Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1901-03-20
the time kind words. gospel words.

and you are grateful for the protec-
ton during your sleeping hours, and
write before you retire at close of day
to those who all night long will be say
ing: Would to God it were morn
Ing! How many bruised and disap-
pointed and wronged souls of earth
would be glad to get n letter from you!
Stir up that consoldtory inkhorn.
All Christendom has been whiting
for great revivals of religion to start
from the pulpits and prayer meet
ings. L now suggest that the
greatest revival of all time may
start concerted and orga nized
movement through the inkhorns
of all Christendom, each writer Dip
ping from the inllhorn nearest him a
letter of gospel invitation, gospel
hope. gospel warming, gospel in
struction. The ink is all ready on n
hundred thousand tables, and beside
1T are the implements with which to
dip it out. Why not, through such
process, have millions of souls brought
to God before next summer? BY let
ter you could make the invitation
more effective than by word of mouth.
The invitation from your lips may be-
argued back, may evoke queruious
reply, may be answered by joke, but
n good, warm, gospel letter, written in
prayer and started with prayer and
followed by prayer, will be read over
and over again and cannot be an
swered in a frivolous way. 1t will
speak from the table by day and night
or, if pettishly torn up, will, In its
scattered fragments, speak louder
than when it remained whole. Within
arms reach OF where you sit there
may be a fluid that you may put on
wing with message of light and love
The other angels spoken of In my
text were destroying angels, and each
had what the Bible calls "a "slaugh-
ter weapon" in his hand. 1t was n
lance or battleaX or sword. God
hasten the time when the last lance
shall be shivered and the last bat
tleax dulled and the last sword
sheathed, never again to leave the
scabbard, and the angel of the text
who, Matthew Henry says, was the
Lord Jesus Christ, shall, from the
full inkhorn OF His mercy, give saw
ing call to all nations. That day NAV
he far off, but it is helpful to think
of its coming. AS DIR. Raleigh de-
ciared that when so miles at sea
eff the coast of New England the
cattle on board the ship, as well as
himself, scented the clover on the
few England hills, so we, amid all
The tossing waves of the worlds con.
troversies, inhale the redolencc of tn.
white lilies of universal peace Is
IL not time that the boasted inven-
ton of new and more explosive and
more widely devastating weapons OF
death be stopped forever ana the
Gospel have chance and the ques.
ton be not asked: How many shots
can be fired in a minute?" but How
many souls may be ransomed in a
day." The world needs less powder
and more grace, fewer fortresscs and
more churches, less power to destroy
and more power to save. oh, ] am
sick of the war cries and the extin-
guished eycsight and the spIintcred
bones and the grave trenches and
the widowhood and orphanagc and
childlessncss which sob and proan
and die in the wake Of the armies on
both sides of the sea, oh, for less
OF the slaughter weapon and more
of the evangelizing inkhorn! Oh.
for the stopping of the science OF
assassination, that crime of crimes.
that woe OF woes, that horror Of hor-
rors, that hell of hclls--war. which
this moment stands reeking with
blood and washing itself in tears
and disappearing the heavens and
m II i'm ,,ff q 4,
who have as much right to live as
you and | have and blasting homes
in which there dwells as much lowell
ness as in our own. Would that the
merciful angel of my text take the
last weapon of war and fling il Off
and fling it down with such force
that it shall clang on the loves;
round or the pcrdition where the
first keen edge of human strife was
sharpened! War! In the name of
Almighty God and of all the home
steads II has destroyed and is now
destroying, l hate it, denounce it,
] curse it,
II our Eible is true-and NO other
book that was ever printed is as
true as that book, which Moses be-
gan anu DOllll llillSIltt -Inen the Tune
will come when all the weapons OF
cruelty will stop and the inkhorns
of evangelization viii have their way.
In the museums Of the world the
carbinc and the cannon and the bomb
Will he kept as curiosities. and chill
dren will be incredulous as parents
tell them that civilized nations once
employed such instruments Of death
and more incrcdulous when told by
their parents that the army that
killed the most men was considered
Che most glorious army. The rel
horse Of carnage that St. John saw
in vision, and the black horse OF
famine, and the pale horse Of death
viii he stabbed. and the white horse
Of prosperity and peace. mounted by
the King Of Kings, will lead the
great army with banners. Through