Connecticut western news., 1900-04-26

q. .oIl, tue ueutn oI sln 10 the life of the gospel, but you need to get your hand loose, and your feet loose, and your tongue loose, and your soul loose. There Is no sin that the Bible so ar raigns and punctures and fiagellates as the sin of unbelief, and that Is what Is the matter with you. Oh you say, If you knew what l once was and how | many times l have grievously strayed you would understand why l do not come out brighterr' Then l think you | would call yourself the chief of sin ners. l am glad you hit upon that | term, for l have promise that fits in- ! to your case as the cogs of one wheel | between the cogs of another wheel or as the key fits into the labyrinths of | lock. A man who was once called Saul, | but afterward Paul, declared, This Is | a faithful saying and worthy of all ac- | equation, that Christ Jesus came into | the world to save sinners, of whom | am chief" Mark that-"of whom I am chief Put down your over | coats and hats, and I will take care of | them while you kill Stephen" So Saul said to the stoners of the first martyr. II do not care to exert myself much, but I will guard your surplus apparel | while you do the murder" The New | Testament account says, '"rhe witness es laid down their clothes at young | mans feet, whose name was Saul" No wonder he said, Sinners, of whom I am the chief"
 | Clear the Decks.
 | Christ is used to climbing. He climb | ed to the top of the temple. He climb ed to the top of Mount Olivet. He | climbed to the top of the cliffs about | Nazareth. He climbed to the top of Golgotha. And to the top of the hills and the mountains of your transgres- sion he is ready to climb with pardon for every one of you. The groan of | Calvary is mightier than the thunder | of Sinai. Full receipt is offered for nll your indebtedness. If one throw a l stone at midnight into a bush where the hedge bird roosts, 1t immediately begins to sing, and into the midnight
 hedges of your despondency these
 words I hurl, hoping to awaken you to anthem. Drop the tunes in the minor Il | 1t pleases the Lord for you to be carry ing around with you the debris and carcasses of old transgressions? You make me think of some ship that has
 had a tempestuous time at sea and
 now that 1t proposes another voyage keeps on its davits the damaged life
 boats and the splinters of a shivered
 mast and the broken glass of smash ed skylight. My advice is: Clear the decks, overheard with all the damaged
 rigging, brighten up the salted smoke
 stacks, open a new logbook haul in
 the blanks, lay out new course and
 set sail for heaven. You have had the
 spiritual dumps long enough. You
 will please the Lord more by being happy than by being miserable.
 Again, my text has good advice con-
 corning any Christian hampered and
 bothered and bound by fear of his own
 dissolution. To such the book refers 1 when 1t speaks of those who through fear of death were all their lifetime
 subject to bondage. The most of US,
 even if we have the Christian hope, arc
 towards about death. If plank fall
 from scaffolding and just grazes our
 hat, how pale we look! If the Atlantic
 ocean plays with the steamship, pitch
 ing 1t toward the heavens and letting
 1t suddenly drop, how even the Chris.
 tan passengers poster the steward or
 stewardess as to whether there Is any
 danger.
 Backed up by the teachings of youl
 Bible, just look through the telescope
 some bright night and see how many
 worlds there are and reflect that al
 you have seen, compared with tht
 number of worlds in existence, are less
 than the fingers of your right hand as
 compared with all the fingers of tn,
 human race. How foolish, then, fol
 us to think that ours is the only world
 it for us to stay in.
 One of our first realizations in get
 ting out of this world, I think, will b,
 that in this world we were very mucl
 pent up and had cramped apartments
 and were kept on the limits. Tht
 most, even of our small world, Is wa
 ter, and the water says to the human
 race, Don't come here or you vii
 drown" A few thousand feet up tn,
 atmosphere is uninhabitable, and thu
 atmosphere says to the human race
 Don't come up here or you canno
 breathe" A few miles down the eartl
 Is furnace of fire, and the fire says
 Don't come here or you will burn
 The caverns of the mountains are ful
 of poisonous gases, and the gases say
 Don't come here or you will be as
 phyxiated." And, crossing a track
 you must look out or you will be crush
 ed. And, standing by steam boiler | you must look out or you will be blowI
 up. And pneumonias and pleurisie
 and consumptions and apoplexies g, across this earth in flocks, in droves
 in herds, and 1t is world of equinoxe and cyclones and graves. Yet we arr under the delusion that 1t Is the onl. place fit to stay in. We want to sticl to the wet plank In midocean while tn, great ship, the City of God, of tn, Celestial line, goes sailing past ant would gladly take us up in lifeboat My Christian friends, let me tear of your dependencies and frights abou dissolution. My Lord commands m [ regarding you, saying, Loose him, an' [ let him go."
 t Heaven is 95 per cent better thai this world, thousand per cent better a million per cent better. Take tn t gladdest, brightest, most jubilant day t you ever had on earth and compres them all into one hour, and that hou l would be a requiem, a fast day, gloom, a horror, as compared with tn , poorest hour they have had in heavel since its first tower was built or it t first gates swung or its first son;
 caroled. "Oh," you say, that may b
 true, but l am so afraid of crossin! 2 over from this world to the next, ant fear the snapping of the cord be l tween soul and body" Well, all tn