Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1902-01-11

again, i learn from benQdQaQ 3 De-
havior the unwisdom of boasting of
what one is going to do. Better not
tell boastingly what you are going to
do. Wait until it Is done. You do
well to lay out your plans, but there
are so many mistakes and disappoint-
ments in life that you may not be able
to carry out your plans, and there is
no need of invoking the worlds de-
rision and caricature. Napoleon was
so sure of conquering England, Scot
land and ireland that he had medal
struck celebrating the conquest, which
he never made. On that medal was
represented his own crowned head.
Wilberforce did not tell what he was
going to do with the slave trade, but
how much he accomplished is suggest
ed by Lord Brougham's remark con-
cerning Wilberforce after his decease,
He went to heaven with 800, 600 brok-
en- fetters in his hand" The only kind
of boasting that prospers was that of
Paul, who cried out, t'T glory in the
cross of Christi and that of John
Newton, who declared, 81 am not what
1 ought to be; I am not what 1 wish
to be; I am not what 1 hope to be,
but, by the grace of God, I am not
what 1 was
My subject is also a refutation of the
famous sentiment that God is on the
side of the heaviest artillery. God is
not on the side of the most swords
or the most war chariots or the most
cannon if they be in the wrong, but
on the side of the right. How such a
preposterous sentiment as 1 have men
toned should have gained sway 1
know not when all history proclaims
the opposite. How insignificant were
the unarmed Israelites, half starved
and unorganized, compared with
Pharaoh's host on foot, on horseback
and chariotedl But the waves of the
Red sea took part in the conflict, part
ing to let the pursued pass, but COM
ing together to destroy the pursuers.
The Midianites and Amalekites were
like grasshoppers for multitudes, but
300 men under Gideon came down,
their ownly weapons pitchers and
lamps and trumpets, and as they held
up the lamps and threw down the
pitchers and blew the trumpets the
flash of the lights and the blare of the
instruments and the crash of the
crockery made their enemy fall back
IN wild terror.
Notice also that my text takes it for
granted that you must put on the har-
ness, else how can you take it off? Life
is a battle-a thirty years. forty
years or a sixty years war. Every
possible effort will be made to make
you think wrong The young man
who gets his head filled with wrong
notions about God, about Christ, about
the soul, about the great beyond, is
already captured Think right, and
fo1f fha hno or-f
pure, and the life will be pure. Have
the heart corrupt, and your actions
will be corrupt.
We hold our breath in horror as
once in awhile We hear of someone,
either by accident or suicide, going over
Niagara Falls, but the tides, the
depths, the awful surges of intemper-
ance are every hour of every day
rushing scores of immortals down into
unfathomed abysm. Suicides by the
hundreds of thousands, Suicides by
the million, Beware of the cup out of
which Benhadad drank personal and
national demolition.
Yes, you must have full armor.
There are temptations to an impure
life all the time multiplying and in
tensifying Read in private and dis
cuSsed afterward by the refined and
elegant in parlors are books poisoned
from lid to lid with impurities. Loose
characters in the novel applauded by
rhetorical pens and proprieties of life
caricatured as prudery and infidelity
of behavior put in a way to excite SYM
pathy and half approval My wonder
is not that SO many go astray, but my
wonder is that ten times as many are
not debauched. There are influences
at work which, if unarrested. will turn
our cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs
ready for the hail and fire and brim-
stone of Gods Indignation
Yes, you must have full armor. for.
there are all the temptations to gam
ing practices, either in gambling halls
or in the money markets, buying what
they never paid for and selling what
they can never deliver, first borrowing
what they cannot return and stealing
what they cannot borrow All hours
of the day and all hours of the night
are vast sums of money passing fraud
ulently, for gambling in all cases is
fraud, whether it be a twenty-five cent
prize package or a crash in Northern
Pacific, which made Lombard street
and the bourse aghast and shook the
nations with financial earthquake.
Oh, yes, you need the harness on
until God tells you to take it off. In
olden time it was leathern armor or
chain armor or ribbed armor, fash
foundry h,,f No ono