Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1902-05-01

breath between the words-by all those
memories | ask you to come and take
the same religion. 1t was good enough for
make better plea: By the wounds and
the death throe of the Son Of God, who
approaches you in infinite love with
torn brow and lacerated hands and
whipped back, crying, Come unto Me,
all We that labor and are heavy laden, and
l will give you rest!'
Other persons apologize for not enter
ing the Christian life because of the in
corrigibility 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 a mountain
that it could not climb or to an abyss that
it could not fathom or to bondage that
it could not break. The widest horse that
ever trod Arabian sands has been broken
The maddest torrent tumbling from
mountain shelving has been harnessed to
the mill wheel and the factory band. setting
thousand shutIles all a-buzz and a-cat-
ter. 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 tempestuous as the sea that he
Christ went out and wept bitterly. Rich
harvests of grace may be grown on the
summit of the jagged steep, and flocks of
Christian graees may find pasturage in
fields of brambe and rock.
a-bristle with fretfuiness, though YOU
have temper a-gleam with quick light.
nings, though your avarice be like that of
the horse leech crying, "Give!" though
damnable impurities have wrapped you in
devil out of your soul, and over the chaos
and the darkness He can say, Let there
be light"
The best place for skillful doctor is in
a neighborhood where there are all poor
doctors, the best place for an enterprising
merchant to open his store is in a place
where the bargain makers do not under
stand their business, and the best place
for you who want to become the illus
trious and complete Christian, the best
place for you is to come right down among
us who are so incompetent and so lncon-
us an example.
Exudations from poisonous trees in our
neighbor's garden will make very poor
balm for our wounds.
Sickness will come, and we will be
pushed out toward the Red Sea which di-
vides. this world from the next, and not
the Inconsistency of Christians, but the
rod of faith, will wave back the waters
as commander wheels his host. The
judgment will come, with its. thunder
shod solemnities. Oh, then WEI will not
stop and say, There was mean Chris,
In that day as now, "If thou be wise, thou
shalt be wise for thyself, but if thou
scornest thou alone shall bear it. Why,
my brother, the Inconsistency of Chris
tians, so far from being an argument to
keep you away from God, ought to be an
argument to drive you to Him.
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 COM
pass on your ship, no rifle in the battle,
no hat on your head, no coat for your
back, no shoes for your feet.
Better travel on toward eternity bare
headed and barefooted and houscless and
homeless and friend,ess than to go through
life without religion.
Did religion make Raleigh any less of a
statesman or Havelock any less of a
soldier or Grinnel any less OF merchant
or West any less of painter!
Why, my friends, religion Is the best
security in every bargain; it is the sweet
est note IN every song; It is the brightest
gem in very coronet. No time to be re-
ligious? 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 for heaven.
No time to secure the friendship of
Christ? No time to buy lamp and trim
it for that walk through the darkness
which otherwise will be illumined only
time to educate the eye for heavenly splen-
dors or the hand for choral harps or the
ear Tor everlasting songs or the soul tor
honor, glory and immortality? One would
think we had time for nothing else
Other persons apologize for not enter
ing the Christian life because it is time
enough yet. That is very like those per.
sons who send regrets and say. II will
come in perhaps at II or II o'clock; l
will not be there at the opening of the
Not yet! Not yet! 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 doleful
view of human life.
l have not much sympathy with Ad-
dison's description of the vision of
Mirza," where he represents human life
both ends of the bridge covered with
clouds and, the race coming on, the most
of them falling down through the first
span and all OF them falling down through
the last span,
1t is a very dismal picture. l 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
DOuHu u take Il CneeF1ui view OF HE, we
must also confess that life is great un-
certainty and that man who says, Il
can't become a Christian because there is
time enough yet" is running risk in
finite.
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 awhile
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
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 great thing
for a man on his dying pillow to repent
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