St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-05-24

1
/ to be an octogenarian. Here is Chris.
| tan mother, training her children fol-
| God and for heaven, self-sacrifcing
| Christlike, Indispensable seemingly
to that household; she gets cancer
and dies The skeptic says: Il can't
explain that" Neither canI.
| lean see how men reaso themselves
into skepticism. With burning feet !
have trodden that blistering way. ]
| know what it is to have a hundred
| nights poured into one hour. There are
| men in the arid desert of doubt who
| would give their thousands of dollars
if they could get back to the old re-
| igion of their fathers. Such men are
not to be caricatured, but helped, and
| not through their heads, but through
their hearts. When these men really
do come into the kingdom of God, they
| will be worth far more to the cause
| of Christ than those who never exam
! ined the evidence of Christianity.
! Thomas Chalmers once a skeptic;
Christmas Evans, once a skeptic; but
when they did lay hold of the Gospel
! chariot how they made it speed ahead!
If, therefore, I address men and wom-
en- who have drifted away into skepti-
cism. throw out no scott; l rather i'm
plead you by the memory of those
good old times when you knelt at your
mothers knee and said your evening
prayer and those other days of sick
ness when she watched all night and
gave you the medicine at just the right
time and turned the pillow when it
was hot, and with hand long ago
turned to dust soothed sour pains, and
with that voice you will never hear
again unless you join her in the bet
ter country told you never mind, you
would be better by and by, and by that
dying couch where she talked so slow
~, catching her breath between the
words-by all those memories I ask
you to come and take the same re-
ligion. 1t was good enough for her;
it is good enough for you. Aye, make
a better plea: By the wounds and the
death throe of the Son of God, who ap-
proaches, you in infinite love with
torn brow and lacerated hands and
whipped back, crying: "Come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and l will give you rest"
Other persons apologize for not en-
tering the Christian life because of the
incorrigibility of their temperament.
Now, we admit it is harder for some
people to become Christians than for
others, but the grace of God never
came to mountain that it could not
climb or an abyss that 1t could not
fathom or to bondage that it could
not break. The widest horse that ever
trod Arab sands has been broken to
bit and trace. The maddest torrent
tumbling from mountain shelving has
been harnessed to the mill wheel and
the factory band, setting a thousand
shuttles all a-buzz and a-clatter. And
the widest, the haughtiest, the most
ungovernable man ever created by the
grace of God may be subdued and
sent out on ministry of kindness, as
God sends an August thunderstorm to
water the wild flowers down in the
grass. Peter, with nature tempestu-
Gus as the sea that he once tried to
walk, at one look from Christ went
out and wept bitterly. Rich harvests
of grace may grow on the summit of
the jagged steep, and focks of Chris
tan graces may find pasturage in
fields of bramble and rock. Though
your disposition may be all a-bristle
with fretfulness, though you have
temper a-gleam with quick lightnings,
though your avarice be like that of the
horse leech, crying: "Give!" though
damnable impurities have wrapped
you in all consuming fire, God can
drive that devil out of your soul, and
over the chaos and the darkness He
can say: 'Let there be light" Con-
verting grace has lifted the drunkard
from the ditch and snatched the knife
from the hand of the assassin and the
false keys from the burglar and in the
pestiferous lanes of the city met the
daughter of sin under the dim lamp
light and scattered her sorrow and
her guilt with the words: "Th.y sins
are forgiven; go, and sin no more"
For scarlet sin a scarlet atonement.
Other persons apologize for not en-
tering the Christian life because of
the inconsistencies of those who pro-
fess religion. There are thousands of
poor farmers. They do not know the
nature of soils or the proper rotation
Of crops. Their corn is shorter in the
stalk and smaller in the ear. They have
ten less bushels to the acre than their
neighbors. But who declines being a
farmer because there are so many
poor farmers? There are thousands of
incompetent merchants. They buy at
the wrong time. They get cheated in
the sale of their goods. Every bale of
goods is to them a bale of disaster.
They fail after awhile and go out of
business. But who declines to be
merchant because there are so many
incompetent merchants? There are
thousands of poor lawyers. They can
not draw declaration that will stand
the test. They cannot recover just
damages. They cannot help defend
ant escape from the injustice of his
prosecutors. They are the worst i'm
pediments against any case in which
they are retained. But who declines -
be a lawyer because there are so many
incompetent lawyers? Yet there are
tens of thousands of people who de-
cline being religious because there are
SO many unworthy Christians. Now, l
say it is illogical. Poor lawyers are
nothing against Jurisprudence; poor
physicians are nothing against medi-
cine. noor farmers are nothinO
against agriculture, and mean, con-
temptible professors of religion are
nothing against our glorious Christi
anity. e"5
Sometimes you have been riding