Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1902-03-22

you pray every uay, you ASK Zoo 70
recall occurrences which he has not
only forgiven, but forgotten.
Quit this folly. l do not ask you
less to realize the turpitude of sin. but
ask you to have a higher faith in
erance of his mercy. He does not give
q receipt for part payment or so much
resolved en- account but receipt in full.
God having for Christ's sake decreed
your sins and your iniquities will I
remember no more AS far as posi-
BILE let the dfsa greeables of life drop.
We have enough things in the present,
and there will be enough in the future.
to disturb us without running a special
train into the great Comedy to fetch US
as special freight things left behind.
Let the train of your thoughts throw
off the worse than useless freight of a
corrupt and destroyed past and load
up with gratitude and faith and holy
determination. We do not please God
by the cultivation of the miserable.
He would rather see us happy than to
see us depressed. You would rather see
your children laugh than to see them
cry, and your Heavenly Father has no
fondness for Mysteries
Not only forget your pardoned trans
gressions, but allow others to forget
them. The chief stock on hand of
some people is to recount in prayer
meetings and pulpits what big scoun-
drels they once were. They not only
will not forget their forgiven deficits,
Dut they seem to be determined that
the church and the world shall not for
get them. If you want to declare that
you have been the chief of sinners and
extol the grace that could save such a
wretch as you were do so, but do not
go into particulars. If you have any
scars got in honorable warfare, show
them, but if you have scars got in igno-
Bile warfare do not display them. 1
know you will quote the Bible rerer-
ence to the horrible pit from which
you were digged. Yes, be thankful for
that rescue, but do not make displays
of the mud Of that horrible pit or
splash it over other people. Some
times | 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 of many necessary for
Christian usefulness for I never swGre
a word or ever got drunk or went to
| compromising places or was guilty of
assault and battery or ever uttered a
! slanderous word or ever did any one a
| hurt, although | knew my heart was
sinful enough. and l said TO myself,
There is no use of my trying to do
! any good. for | never went through
| those depraved experiences" But
| afterward l saw consolation in the
| thought that no one gained any ordi-
nation by the laying on of the hands
! of dissoluteness and infamy-
And though an ordinary moral life
ending in Christian life may not be
| as dramatic a story to tell about let us
| be grateful to God rather than worry
| about it if We have never plunged into
| outward denominations. 1t may be ap-
| propriate in a meeting of reformed
| drunkards or reformed debauchees to
| quote for those not reformed how 6es-
perate and nasty you once were, but do
not drive a scavenger's cart into as
| semblages of people the most of whom
! have always been decent and respect
! able. But l have been sometimes in
| great evangelical meetings where peo-
| pie went into particulars about the sins
that they once committed. so much so
that l felt like putting my hand on my
| pocketbook or calling for the police
| l6st lneSe TelOIIneu men might Idli
| from grace and go at their old business
| of theft or drunkenness or cut-throat-
cry. If your sins have been forgiven
and your life purified. forget the way
wardness of the past and allow others
/ to forget il.
But what ! most want in the light of
! this text TO impress is that we have a
| sin-forgetting God. Suppose that on
| the last day-called the last day be-
| cause the sun Will never again rise up
| on OF earth. the earth itself being
flung into fiery demolition-supposing g
| that on that last day a group of in
fernal spirits should somehow get near
| enough the gate of heaven and chal-
lenge our entrance and say How
canst thou. the just Lord. let those
| souls into the realm OF supernal glad
ness? Why, they said a great many
| things they never ought to have said,
and they did a great many things they
ought never to have done. Sinners
are they-sinners ALL
And suppose God should deign to an
swer. He might say: Yes. but did not
my only Son die for their ransom? Did
he NOT pay the price, Not one drop of
blood was retained in his arteries:
not one nerve of his that was not
|. wrung in the torture. He took in his
! own body and soul all the suffering
that those sinners deserve They plead