The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1899-1900, 1899-06-14

yOur lllelliue uSSOcldte. Is not Ine ever
lasting welfare of your wife impenitent
or your husband impenitent of more
Importance than your church relation
ship? Is not the condition of your
companion for the next quadrillion of
years a mightier consideration to you
than the qualification of your ecclesi-
astical taste for 40 or so years? A man
or woman who would stop half min
ute to weigh preferences as to whether
he or she had better go with the uncon-
verted companion to this or that church
or denomination has no religion at all,
and never has had, and fear never will
have. You are loaded up with what
you suppose to be religion, but you are
like Capt. Frobisher, who brought back
from his voyage of discovery ship
load of what he supposed valuable min
erals, yet, instead of being silver and
gold, were nothing but common stones
of the field, to be hurled out as finally
useless.
Mighty God, in all Thy realm is there
one man or woman protesting religion,
yet so stolid, so untitled, 80 far gone
unto death that there would be any
hesitancy in surrenGering all prefer
ences before such an opportunity of
salvation and heavenly reunion? If
you, a Christian wife, are an attend
ant upon any church and your uncon-
verted husband does not go there be-
cause he does not like its preacher, or
its music, or its architecture, or its un-
comfortable crowding, and goes not to
any house of worship, but would go if
you would accompany him somewhere
else, change your church relations.
Take your hymn book home with you
to-day. Say good-by to your friends in
the neighboring pews and go with him
to any one of 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 Heaven
ly Father command the angel of mercy
concerning your husband at his CON
version, as in the parable of old: Put
a ring on his hand"
No letter Of more Importance ever
came to the great city Of Corinth, situ-
ated on what was called the Bridge of
the Sea- and glistening with sculpture,
and gated with a style of brass the mag
nifcence of which the following ages
have not been able TO successfully imi-
tate, and overshadowed by the Aero
Corinthus, fortress of rock 1000 feet
high--I say no letter ever came to that
great city of more importance than that
letter in which Paul puts the two
startling questions: What knowest
thou, o wife, whether thou shalt save
thy husband? Or how knowest thou,
o man, whether thou 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 on earth
and be copartners in eternal bliss than
pass your earthly membership in most
gorgeously attractive church while
your companion stays outside of evan
gelical privilege. Better have the
drowning saved by scow or sloop
than let him or hersgo down while you
sail by in the gilded cabins of Maj jestic
or Campania.
Second remark; If both Of the mar
ried couple be Christians, but one is so
naturally constructed that it is impos-
sible to enjoy the services of a particu-
lar 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, feel
| as much at home in one denomination
Of evangelical Christians as another,
and think must have been born very
near the line. / like the solemn roll of
the Episcopal liturgy, and l like the
spontaneity Of the Methodists, and
like the Importance given to the ordi-
nance of baptism by the Baptists, and
| like the freedom of the Congrega-
tionaIsts, and l like the government
and the sublime doctrine of the PresDy-
terians, and like many of the others
just as much as any have mentioned,
and could happily live and preach and
die and be buried from any of them.
| But others are born with liking so
stout, so unbending, so memorable for
some denomination that it is 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
had put in their hands as n. plaything
a Westminster catechism of the Thirty
nine Articles. The whole current of
| their temperament and thought and
character runs into one sect of reli-
gionists as naturally as the James river
into the Chesapeake. 1t 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 flocks
OF Christian grace, should say to Lot,
who is built on 4 smaller scale: "Let
there be no strife, pray thee, between
me and thee, and between my herdmen
and thy herdmen. Is not the whole land
before thee? As you can be edited
andhappy anywhere, go with your COM
panion to the church to which he or she
must go or be miserable.
Remark the third: If both the mar
ried couple are very strong in their sec
tarianism, let them sttend the different
churches preferred. It is not necessary
that you attend the same church. Re
ligion is between your conscience and
| your God. Like Abram and Lot, agree
to suffer. When on Sabbath morning
you come out of your home together
and one goes one way and the other the
other, heartily wish each other good
sermon and q time of profitable devo-