The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-05-07

way of escape from such sins and their
consequences. The text is Luke xvii, 81
Remember Lots wife"
Truth Is truth at all times. But truth
is never. more powerfully driven home
to the consciences of men than when IL
lustrated by parable or symbolized by
biography or exempllfed by anecdote.
Christ always symbolizes truth in very
simple way Today he appears to us, as
well as to the Pharisees of old. and says:
Men, you know the history of Lots
wife. With great opportunity of useful
ness, yet she became false to her trust.
Do not have her doom your doom. BY
yonder pillar of salt learn that the wages
of sin is always death. Repent of your
sins while there is yet time. Repent as
John the Baptist exhorted you to repent
Come and bow at Gods mercy seat. and
bow now" May God teach us one and
all to linger only long enough in the plains
of Sodom and Gomorrah to learn the
mighty gospel lesson that there is no
safety anywhere for sinful man outside
the protecting and forgiving love of Jesus
Christ
Like Lots wife the most of u.s. Why?
We are freed from the bitter temptations
which, as a pack of hungry wolves, fol-
low in the wake of merciless poverty.
We have never known what it is to arise
In the morning and have nothing to eat.
We have never known what 1t is to SILVER
In cold because we eanot afford a warm
garment for our backs. We never knew
what 1t was to stagger about a great city
after the hours of midnight in a snow
storm because we did not know where
to lnr h. 1- k.1 -. .lxr
to the police station and sleep with a lot
of filthy, dirty tramps upon the stone
floors, with our ragged shoes under our
heads for a pillow We may not have
been able to count our sheep by the thou
sands and our herds of horses and cattle
by the hundreds, as Lots wife did We
may not have servants galore and mes
sengers to do our slightest bidding. But.
like Lots wife when she and her husband
separated from the Abrahamic household,
we have always had enough food to eat,
enough clothing to wear and comfort
able place in which to slumber. We have
| never been in position where hunger
was gnawing at our vitals and where
temptation came snarling and swapping at
| our heels in our desperate struggle for a
| physical existence. We never knew what
1t was to long to earn our bread by the
sweat of our brow and never be able to
crunch a crumb.
Deserved Pity.
Even murder. the worst of crimes, has
degrees of turpitude. God pity the man
who is placed in the awful position of one
who realizes that he has to say his
brother or die himself. God pity the
starving, shipwrecked sailor who crouches
upon the edge of a raft in the middle
of the Atlafrdc ocean watching his COM
panon at the other side of the raft, who
is hunger mad like himself. God pity
him as he leaps forward as tiger might
leap upon the back of a trembling fawn
and buries his teeth in the jugular vein
of his friend and DRINKS the flowing blood
| in fiendish glee as a mountain lioness
would bury her teeth in the soft fur OF
rabbit or a fat prairie dog. l tell you.
my friends God has different standards
or judgment for sin. 1t makes a great
deal of difference how he condemns us
for sin if, on the other hand, we. like
Lots wife, have financial plentay and
| If, on the other hand, we are poor, hungry
outcasts, with no work and no means of
earning any kind of an honest livelihood.
| To sin for pleasure and to sin because
you do not know which way to turn for
food are two entirely different PROPOSE
tons in Gods economy.
Oh, the temptations that come to some
men on account of their struggles for
physical existence. | was never more
| impressed with the awfuness of such
temptations than when reading this tragic
story: Some years after the overthrow
of Napoleon banquet was being given
in London to the British officers who had
fought under Wellington at Waterloo.
During their dinner the old commander,
then the most honored man in england,
| took out of his pocket a beautifully jew
eled snuffbox which had been presented
to him by his sovereign. In order that
his companions in arms might see it he
passed 1t down the table. A short time
after Wellington asked where it was,
and no one could find it, The jeweled
snuffbox had disa ppeared. Some one pro-
posed that the doors be locked and every
one searched Much to the surprise Of
the company, honored ex-colonel of a
line regiment refused to be searched. Ev
idence, of course, pointed to him as the
guilty man, but on account of old asso-
Citations sake Wellington let him 60
| That night when the great duke was
undressing for bed much to his surprise
he found tine jeweled snuffbox in his
pocket. 1t had not been stolen. He had
absentmindedly thrust it into his pocket.
At once Wellington ordered his carriage
and rode 70 the residence of the suspect
ed colonel. In and out of the streets he
went until his coachman drew up before
poor tenement house. Wellington
climbed the rickety stairs and found his
old companion living in poverty and
squalor He threw his arms about the
colonel's neck and begged his pardon.
Then he said, Colonel, why did you not
let us search you and free you from the
suspicion OF the theft p Because" an
swered the colonel, though l am poor,
am very proud. My wife and children
have not had enough to eat for months.
Meat they have not had for a week And
while you were eating l slipped the meat
off my plate and hid IT In my pockets,
that they might eat after | reached
home All. the temptations of sin, which
must continually abide with such starving
men and the homelessl God is going to
Judge such sinners differently from the
way he will condemn our sins. Like
Lots wife, we have had our physical me-
cessities supplied Aye. almost all Of us
have had more than the necessities God
has given TO us many Injuries as we'll
When we entered into sin we went there
to seek pleasure and not for the necssi-
It's of food and clothing. We sinned be-
cause we wanted to sin, and not because
In one sense we felt we had to sin to live
Training Lots Wife Had.
Like Lots wife, are we? Most of us
aye all-have felt the gospel inspiration
of "a Christian home. / know not whether
| this woman was born in godly adle
and reared in a pious home. l know not
whether in her younger days she was
| taught to say her evening prayers at her
| mothers knee. But L do know that as
soon as she married she was taken to a
| godly home Lot, her husband. was
Abraham's foster child and nephew. His
| father died when Lot was very young
| Abra ham and Sarah had mo children