Connecticut western news., 1900-10-04

tney cannot get explained. They can not understand the Trinity or how God can be sovereign and yet man a free agent. Neither can I. They say, "I don't understand why good God should let sin come into the world" Neither do I!< You say, "Why was that child started In life with such disad-
 vantages, while others have all phys ical and mental equipmentT I cannot tell. They go out of church on Easter
 morning and say, That doctrine of the resurrection csnfounded me-" So 1t Is
 to me a mystery beyond unravelment. understand all the processes by | which men get into the dark. I know them all. I have travelled with burn ing feet that blistered way. The first
 word that children learn to utter Is generally papa or mamma. think the | first word I ever uttered was why" I know what 1t Is to have a hundred | midnights pour their darkness Into one | hour.
 Such men are not to be scoffed at, | but helped. Turn your back upon a | drowning man when you have the rope with which to pull him ashore and let | that woman In the third story of | house perish in the flames when you | have a ladder with which to help her out and help her down rather than turn your back scoffingly on a skeptic whose soul Is In more peril than the | bodies of those other endangered ones | can be. Oh, skepticism is a dark land! | There are men who would give a thou sand worlds, if they possessed them, to | get back to the placid faith of their fa- | thers and mothers, and 1t Is our place | to help them, and we may help them, | never through their heads, but always | through their hearts. These skeptics, when brought to Jesus, will be might | fly effective, far more so than those | who never examined the evidences of Christianity. Thomas Chalmers was | once a skeptic, Robert Hall a skeptic, Robert Newton a skeptic, Christmas | Evans a skeptic. But when once with
 strong hand they took hold of the char
 lot of the gospel they rolled 1t on with | what momentum!
 If address such men and women to- | day, I throw out no scofr. l implead | them by the memory of the good old | days when at their mothers knee they | said, "Now I lay me down to sleep" | and by those days and nights of scar | let fever in which she watched you. | giving you the medicine in just the
 right time and turning your pillow when 1t was hot and with hands that
 many years ago turned to dust soothed away your pain and with voice that you will never hear again, unless you | join her in the better country, told you | to never mind, for you would feel bet | ter by and by, and by that dying couch | where she looked so pale and talked so slowly, catching her breath between the words, and you felt an awful lone
 Illness coming over your soul-by all | that I beg you to come back and take | the same religion. 1t was good enough | for her; 1t Is good enough for you. Nay, | have a better plea than that. plead
 by all the wounds and tears and blood and groans and agonies and death | throes of the Son of God, who ap- | breaches you this moment with torn
 brow and lacerated hands and whip | ped back and saying, Come unto me
 all ye who are weary and heavy laden. and will give you rest"
 | Help the Drowning.
 | Again, there Is a field of usefulness
 but little touched, occupied by those I who are astray in their habits. All northern nations, like those of North | America and England and Scotland
 flat is, in the colder climates-are dev-
 astated by alcoholism. They take the fire to keep up the warmth. In south
 ern countries, like Arabia and Spain, | the blood Is so warm they are not tempted to fiery liquids. The great Roman armies never drank anything
 stronger than water tinged with vine
 gar. but under our northern climate the ! temptation to heating stimulants Is most mighty, and millions suecumb. | When mans habits go wrong, the | church drops him, the social circle | drops him, good influences drop him | we all drop him. Of all the men who | get off the track but few ever get on | again.
 | Near my summer residence there is a
 life saving station on the beach. There
 are all the ropes and rockets, the boats,
 the machinery, for getting people off I shipwrecks. One summer I saw there
 15 or 20 men who were breakfasting
 after having just escaped with their
 lives and nothing more. Up and down
 our coasts are built these useful struc-
 lures. and the mariners know 1t, and
 they feel that If they are driven into
 the breakers there will be apt from
 shore to come & rescue. The churches l of Gnd fS, ha lf fo xyfy,y
 stations, not so much to help those who
 are in smooth waters, but those who
 have been shipwrecked. Come let us
 run out the lifeboats! And who will
 man themf We do not preach enough
 to such men. We have not enough
 faith In their release. Alas. If when
 they come to hear ps we are laborious-
 ly trying to show the difference be
 tween sublapsaranism and supralap-
 sarianism, while they have a hundred
 vipers of remorse and despair coiling
 around and biting their immortal spir-
 It's. The church is not chiefly for good
 ish sort of men, whose proclivities are
 all right and who could get to heaven
 praying and singing in their own
 homes. 1t Is on the beach to help the
 drowning. Those bad cases are the
 cases that God likes to take hold of.
 He can save big sinner as we'll as a
 small sinner, and when a man calls
 earnestly to God for help he will go out
 to deliver such one. If it were neces-
 sary, God would come down from the
 sky, followed by all the artillery of
 heaven and a million angels with
 drawn swords. Get 100 such redeemed
 men In your churches, and nothing
 could stand before them, for such men
 are generally warm hearted and enthu-
 siastic. No formal prayers then. No
 heartless singing then. No cold con-