Anadarko daily democrat. [volume] (Anadarko, Oklahoma) 1901-190?, 1902-05-01


briefs OF the lawyer or interrupted the
sales OF the merchant They bolt their
store doors against it and fight it back
with trowels and with yardsticks and
cry, Away with your religion from
our store. our Office. our factory
They do not understand that religion
in this workday world will help you to
do anything you ought to do. 1t can
lay keel; it can sail a ship; it can
buy cargo; it can work a pulley; 1t
can pave a street; it can fit a wrist
band; it can write a constitution; it
can marshal a host 1t is as appro-
pirate TO the astronomer as his tele-
scope to the chemist as his labora-
tory, TO the mason as his plumb line,
to the carpenter as his PLANE, TO the
child as his marbles
No time to be religious here You
have no time not to be religious. You
might as well have no clerks in your
store, no books in your library, no
compass on your ship, no rife in the
battle, no hat for your head. no coat
for your back, no shoes for your feet.
Better travel on toward eternity bare
headed and barefooted and houseless
and homeless and frieudless than 20 so
through life without religion.
Why my friends, religion is the best
security in every bargain; it is the
sweetest note in every song; it is the
brightest gem in every coronet No
time to be religious? Why. you will
have to take time to be sick, to be
| troubled, to die Our world is only the
wharf from which we are to embark
| iot heaven No time to secure the
| friendship of Christ? No time to bug a
lamp and trim it for that walk through
the darkness which otherwise will be
illumined only by the whiteness of the
! tombstones? No time to educate the
! eye for heavenly splendors or the hand
for choral harps or the ear for ever
lasting songs or the soul for honor,
| glory and immortality? One would
mink we had time for nothing else.
Other persons apologize for not en-
tering the Christian life because it is
time enough yet. That is very like
t40se persons who send regrets and
say, 4 will come in perhaps at II or II
O'Clock; | will not be there at the open
ing of the banquet, but | will be there
at the close" Not yet! Not yeti!
Now, ] do not give any doleful view
of this life. There is nothing in my
nature, nothing in the grace of God,
that tends toward a doleful view of
human life. | have not much sympa
thy with Addison's description of the
vision of Mira" where he represents
human life as being a bridge OF hun
dred arches and both ends of the
bridge covered with clouds, and the
race coming on, the most of them fall
ing down through the first span and
all of them falling down through the
last span. 1t is very dismal picture.
| have not much sympathy with the
Spanish proverb which says, The sky
is good and the earth is good; that
which is bad is between the earth and
the sky" But while we as Christian
men are bound to take a cheerful view
of life, we must also confess that life
is great uncertainty, and that man
who says 81 cant become Christian
yet is running a risk infinite. You do
!
descending grade of sin gets sleeper
and sleeper and that you are gathering
up a rush and velocity which after
a while may not answer to the brakes
Be not among those who give their
whole life to the world and then give
their corpse to God. 1t does not seem
fair that while our pulses are in full
nlaV Of health we serve ourselves and
serve the world and then make God at
last the present of a coffin. 1t does not
seem right that we run our ship from
coast to coast carrying cargoes for
ourselves and then, when the ship is
crushed in the rocks, give to God the
shivered timbers. 1t is a great thing
for a man on his dying pillow to re-
pent-better that than never at all;
but how much better. how much more
generous it would have been if he had
repented fifty years before! My friends,
you will never get over these procras.
tinations.
We have started on a march from.
which there is no retreat. The shad-
ows of eternity gather on our path
way. How insignificant is time com
pared with the vast eternity As |
was thinking of this one day while
coming down over the Allegheny
mountains at noon, by that wonderful
pass which you all have heard de-
scribed as the Horseshoe-a depression
in the side of the mountain where the
train almost turns back again upon