The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1900-07-13

so beautiful or beautifying as che
grace OF God Go all through the deep
mine passages of Wieliczka and amid
the underground kingdoms of salt in
Hallstadt, and show me anything so
exquisite, so transcendently beautiful
as this grace of God fashioned and
hung in eternal crystals
A Necessity of Life.
Again. grace is like salt in the fact
that 1t is a necessity of life. Man
and beast perish without salt. What
are those paths across the western
prairies? Why, they were made there
by deer and buffalo going and coming
away from salt clicks" Chemists and
physicians all over the world tell us
that salt is a necessity of life. And
so with the grace of God; you must
have it or die. l know a great many
speak OF it as mere adornment,
| sort of shoulder strap adjoining
soldier, or light, frothing dessert
brought in after the greatest part OF
the banquet of life is over, or medi-
| cine to be taken after powders and
mustard plasters have failed to do
| their work, but ordinarily a mere
superfluity, string of bells around
horses neck while he draws the load,
and in nowise helping him to draw it.
So far from that, l declare the grace
of God to be the first and the last ne
cessity 1t Is food we must take or
starve into an eternity of famine. 1t
is clothing without which we freeze
to the mast of infinite terror. 1t is
the plank, and the only plank, on
which we can float shoreward 1t is
the ladder and the only ladder, on
which we can climb up into the light.
1t is a positive necessity for the soul.
You can tell very easily what the eff
feet would be II a person refused to
take salt into the body. The energies
would fail, the lungs would struggle
with the air, slow fevers would crawl
through the brain, the heart would
fiutter, the life would be gone Salt
necessity for the life of the body;
the grace of God a necessity for the
life Of the soul.
Again l remark that grace is like
salt in abundance. God has strewn
salt in vast profusion all over the con-
tinents. Russia seems built on salt
cellar. There is one region in that
country that turns out 10000 tons
year. England and Russia and Italy
have ineXhaustible resources in this
respect. Norway and Sweden, white
with snow above, white with salt be-
meath. Austria yielding 100000 tons
annually. Nearly all the nations rich
in it-rock salt, spring salt, sea salt.
Christ, the Creator of the world, when
he uttered our text, knew it would be-
come more and more significant as the
shafts were sunk and the springs were
bored and the pumps were worked
and the crystals were gathered. So
the grace of God is abundant. 1t is
for all lands, for all ages, for all con-
ditions. 1t seems to undergrad every
thing. Pardon for the worst sin, COM
fort for the sharpest suffering. bright
est light for the thickest darkness.
Around about the salt lakes of Saratov
there are 10000 men toiling day and
night, and yet they never exhaust the
saline treasures. And if the 100000
600 of our race should now cry out to
God for his mercy there would be
enough for all-for those farthest
gone in sin, for the murderer standing
on the drop of the gallows. 1t is an
ocean of mercy; and if Europe and
Asia, Africa, North and South Amer
lea and all the islands of the sea went
down in it today they would have
room enough to wash and come up
clean. Let no man think that his
case is too tough one for God to
act upon. Though your sin may be
deep and raging, let me tell you that
Gods grace is a bridge not built on
earthly piers, but suspended and span
ming the awful chasm of your guilt,
one end resting upon the rock of eter-
nal anu lhC OlhCl OA lhC
foundations of heaven. Demetrlus
wore robe so incrusted with jewels
that no one after him ever dared to
wear it, but our King. Jesus, takes OF
the robe Of His righteousness, robe
blood-dyed and heaven-impearled, and
reaches it out to the worst wretch in
all the earth and says: Put that on!
Wear it now! Wear it forever!"
Pure Below the Surface.
Again, the grace Of God is like salt
in the way we come at it. The salt
on the surface is almost always i'm
pure-that which incrusts the Rocky
mountains and the South American
pampas and in India; but the miners
go down through the shafts and
through the dark labyrinths and along
by galleries of rock and with torches
and pickaxes find their way under the
very foundations of the earth, to
where the salt lies that makes up the
notion'c wealth To get to the hest