Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-05-15

d 81 8 1'II.'
prevalent mode; striving very hard ~
overcome 4 naturally irritable temper
in the home circle, he is doing Chris
tian work very Christian work, in
deed-he is running well the race set
before him.
But. again. the Christian, as wise
man, lightens himself for, his task; The
lays aside every weight" The Chris
tan runner lays aside his besetting
sins. These are probably not grave
faults Of character-things full of peril
for mans salvation. They are rather
mans recognized failings; the things
that we know we are weak in, and that
others know that we are weak in; the
things. in consequence, that we are
very apt to take for granted, and make
very little effort against. They are like
dogs which snap at a runners heels.
or the tapping Of a loose garment
round his ankles. I fancy we all know
what it is to have our effectiveness as
runners in the Christian course griev-
ously interfered with by miserable lit
tie habits which we have never seri-
spair of getting rid of. But ii man
is to run we'll, he must not only get
rid of positive entanglements-he must
resolve to run light. He must say OF
number of things, This Is very
pleasant, very comfortable, if there
were time and place for enjoying it,
but / am entered for race" An
athlete absorbed in his work does not
carefully adjust his wrist bands, or
wear a great coat with velvet collar.
He eats sparingly, and often chooses
by preference a simple beefsteak to the
most delicate yiands; not because the
steak is better in itself, or because it is
wrong to partake of the delicacies, but
simply because he can run better on the
one diet than on the other
There are quite allowable Injuries in
life, and a great many debatable in
dulgences about which a very good case
might be made out on one side and
the other, if man had time to waste
in making out such cases; but the run
ner feels that time presses, and that
even lawful indulgences tend to weaken
him. Enjoyment which is pure is per-
missade, because it is part of our ma
ture, and it recruits the strength and
spirits for the strain and pressure OF
the race. But to make enjoyment an
end in itself is unworthy of the run
ner; it is to abdicate his position; 1t is
to change his view of life. Enjoyments
are meant as helps-helps to running.
The moment they become hindrances,
we should throw them aside.
with patience" That means the
consistent man resolutely discharging
his task. This patience seems almost
like a different principle called in to
supplement faith: this obstinate perse-
verance in ascourse, once, the judgment
has approved of it, and the feelings
been enlisted in its favor. 1t is not
that the high belief in a race set be-
fore us is dead, but it is dormant We
cannot see the divine marking out of
the arena. We have ceased for time
to thrill to high motives. No really
protracted race, with its inevitable
downs and ups can be run without
something which, in the moral and
spiritual sphere, corresponds to what
we call holding on.
Second-The surrounding, or specta-
tors.
Some of you may remember George
Elliott's beautiful but vague lines about
the 'fChoir Invisible Some of you
will remember Napoleon's appeal to his
men before they charged the Name
lukes under the shadow of the Pyra-
Forty centuries are looking
down upon YOU" 1t is this sort OF
motive, only in a form at once very
lofty and very definite, that the
apostle invokes when he makes his
great gallery OF the sanity dead re-
appear as spectators of the Christian
race course, marshalling them, tier
above tier, in one of those vast amphi-
theatres, the remains of which are
found near so many of the cities of
classical antiquity. The great and
good dead were to him not vision or
a memory, but a living multitudinous
presence, and their eyes were upon the
runners as they passed round the
course. Of course, the writer filled his
galleries with those in whose history
his readers would be most interested
and who would be most interested in
their history. Those whom we pic
ture, looking over as spectators on our
life's course, would be differently Sc
lected, but the principle of selection
would be the same. Surely there Is
gallery of interested onlookers whom
our faith sees. Faith not merely
makes the future present; it makes the
past present.
Do you not often feel your departed
father or mother, or brother or sister,
or child's face shining upon you as You
are pressing forward in that painful
daily struggle to do what is best-to
deny yourself-to work Christ's work7
You find yourself doing some bit of
duty; volunteering for some task with
an earnestness of purpose which al
most surprises you. 1t is a hidden in
fluence derived from the faith of those
who are gone, that moves you It is
the dead hand-the dead, yet living
hand, pushing you forward.
OF course our main element in the
inspiration drawn from the spectators,
is the knowledge that those who are
now looking on from the tiers OF seats,
once strained YEARLY through the dust
of the arena. When we think of far
away martyrs and heroes. the great
and sainted, the difficulty is just here,
that we can hardly conceive them be-
fore they were glorified; hardly believe
that thew had such StrIropIaS d ure a. re