The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1898-12-03

let us Degln anew. SympathlZlng
friends come around, and kind bust
ness people help the man to something
to do, so that he can again earn liv-
ing. The children soon have clothing,
so that they can go TO school. The old
songs which the wife sang years ago
come back to her memory, and she
sings them again at the cradle, or
while preparing the MONDAY meal. Do
nestle resurrection. He comes home
earlier than he used to, and he is glad
to spend the evening playing games
with the children or helping them
with arithmetic or grammar les
sons, which are a little too hard.
Time passes on, and some outsider
suggests to him that he is not getting
as much out of life as he ought, and
proposes an occasional visit to scenes
of worldliness and dissipation. He
consents to go once, and, after much
solicitation, twice. Then his old habit
comes back. He says he has been be-
lated, and could not get back until
midnight. He had to see some west
ern merchant that had arrived and
talk of business with him before he
got out of town. Kindness and geni-
atty again quit the disposition of that
husband and father. The wife's heart
breaks in new place. That man goes
into second wrestle with evil habit
and is flung, and all hell cackles at
the moral defeat. 81 told you sol"
say many good people who have no
faith in the reformation of q fallen
man. II told you sol" You made
great fuss about his restored home,
but l 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 10 give up the
house, and the last valuable goes to
the pawnbroker's shop. But that UNI
fortunate man is sauntering along the
street one Sunday night, and he goes
up to church door, and the congrega-
ton are singing second hymn, the
one just before sermon, and it is Will
liam Cowper's glorious hymn:
| There is fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Emanuel's veins
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
| Lose all their guilty stains.
He goes into the vestibule of the
church and stops there, not feeling
well enough dressed to go among the
| worshipers, and he hears the minister
say: You will 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 vestibule
says: eff any man was ever lost, l 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 comes down the
aisle, the poor man tells his story;
and he is encouraged and invited to
come again, and the way is cleared for
him for membership in 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
| ~ he CD rrfh of l.l
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 our
Lord Jesus Christ! Hear it, all We
wrestlers! 1t 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, l am so glad
that Paul in my text suggests the
wrestler and the power of the third
throw.
All military men will 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 Agnosticsm, and the Athe-
ism, and the Materialism, and the
Brahminism, and the Mohammedan-
ism as well as the more agile and or
ganized and endowed wickedness of
our day. But these are only part Of
the hostilities arrayed against God
and the best interests of humanity
The invisible hosts are far more mum
erous than the visible. 1t is not SO
much the bottle; 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 de.
mon of stock gambling. 1t is the
great host of spiritual antagonists leo
on by Aziel, or Lucifer, or Beelzebub
OF Asmodeus, or Ahrimanes, or Abad.
don, just as you please to call the
leader infernalistic. Can you doubt
that the human agencies of evil are
backed up by Plutonic agencies? II
it were only a common war-steed
with painting nostril, and Haunting
name, and Gathering hoof. rushing
upon us, perhaps we might clutch him
by Ike bit, and hurl him back upon