Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1902-03-15

do you not forget them? No: you drag
the load on with you, and $50 times a year,
if YOU pray every day. you asi. God to re-
call occurrences which He has not only Tor
given. but forgotten.
Quit this folly l do not ask you less TO
realize the turpitude OF sin. but l ask you
to higher faith in the promise of God
and the full dcliverance of His mercy. He
does not give receipt fo- part payment
or SO much received on account, but re-
ceipt n full, God having for Christ's sake
decreed your sins and your iniquitics
will j remember no more"
l know you will quote the Bible refer
cnce to the horrible pit from which you
were digged. Yes, be thankful for that
rescue, bat do not make displays of the
mud of that horrible pit or splash it over
other people. Sometimes 1 have felt in
Christian meetings discounted and unfit
for Christian service because l had done
none of those things which seemed to be,
in the estimation o. many, necessary for
Christian usefulness, for l never sworc n
word o. ever got drunk or went to COM
promising places or was guilty OF assault
and battery or ever uttered slanderous
word or ever did any one hurt. although
l knew my heart was sinful enough and |
said to myself, There is no use OF my try.
ing to 10 any good, for l never went
through those depraved experiences" But
afterward l saw consolation in the thought
| that no one gained any ordination by the
| laying on of the hands Of dissoluteness and
infamy.
And though an ordinary moral life. end
| ing in Christian life. may not be as dra.
matte a story to tell about, let us be CRATE
full to God rather than worry about it il
| we have never plunged into outward abom.
| nations.
A sin forgetting God. That is clear lie.
| you'd and far above a sin pardoning God.
| How often we hear it said. Il can forgive,
but / cannot forget" That is equal to
saying, 7 verbally ADM, it is all right:
but l will keep the old grtidge good.
| There is something in the demeanor that
seems to say: Il would not do you harm.
Indeed. wish yop well, but that urfortu.
| nate affair can never pass out OF my mind.
| There may be no bard words pass Between
| them. but until death breaks in the same
| GOODNESS remains. But God lets our par.
| doned offenses go into oblivion. He never
| throws them up to US again. He feels as
| kindly toward us as though we had been
! spotless and positively angelic all along.
Many years ago a family consisting OF
| the husband and wife and little girl of two
| years lived far out in q cabin on western
prairie. The husband took few cattle to
market. Before he started his little child
asked him to buy her doll. and he prom
/ ised. He could after the sale of the cattle
purchase household necessities and Ger.
tainly would not forget the doll he had
| promised. In the village to which he went
he sold the cattle and obtained the grocer.
les for his household and the doll for his
little darling. He started home along the
dismal road at nightfall. AS he went
along on horseback thunderstorm broke,
and in the most lonely part of the road
and in the heaviest part of the storm lie
heard a child's cry. Robbers had been
known to do some bad work along that
road, and il was known that this herds
man had money with him, the price. OF the
cattle sold. The herdsman first thought
it as a strataSem to have him halt and be
6espoiled of his treasures. but the chi,d's
cry became more keen and rcnding, and So
he dism )unted and felt around in the
darkness and all in vain until he thought
OF hollow tree that he remembered near
the road where the child might be. and
for that he started, and, sure enough,
found little one tagged out and drenched
of the storm and almost dead. He wrapped
it up as well as he could and mounted his
horse and resumed his journey home.
Coming in sight OF his cabin he saw it all
lighted up, and supposed his wife had
kindled all these lights so as to guide her
husband through the darkness. But no.
The house was full of excitement, and the
ncighbors were gathered and stood around
the wife Of the house, who was insensible
from some great calamity. On INQUIRY the
returned husband found that the little
child of that cabin was gone. She had
wandered out to meet her father and get
the present he had promised, and the
child was lost. Then the father unrolled
from the blanket the child he had found in
the fields, and, 10. it was his own child
and the lost one of the prairie home, and
the cabin quaked with the shout over the
lost one found.
How suggestive of the fact that once we
were lost in the open fields or among the
mountain crags, Gods wandering children,
and He found us, dying in the tempest
and wrapped us in the mantle of His love
and fetched us home, gladness and con-
graduation bidding US welcome. The fact
Is that the world does not know God or
they would all flock to Him.
So l set open the wide gate of my text,
inviting you al to come into the mercy
and pardon OF God-yea. still further. into
kent the knowledge of your iniquities.
The place has been torn down and the
records destroyed, and yet you viii find
the ruins more dilapidated and broken
and PROSTATE than the ruins of Melrose or
Kenilworth, for from these last ruins you
can pick up some fragment OF a sculptured
stone or you can see the curve of some
broken arch, but after your repentance
and your forgiveness you cannot find in al
the memory OF God n fragment OF your
pardoned sins so large as needles point.
Their sins and their iniquit;es will l re-
member no more"
Six different kinds OF sound were heard
on that night which was interjected into
the daylight of Christ's assassination. The
neighing of the war horses-for some of
the soldiers were in the sadiie-was one
sound. the bang of the hammers was a
second sound. the jecr of meliynants was
. third sound, the weeping OF friends and
followers was a fourth sound. the plash
of blood on the rocks was fifth sound,
and the groan OF the expiring Lord was n
sixth sound! And they all commingled
into one sadness.
Over a place in Russia where wolves
were pursuing load of travellers ard to
save them a servant sprang from the sled
into the mouths of the wild beasts and
was devoured. and thereby the other lives
were saved are inscribed the words, Great
er love hath no man than this, that man
lay down his life for his friend" Many n
surgeon in our own time has in trachtco-
tony with his own lips drawn from the
windpipe of a diphtheritic patient that
which cured the patient and slew the sur
geon, and all have honorcd the self sacr:-
fee. But all other scenes of sacrifice pale
before this most illustrious martyr of all
time and all eternity. After that agonizng
spectacle in behalf OF our fallen race moth
ing about the sin forgetting God is too
stupendous for my faith. and / accept the
promise, and will you not all accept il?
Their sins and their iniquities will re-
member no more"