The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1900-11-01

against LIdI one DOOhs i1dii Oiit IL
his infdel desperation to his wife, "Yo on
must not be reading that Bible" and he
snatched it away from her. And though
in that Bible was lock of hair of the
dead child-the only child that God had
ever given them-he pitched the book with
its contents into the fire and stirred IT
with the tongs and spat on it and cursed
it and said, 'Susan, never have any more
of that damnabe stuff here.
How many individual and organized at
tempts have been made to exterminate
that Bible? Have its enemies done 1T!
Have they extermirated The. American
the British and Foreign Bible Society?
Have they exterminated the thousands of
Christian institutions whose only object
it is to multiply copies of the Scriptures
and spread them broadcast around the
world? They have exterminated until IN
stead of one or two copies of the Bible IN
orr houses we have eight or ten, and we
pile them up in the corners of our Sabbath
school rooms and send great boxes OF
them everywhere. If they get on as well
as thev are now going on in the work OF
determination, | do not know but that
our children NAV live to see the millen-
mum. Yea, if there should come tune
of persecution in which all the known BIZ
bles of the earth should be destroyed, all
these lamps Of life that blaze in our pull
pits and in our families extlngulshed, IN
the verv day that infidelitv and sin should
be holding Jubilee over the universal ex.
tnction there would be in some closet OF
a backwoods church secreted copy OF the
Bible and this Joash of eternal literature
would come out and come up and take the
throne, and the Athaliah of infidelity ana
persecution would fly out the back door of
the palace and drop her miserable carcass
under the hoofs of the horses Of the king
stables. You cannot exterminate Chris
tianity! You cannot kill Joash!
The second thought | hand you from
my subject is that there are opportunities
in which you may save royal life. You
know that profane history, is replete with
stories of strangled monarchs and OF young
princes VINO have been put out of the
way. Here is the story of a young king
saved How Jehosheba, the clergyman
wife, must have trembled as she rushed
into the imperial nursery and snatched up
Joashl How she hushed him lest by his
cry he hinder the escape! Fly with him,
Jehosneba! You hold in your arms the
cause of God and good government. Fall
and he is slain Succeed, and you turn
the tide of the worlds history in the right
direction. 1t seems as if between that
young king and his assassins there is moth
ing but the frail arm of a woman. But
why should we spend our time in praising
this bravery of'expedition when God asks
the same thing OF YOU and me? All
around US the imperiled children of a
great king They are born of Almighty
parentage, and will come to throne or s
crown if permitted. But sin, the old Ath-
allah, goes forth to the massacre. Muir
derous temptations are out for the assas-
sination Nalens, the Emperor, was told
that there was somebody in his realm who
would usurp his throne, and that the name
of the man who should be the usurper
would begin with the letters L, II. E. o.,
D. and the edict went forth from the En-
name begins with 7, H, Z, o, d." And
hundreds of thousands were slain. hoping
by that massacre to put an end to that
one usurper. But sin is more terrific in
its denunciation 1t matters not how you
spell your name. you come under its knife,
under its sword, under its doom, unless
there be some omniDotent relief brought to
the rescue But, blessed be God, there is
such thing as delivering royal soul.
Who will snatch away ,Joash?
How few of us appreciate the fact that
the cnhrch of God is hiding place. There
ere many people who put the church at so
| low a mark that they begrudge it every
thing, even the few dollars they give to-
ward it, They make no sacrifices. They
dole little out Of their surplusage. They
pay their butchers bill, and they pay their
uDCLOI DllI, anu bltt pay tlCii ittii.tici
and they nay everybody but the Lord. and
| they come in at the last to pay the Lord
in His church and frown as they say:
'There. Lord it is. Send me receipt in
full. and don't bother me soon againn
There is not more than one man out of
thousand that appreciates what the
church is. Where are the souls that put
aside one-tenth for Christian Institutions
one-tenth of their income? Where are
those who, having put aside that one-tenth
draw upon it cheerfully? Why, it is pull
and drag az, hold on and grab and clutch,
and giving is an affection to most people
when it ought to be an exhilaration and a
rapture.
Oh. that God would remodel our souls
on this subject and that we might appre-
ciate the house of God as the great ref
uge! If your children are to come up to
lives of virtue and happiness, they will
come up under the shadow of the church.
If the church does not get them, the
world will.
All, when you ass away-and it will not
be long before you do-when you pass
away, it will be satisfaction to see
your children in Christian society. You
want to have them sitting at the holy sac
raments. You want them mingling in
Christian associations. You would like
to have them die in the sacred precincts.
When you are on your dying bed and your
little ones core up to take your last word,
and you look into their bewildered faces,
you will want to leave them under the
church's benediction. | do not care how
hard you are, that is so.
And so, though you may have been wan
derers from God, and though you may
have some times caricatured the church of
Jesus, it is your great desire that your
sons and daughters should be standing all
their lives within this sacred inclosure.
More than that. You yourself will want
the church for a hiding place when the
mortgage is foreclosed when your daugh-
ter, Just blooming into womanhood, sud
denly clasps her hands in a slumber that
knows no waking; when the gaunt trouble
walks through the parlor and the sitting
room and the dining hall and the nursery,
you will want some shelter from the tenn
pest. All, some of you have been run
upon by misfortune and trial. Why do
you not come into the shelter?
] said to a widowed mother after she
had buried her only son-months after
| said to her, How do you get along now
adays" oh" she replied, Il get along
tolerably we'll except when the sun shines"
| said, "What do you mean by that"
when she said 81 can't bear to see the
sun shine. My heart is so dark that all
the brightness of the natural world seems
a mockery to me"
0 darkened soul! o broken hearted
man, broken hearted woman! Why do
.r,,, NOT oo,na ;n+ +ha ohaltar9 / cxtino