The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-07-20

i
tie bit Of wotnan seemed to me to grow
nine fset tall, and she seem TO have IN
her hand a hattering ram with which she
! was ppnhdihg upon the deer OF my heart
uNtil | had to open II and let the Savior
in" To show what was the Influence Of
this frall little woman and the work
which size did would uuete a statement
made by Wendell Phillips, lie turned to
q young man, who was complaining that
there WERE no great reformers today, be-
cause there were no great reforms to
champion, and saidi Young man. did
you hear Frances u, Willard speak to-
nlEhts II you did, In that frail little
sick body YOU saw one Of the mightest
pow ere for good this world has ever seen.
You also saw her denouncing, perhaps,
the mishtest curse o. all ages, the curse
OF intoNieants Go and do as the slckly
Frances y, Willard Is doing"
Solicitations Of the Saints.
Now. to you who are sitting before me
today With the pale face of an invalid
hiring the saiutation of the saints who
have lived In the Caesarean palaces OF
| ply sloal infirmity. / would tell you to do
something sor God in spite of your bodily
pain, as blind John Milton did, as Bella
/ Cooke who has been bedridden for over
/ forty years, is doing as Paul did who
was TN bodily presence weak" Your
very physical sufferings should bring
you closer to Christ, Your very sick
nesses ought to make you more anxious
| to do something for the Savior now that
your time on earth may be short They
ought to make you as anxious to do some
thing for Christ as was the dying presi-
| dent OF Union college, who when his ply
+, stefan told him he had but one hour on
earth to live, said, Then place me upon
my knees, that may spend that hour
In prayer with God. pleading for the sal
walton of sinful soulsl" Would that to-
day In the presence Of these saints who
have lived in the modern Caesars palaces
of physical torture, we might all con-
centrate our frai as well as our we'll
bodies to the service OF te Lord Jesus
Christ
I would encourage those Christians also
who are trying to maintain their Christ
ian integrity in spite of an evil past. BY
this statement I mean those Christians
whose past sins have been heralded over
the world, even as Gains sin was known
by the black mark which had been
stamped upon The murderer's brow. If
| 1t is hard for a young girl to be good
and pure when she Is living In a Christ
ian home and has practically never been
out of her mothers care how much
harder must 1t be for a young girl to be
good and true and pure when she has
| ing the crooked and stony pathway of
sin and has had her fair name blackened
by the condemnation of dissolute lifel
| If 1t Is difficult for a yaung man to hold
an honorable position in society when his
record is clean and good, how much
more difficult for a man to attain an
honorable life when he mas served out
his time In a. felon's cell or has had his
| hair cropped by the convict's shears and
his clothes striped with the marks of the
penitentiaryl If 1t is difficult for a
Christian to live right whose nearest
neighbors can find nothing but good to
say of him and his past, how much more
difficult must 1t be for a man to live a
good life who has been drunkard lib
ertine, a thief, social outcast! Would
you, o mother, allow reformed servants
in your home whose past lives have been
dissolute? NO" in oil probability you
would both answer In an un-Christian
way: Il do not bear such people any
i'll will, but would prefer not TO have
them about my person. They might
steal or perhaps they might lead my
children astray and were such among
my help / would dismiss them at once.
Some time ago stood in the store of
a personal friend. While there a gem
tleman who was a member of the Chi
cago detective force entered to buy some
goods. This officer sharply looked at
one of the clerks. Then he came over
to the merchants side and said: Mr..
So-and-So, that clerk is an ex-convict.
He served a term in Joliet penitentiary.
You had better keep an eye upon him."
Although that ex-convict was a good
clerk and had been in the employ of my
friend for nearly two years, he was i'm
mediately discharged. When l spoke up
in his favor and begged that he be re-
tanned and given a chance to live good
life, my friend answered: mo, Mr.. Tai
mage; that man is able TO steal every
year thousands of dollars without my
knowing it. l cannot run the risk" So
the poor clerk was driven out of that
store and perhaps driven into a future
| of crime.
Sinking an Evil Past.
But though it is so difficult for man
to lead a Christian life who has had an
evil past. yet IL there are any such here
| today l bring to you the salutation of the
saints In Caesars palace. l want to en-
courage you with the fact that, just as
some of the greatest of moral heroes have
been physical weaklings, so some of the
greatest of Christian heroes have been
those who have sinned even worse than
you have sinned. Harry Monroe, who
for years has run the Pacific Garden
Mission of Chicago and who has been in
strumental in saving thousands of souls,
Der of Christian church and a Christian
home? No. He was converted gam
bier. Jerry McAuley of New York, who
did so much for the slums of New York.
was drunkard and a prize-fighter. John
Newton was once viely dissolute and de-
PRAYED, though in after life he wrote the
noted hymn:
l saw one hanging on a tree
In agony and blood,
Who fixed his languid eyes on me
AS near the cross 1 stood.
Sure never till my latest breath
1 Can 1 forget that look
1t seemed to charge me with his death,
Though nee a word he spoke.
John Newton said when he first saw
Christ hanging there upon the cross he
himself was wallowing in the lowest
/ depths of sin. John Bunyan the dreamer
was John Bunyan the blasphemef. John
Summerfield the saint, about whom we
u have already spoken, was John Summer
field the depraved. Saul the chief of sin
ners became Paul the martyred saint
Oh. my brother, If the grace of God could
come into such sinful lives and recreate
and sustain them. surely the grace of God
| is sufficient to recreate and sustain us,
no matter how black may have been our
dissolute past.
And bring to you who have an evil
past this message from the saints In Cae-
ears palace, because the man who has
publicly sinned. the man who has been
loathsomely vile, is the man who has an
! especial mission to save souls for Jesus
| Christ. You know as no one else knows
how difficult 1t is for one who has been
a. social outcast to try to live again