Newport weekly independent., 1901-08-16


 10000 sheep have been drinking be- fore you. You will have to remove the obstacle of pride or never find | your way to the well. You will have 1 to come as we came, willing to take | the water of eternal life in any way and at any hand and in any kind of pitcher, crying out: "Oh, Lord Je- sus, l am dying of thirst! Give me the water of eternal life, whether in trough or goblet! Give me the wa | ter of life! I care not in what it comes to me-" Away with all your hindrances of pride from the wells mouth!
 Here is another man who is kept back from the water of life by the stone of an obdurate heart which lies over the mouth of the well. You have no more feeling upon this sub Ject than if God had yet to do you the first kindness or you had to do God the first wrong. Seated on His lap all these years, His everlasting arms sheltering you, where is your gratitude? Where is your morning
 
 consecrated lives? I say to you, as Daniel said to Belshazzar: "The God in whose hand thy breath is, and all thy way, thou hast not glorified." If you treated anybody as badly as you have treated God, you would have made 500 apologies; yea, your whole life would have been an apology. Three times a day you have been seated at Gods table, Spring, sum- mer, autumn and winter He has ap propriately appareled you. Your health from Him, your companion from Him, your children from Him, your home from Him, all the bright surroundings of your life from Him. Oh, man, what dost thou with that hard heart? Canst thou not feel one throb of gratitude toward the God that made you, and the Christ who came to redeem you, and the Holy Ghost who has all these years been importuning you? If you could sit down five minutes under the tree of a Saviour's martyrdom and feel His lifeblood trickling on your fore head and cheek and hands, methinks you would get some appreciation of what you owe to a crucifed Jesus.
 Heart of stone, relent, reent,
 Touched by Jesus cross, subdued; See His body mangled, rent,
 Covered with gore of blood.
 Sinful soul. what hast thou done? | Crucifed the Eternal Son!
 There are men who are perfectly discontented. Unhappy in the past, unhappy to-day, to be unhappy for ever, unless you come to this Gospel we'll This satisfies the soul with a high, deep, all absorbing and eternal satisfaction. It comes, and it offers 1 the most unfortunate man so much of this world as is best for him, and throws all Heaven into the bargain. The wealth of Croesus and all the Rothschilds is only a poor, miserab ble | shilling compared with the eternal for tunes that Christ offers you to-day | In the far east there was a king who used once year to get on the scales, while on the other side the scales were placed gold and silver and gems-in- deed, enough were placed there to | balance the king. Then, at the close of the weighing, all those treasures were thrown among the populace. But | Christ to-day steps on one side the scales, and on the other side are all the treasures of the universe, and He says: "All are yours; all height, all depth, all breadth, all eternity-all are yours" We do not appellate the prom ises of the Gospel.
 Come also to this Gospel well, all ye troubled. I do not suppose you have escaped. Compare your view of this life at 15 years of age with what your view is of it at 40 or 60 or 70. What great contrast of opin- ion! Were you right then or are you right now? Two cups placed in your hands, the one sweet cup, the other sour cup. A cup of joy and a cup of grief. Which has been the nearest to being full, and out of which have you the more frequently partaken? What different place the cemetery is from what it used to be! | Once 1t was to you a grand city i'm provement, and you went out on the pleasure excursion, and you ran laughingly up the mound, and you criticised in light way the epitaph But since the day when you heard the 1 bell toll at the gate when you went in with the procession it is a sad place, and there is a flood of rush ing memories that suffuse the eye ! and overmaster the heart. Oh, you have had trouble, trouble, trouble! God only knows how much you have had. It is a wonder you have been