The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-11-11


stock gambling. 1t is the great hosts
of spiritual antagonists led on by
Aziel or Lucifer, or Beelzeb ub,
or Asmodeus, or Ahrimanes or
Abaddon, Just as you please
Can you doubt that the hnmau
agencies of evil are backed up by Plu-
tonic agencies? If it were only com
mon war steed, with painting nostril,
and Haunting name, and gathering
hoof, rushing upon us, perhaps we
might clutch him by the bit, and hurl
him back upon his launches, but it is
the black horse cavalry of perdition
who dash down, and their riders swing
swords which, though invisible, cleave
individuals, and homes, and nations
/ tell you, Paul was right when he
suggested that we wrestle, not with
pigmies, but with giants that will
down us, unless the Lord Almighty is
our coadjutor. Blessed be God that
we have now, and further on will have
in mightier degree, that divine help!
The time is coming-I know 1t will
quicken yonr pulses when / mention 1t
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 intemperance, will not be
"the survival of the fttest" 1t will
not be 1.-THE survival of the fittest," but
the survival of the worst. 1t will be
the evil most thoroughly entrenched,
most completely reinforced, most
patronized by wealth and fashion and
pomp, most applauded by all the prin-
cipalities and powers and rulers of
darkness. 1t will stand, with grim
visage, looking down upon the
graves of all the other slain abomi-
nations-graves dug by the hot
shovels of despair and surmounted
by such epitaphiology as this: at
biteth like serpent and stingeth like
an adder" 1.-THE wages of sin is
death" "Her house inclineth unto
death and her paths unto the dead"
"There is way that seemeth right to
man, but the end thereof is death"
Yesl / imagine 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 entombe and epi-
taphed iniquities of the world, but
ever and anon gazing upward in def
ance of the heavens and shaking its
fist at the Almighty. saying: Moth
| ing can put me down. l have seen all
the other enemies of the human race
wrestled down and destroyed but
there is no arm or foot, human or an
gelic or deitic, that can throw me.
have ruined whole generations, and
swear by all the thrones of diabolism
that ] will ruin this generation. Come
on, all we churches and all We reform
atory institutions, and all we legisla.
lures, and all we thronesl | challenge
you'll | plant my feet on this red-hot
rock of the worlds woe. l stretch
forth my arms for the mightiest
wrestle any world has ever seen. Come
on! Come onp Then RICH teousness
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 perdition 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 triumph. The prize is worth a
struggle, for it is not chaplet or
laurel or palm, but the rescue of a
world, and wreath put on the brow
by Him who promised, BE thou faith
full unto death and | will give thee a
crown" Three worlds-earth, Heaven
and hell-hold their breath while wait
ing for the result of this struggle,
when with one mighty swing of an
arm muscled with Omni potence, right
eousness 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 Sampson
hurled the temple of Dagon when he
got hold of its two chief pillars.
II all the realms of demonology are
on the other side, all the realms of
angelology are on our side, among
them Gabriel, and Michael the arch.
angel, and the angel of the new GOV.
enant, and they are now talking over
the present awful struggle and final
glorious triumph; talking amid the
alabaster pillars and in the ivory pal
aces, and along the broadways and
grand avenues of the great capital of
the universe, and amid the spray of
fountains with rain bows like the rain
bow round the throne" and as
they take their morning ride in
the chariots with white horses
bitted with gold, that were seen by
John in vision apocalyptic, and while
waiting in temples for the one hun
dred and forty and four thousand to
chant, accompanied by harpers and
trumpeters, and thunderings and
hallelujahs like the voice of many
waters. Yes, all Heaven is on our side,
and the high places of wickedness"
spoken of in my text are not so high
as the high places of Heaven, where
there are enough reserve forces, If our
earthly forces should be overpowered,
or in cowardice fall back, to sweep
down some morning at daybreak
and take all this earth for God before
the city clocks could strike twelve"