline, by holy self de- nial, by constant practice, by submit ting to divine supervisal and direction Do not beGrudge the time and the money
 for that yoNng man who is in prepara-
 tion for tie ministry, spending two
 years in grammar school and four years
 in college and three years in theological seminary. I know that nine years are
 big slice to take off of a mans active life, but if you realized the height and strength of the archangels of evil in our time with which that young man IS going to wrestle, you would not think nine years of preparation were too much An uneducated ministry was ex-
 cusable in other days, but not in this time, loaded with schools and colleges A man who wrote me the other day
 letter asking advice, as he felt called to preach the gospel, began the word "God" with small "g." That kind of man is not called to preach the gospel Illiterate men, preaching the gospel, quote for their own encourage ment the Scriptural passage, "Open thy mouth wide and 1 fill it" Yesl He will fill it with wind. Preparation for this wrestling is absolutely necessary. Many years ago Dr. Newman and Dr Sunderland, on the platform of Brigham Young's tabernacle at Salt Lake City gained the victory because they had so long been skillful wrestlers for God Otherwise Brigham Young, who was himself giant in some things, would have thrown them out of the window Get ready in Bible classes. Get ready in Christian Endeavor meetings. Get ready by giving testimony in obscure spiouous places.
 The Silent Worker.
 Your going around with Bagster's Bible with flaps at the edges under your arm does not qualify you for the work of an evangelist In this day of profuse gab remember that it is not merely capacity to talk, but the fact
 that you have something to say that is going to fit you for the struggle into which you are to go with smile on your face and illumination on your brow, but out of which you will not
 come until all your physical and men, tai and moral and religions energies have been taxed to the utmost and you have not nerve left, or thought un expended. or prayer unsaid, or sym pathy unwept In this struggle between right and wrong accept no challenge on platform or in newspaper unless you are prepared. Do not misapply the story of Goliath the great, and David the lit tle David had been practioing with a sling on dogs and wolves and bandits, and 1000 times had he swirled stone around his head before he aimed at the forehead of the giant and tumbled him backward, otherwise the big foot of Go Hath would almost have covered up the
 crushed form of the son of Jesse.
 Notice also that the success of wrestler depended on his having his feet we'll planted before he grappled his opponent Much depends upon the way the wrestler stands. Standing on an uncertain piece of ground or bearing all his weight on right foot or all his weight on left foot, he is not ready A slight cuff of his antagonist will capsize him. A stroke of the heel of the other wrestler will trip him. And in this struggle for God and righteousness, as we'll as for our own souls, we want our feet firmly planted in the gospel-both feet on the Rock of Ages It will not do to believe the Bible in spots, or think some of it true and some of it untrue You just make up your mind that the story of the garden of Eden is an al legory, and the epistle of James an in terpolation, and that the miracles of Christ can be accounted for on natural grounds without any belief in the su- pernatural, and the first time you are inter locked in wrestle with sin and satan you will go under and your feet will be higher than your head It will not do to have one foot on rock and she other on the sand. The old book would long ago have gone to pieces if 1t had been vulnerable. But of the mil lions of Bibles that have been printed within the last % years not one chap ter has been omitted, and the omission of one chapter would have been the cause of the rejection of the whole edi- tion.
 l. Alas for those who, while trying to prove that Jonah was never swallowed of whale. themselves get swallowed of the whale of unbelief, which digests, but never ejects its victims. The inspi- ration of the Bible IS not more certain than the preservation of the Bible in it's present condition After so many cen turies of assault on the book would it not be matter of economy, to say the least-economy of brain and economy of stationery and economy of printers ink if the batteries now assailing the book l would change their aim and be trained against some other books, and the world shown that Walter Scott did not write "The Lady of the Lake," nor Homer 'The Iliad, ,'' nor Virgil "The Georgics, nor Thomas Moore "Lalla Rookh," or that Washington's fare we'll address was written by Thomas
 Paine, and that the war of the Ameri- can Revolution never occurred. That at tempt would be quite as successful as | this long timed attack anti Biblical, and then it would be new. Oh, keep out of this wrestling bout with the ignorance and the wretchedness of the world un- less yon feel that both feet are planted in the eternal yeracities of the book of | Almighty God
 The Fallen May Rise.
 Notice also that in this sc1enee of wrestling, to which Paul refers in my text, it was the third throw that decid- ed the contest. A wrestler might be thrown once and thrown twice, but the third time he might recover himself,
 and by an unexpected twist of arm or
 curve of foot gain the day We'll, that
 is broad, smiling, unmistakable gospel.
 Some whom I address through ear or eye by voice or printed page, have been { ;,, bas 1a ,;+ boh