The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-06-23
THE s~EMIWELKLY MESSENGER: FRIDAY. JUNE q, 1899.

your wife impenitent, or your husband
impenitent, of % importance than
your church relationship! Is not
the condition Of your companion for
the next quadrillion Of years a
mightier consideration to you than the
qualification OF your ecclesiastical taste
for 40 or so years.. man or a woman
that would stop half a minute to weigh
preferences a to whether he or she had
better go with the u~nconverted COM
panion to this or that church or denom-
ination has no religion at all, and never
has had, and l ear never will hav
You are loaded up with what you sup
pose to be religion, but you are like
Captain Frobisher who brought back
from his oyage of discovery a shipload
Of what he supposed valuable minerals,
yet, instead Of being silver and gold
were nothing but common stones Of tie
field, to be hurled out as finally useless.
Mighty God! In all thy realm is
there one man or woman processing re-
ligion, yet 50 stolid, SO unified, so far
gone unto death that there would be
any hesftancy in surrendering all pref
erences before such an opportunity Of
salvation and heavenly reunion? II
you, a Christian wife, are an attendant
upon any church, and your u%nconvert-
ed husband does not go there because
he does not like its preacher, or its
music, or it's architecture, or its I'M
comfortable crOwding, and goes not TO
any house of worship, but would go if
you would him
else, change your church relations.
Fake you ~hymnbook home with you
today. Say goodby TO your friends in
the n~eighboring pews and go with him
to any n of a hundred churches till
his soul is saved and he joins you in
the march to heaven. More important
than that ring on the third finger OF
your left hand it is that your heavenly
Father commanded The angel OF mercy
concerning your husband at his con-
version, as in the parable Of old, Put
a ring on his hand"
THE DEAREST SACRIFICE.
No letter Of more Importance ever
came to the great city Of Corinth, stu
ated on what was called h Bridge OF
the Sea-" and glistening with sculp-
ture and gated with a style of brass
the magnifcence Of which the following
age have not been able to successfully
initiate and overshadoWed by the Aero
C~orinthus, a fortress of rock 1000 feet
hight say no letter eVer came to that
great city of more Importance than
that letter in which Paul puts the w
startling questions: What knowest
thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save
thy husband? Or how knoWest thou,
O a whether h shalt save thy
wife?' The dearest sacrifice on the
part of the one is cheap if it rescue the
other. Better go to the smallest, weak
est, most insignificant church or earth
and be cOpartners in eternal bliss than
pass your earthly membership in most
~gorgeously attractive church while your
companion stays outside of evangelical
privilege. Better have the drowning
saved by a scoW or a slOop than let him
or her go down while you sail by in
the gilded cabins Of a Majestic or Cam
Dania.
Second remark: If both of the mar
ried couples be Christians, but one is
so naturally constructed that it is i'm
possible to enjoy the services of a par
ticular denomination, and the other is
not so Sectarian or punctiliOus, let the
one less particular go with the other
who is very particular. AS for myself,
1 feel as much at home in one denOm-
inatiOn of evangelical Christians as an
other, and l think l must have been
born very near the line. / like the
solemn roll of the Episcopal liturgy,
and 1 like the s~pontaniety of the Metho-
diStS and / like the importance given to
the ordinance of baptism by the Bap-
lists and 1 like the freedom of the Con-
g~regationalists and / like the govern
ment and the sublime doctrine of the
Presbyterians and 1 like many OF the
Others just as much as any L have men,
toned, and I could happily live and
preach and die and be buried from any
of them. But others are born with a
liking so stout, so ~unbending, so in
exorable for some denomination that it
is a positive necessity they have the
advantage of that one. What they were
intended to be in ecclesiasticism was
written in the sides of their cradle, If
the father and mother had eyes keen
enough to see it. They would not stop
crying until they a put in their
hands as a plaything a Westminster
Catechism or the T~hirty-nine Articles.
The whole current Of their itempera-
ment and thought and character runs
into one sect of r~eligiOnists as naturally
as the James river into the Chesapeake.
It would be a torture to such persons
to be anywhere outside of that one
church.
Now, let the wife or husband who is
not so constructed sacrifice the milder
preference for the one more inflexible
and rigorous. Let the grapevine follow
the rugosities and sinuositieS of the oak
or hickory. Abram, the richer in focks
Of Christian grace, should say to Lot,
who is built on a smaller scale: Let
there be no strife, I pray thee, between
me and thee n between my herdmen
and thy herdmen. Is not the whole
land before thee?" AS you can be edi-
fled and happy anywhere, go with
your companion to the church to which
he or h go or be miserable.
AGREE TO DIFFER.
Remark the third: If both the mar
ried couple are very strong in their Sec
tarianism, let them attend the different
churches preferred. 1t is not necessary
that you attend the same church. Re-
ligion us between your conscience and
FOUR God. Like Abram and Lot, agree
to differ. When on Sabbath morning
you come out of you home together
and one goes n way and the other the
other, heartily wish C other a good
sermon and a time of profitable devo-
tiOn, and When you meet again at the
MONDAY repast let it be evident, each
to each, and to your children, n to
the hired help, that you LAY both been
on the Mount of TRANSPORTATION, al
though you went up by different paths.
and that you have both been fed by the
bread of life, though kneaded by differ
ent hands in different trays and baked
in different ovens. But how about the
children?" l am often asked by scores
of parents. Let them also make their
own choice. They will grow up with
reverence for both the denominations
| represented bv father and mother if