Anadarko daily democrat. [volume] (Anadarko, Oklahoma) 1901-190?, 1902-05-02

sales or the merchant. They bolt their .
store doors against it and fight it back F.
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 o cargo it can work a pulley; it
can pave a street; it can it a wrist
band; it can write Il 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 caIperteh as his plane, to the
child as HIS marbles
No time TO be religious here. You
have no time not 20 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 Darefooted and houseless
and homeless and friendless than TO go
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 viii
have to take time to be sick, to be
troubled, to die. Our world is only the
wharf from which we are to embark
Tor 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
tsink 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
t4Ose persons who send regrets and
say, Il 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, l 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 a great uncertainty, and that man
who says 81 can't become a Christian
yet is running risk infinite. You do
not perhaps realize the fact that this
| descending grade of sin gets sleeper
and sleeper and that you are gathering
up 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
| play 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.
tlnations.
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-
scrbed as the Horseshoe-a depression
in the side of the mountain where the
train almost turns back again upon
itself, and you see how appropriate is
the name of the Horseshoe-and think
ing on this very theme and preparing