Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-08-09

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there are 10000 men toiling day and night,
and yet they never exhaust the saline treas
ures. And if the 1,600, 900 900 of our race
should now cry out to God for His mercy
there would be enough for all-for those
standing on the drop of the gallows. 1t is
an ocean of mercy, and if Europe and
Asia, Africa, North and South America,
and all the islands of the sea went down
in it to-day they would have room enough
to wash and come up clean.
Let no man think that his case is too
tough a one for God to act upon Though
your sin may be deep and raging, let me
tell you that Gods grace is bridge not
built on earthly piers, but suspended and
spanning the awful chasm of your guilt,
one end resting upon the rock of eternal
promises and the other on the foundations
of heaven: Demetrius wore robe 30 in
crusted with jewels that no one after him
ever dared to wear it. But our King, Jesus,
takes off 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"
Again, the grace of God is like salt in
the way we come at it, The salt on the
surface is almost always impure-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
torches and pickaxes, find their way under
the very foundations of the earth to where
| the salt lies that makes up the nations
wealth. To get to the best saline springs
of the earth huge machinery goes down,
boring depth below depth, depth below
the mountains the saline water supplies
the aqueduct. This water is brought to
the surface and is exposed in tanks to the
sun for evaporation, or it is put in boilers
nightly heated and the water evaporates,
and the salt gathers at the bottom of the
tank. The work is completed, and the for
tune is made.
Have you not been in enough trouble to
have that work go on? was reading of
| Aristotle, who said there was a field of
flowers in Sicily so sweet that once
hound, coming on the track of game, came
perfumes and SO lost the track. Oh, that
our souls might become like "a field which
the Lord hath blessed" and exhale so much
of the sweetness of Christian character
that the hounds of temptation, coming on
our. track, might lose it and go bowling
back with disappointment!
But l remark again that the grace of
God is like the salt in its preservative
| quality. You know that salt absorbs the
moisture of articles of food and infuses
them with brine. which preserves them for
a long while. Salt is the great antiputre-
factor of the world. Experimenters, in
! preserving wood have tried sugar and
else, but as long as the world stands
Chrst's words will be suggestive, and men
''salt is good"
But for the grace of God the earth would
have become a stale carcass long before
| bat &c +ha p1ty
of laws and constitutions and literatures.
just as soon as a government loses this
salt of divine grace it perishes. The philo-
sophy of this day, so far as it is antagonis.
tic to this religion, putrefes and stinks.
| The great want of our schools of learning
and our institutions of science to-day is
not more Leyden jars and galvanic batter
les and spectroscopes and philosophical APP
| paratus, but more of that grace that will
| teach our men of science that the God of
the universe is the God of the Bible.
How strange it is that in all their mag
nifcent sweep of the telescope they have
not seen the morning star of Jesus, and
that in all their experiments with light and
heat they have not seen the light and felt
the warmth of the Sun of Righteousness!
We want more of the salt of Gods grace
in our homes, in our schools, in our col
leges, in our social life, in our Christianity.
And that which has it will live; that which
has it not will die. proclaim the tenden-
cy of everything earthly to putrefaction
and death, the religion of Christ the only
preservative.
My subject is one of great congratulation
to those who have within their. souls this
gospel antiseptic. This salt will preserve
them through the temptations and sor-
rows of life and through the ages of eter-
nifty. / do not mean to say that you will
have smooth time because you are a
Christian. On the contrary, if you do your
whole duty l will promise you a rough
time. You march through an enemy's 8
country, and they will try to double up
both hanks and to cut you off from your
source of supplies. The war you wage will
not be with toy arrows. but sword plunged
to the hilt, and squirting on your steed
over heaps of the slain. But think that
God omnipotent will see you through. l
know He will. But why do talk like an
atheist when l ought to say ! know He
will? "Kept by the power of God through
faith unto complete salvation"
When Governor Geary, of Pennsylvania,
died years ago | lost good friend. He
impressed me nightly with the horrors of
war. In the eight hours that we rode to-
gether in the cars he recited to me the
scenes through which he had passed in the
civil war. He said that there came one
battle upon which everything seemed to
pivot. kilograms from Washington said
that the life of the nation depended on
that struggle. He said to me: i went into
that battle, sir, with my son. His mother
and l thought everything of him. You
know how a father will feel toward his
son who is coming up manly and brave and
good. Well, the battle opened and con-
centered, and it was awful. Horses and
riders bent and twisted and piled up to-
gether. 1t was awful, sir. We quit firing
and took to the point of the bayonet.
Well, sir, didn't feel like myself that day.
had prayed to God for strength for that
particular battle, and / went into it feel
ing that had in my right arm the
strength of ten giants and as the Gov
ernor brought his arm down on the back
Of the seat it fairly made the car tremble.
"Well," he said, "the battle was desperate,
but ,efter awhile we gained little, and we
marched on little. | turned round to the
troops and shouted. Come on, boysn and
I stepped across dead soldier, and 10, it
was my son! I saw at the first glance he
J was dead, and yet did not dare to stop a
} minute for the crisis had come in the bat
tie, so just got down on my knees, and ]
threw my arms around him, and I gave
him one good kiss and said, 'Good-by,
} DEAR and sprang up and shouted. Come