The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-05

These in these festivals you see the old men dancing in their bare feet to the
 waiing songs of the old squaws, the
 same kind of dances their forefathers danced fifty. sixty, seventy, years ago. ] Instead of being men and women they 1 seem to be just little children. As lambs they are led to the slaughter by the sins of the white man. The Christian church | must go in and put her strong arm be- | tween these Indians and sin, ignorance
 and superstition It must go in, else the Indian shall be wiped off the face of the | earth. The reason the old western proverb There Is no good Indian except a dead Indian" has such universal ac- equation is because the American 1n-
 dian unless helped by the Christian day | school, the Christian church and the | Christian missionary will never be able | to help himself. The white mans sins | will smite the red man down before he | has time to open his eyes to see the white mans virtues. God speed the ardu- ous work of the American missionary for
 the salvation of the red man and the red woman! These poor aborigines are being | tumbled Into drunkards graves by the white mans whisky; they are being mor- | ally corrupted by the white mans licen- ! tiousness; they are being ground down | into misery and want by the hell fires of | the white mans gambling passions, which are destroying their lives for this world | and for the next. It is impossible for | some men to overcome some temptations | in their own strength.
 | But, thank God. the dangers and temp tations that surround you and me are not | insurmountable if we only call on God l for help. The true father places his strong arm about his boys heart when | the surgest of temptation roll in to sub- merge him. God the Father will throttle | the hissing throat of that deadly serpent | of evil if we will only beg him to rescue | us. He will take away that agonizing thirst for drink. You know you have | been fighting it for years. Yes. he will
 make you pure in mind and heart if you | only run to the cover of his wings. He will lift you up. as you would run to the rescue of your boy when he is con- 1 fronting some sudden and imminent
 danger, if you will only call to him as | your child calls to you: Help, father! | Help! Helpl'' The Lord sends us, trou- ble to develop tis never to crush us.
 Those overwhelming mountains of
 trouble and temptation that are rolled | upon us do not proceed from his hand. | These mountains these insurmountable
 mountains of temptation, are everywhere | around. Then 1t behooves us to stay very close to the side of that loving Father who is always thinking and planning for
 us. Stay by the Lord. who will always | protect us when it is necessary for us
 to be spiritually protected.
 | The threatening dangers ahead in the | Christians life are insignificant in com parison to the peril from which Christ | delivered him i'll the past. when he said | to him, "Thy sins are forgiven thee"
 Those ahead may be compared to the | ship in the last throes of the tornado. The cordage is being stretched to the
 utmost. The sails like huge balloons | filled with gas, are swelling larger and The helmsmen are clinging frantically to | The helsmen are clinging frantically to | the wheel. The great beams and the | blanks of the hull are grooming, while | the huge waves toss 1t as chip Is turned
 somersault over the mill wheel All is anxiety. The pumps are at work. The | danger is great but there Is yet hope | ahead. With strong keel under him and | the sails still holding to the masts, the sea captain has hope, no matter how loud may be the shrieking of the euroclydon. | But, though the spiritual, moral men, | tai and physical dangers ahead may be | lkened unto the stout ship struggling round the Cape of Good Hope, the spirit | ual catastrophes of that past time when
 we were in enmity with God were like a ship which has been wrecked. What a | scene of terror In that storml The masts have been cut down or snapped by the wrenchings of the wind like dry twigs snapped in the fingers of a little child. The lifeboats have been stove In or pulled off from their derrieks by the angry waves The rudder chains no longer can
 be used. for the rudder has long ago been battered away. The anchors are not able to retard the doomed ship onrushing to-
 ward the rocks. Soon the deathknell of the surf is heard. The ship comes nearer
 and nearer to it's grave. All the demons in the caverns of the cliffs above shriel< in pandemonium of joy. Then the waves
 come together in one last effort. They
 put their broad arms under the doomed
 ship. Together they lift it with one mighty heave They drove it with one
 sudden, shattering jolt upon the rocks.
 For now the rocks crush through the
 hulls bottom as easily as a pile driver
 could mash an eggshell. Such is the figure of the awful spiritual catastrophe of our past life. 1t was bombardment of sin after sin. It was yielding to ! temptation after temptation. At last we
 were morally wrecked. We were spirtu- ally doomed. We were shattered upon
 the awful rocks of despair and eternal
 death Then we did not need a protector
 nearly so much as we needed divine recreator, a redeemer. We needed a di-
 vine chart not so much to save us from future sins as one who would blot out
 the awful record of our past sins. This
 obliteration of the past is just what the Lord God Almighty will do if we will
 let him. Through the atoning blood of
 Jesus Christ all this can he do. Read
 the third chapter of Acts. Repent ye
 therefore and be converted that your
 sins may be plotted out Yes, we have
 been crushed upon the rocks of eternal death but Christ can lift us up and
 place us upon the rocks of eternal life
 Halleluiah, For the Lord God omnipo- tent saith 1t.
 A Peaceful Scene.
 Let us return to the peaceful scene of my text. As we climb the Judaean hills,
 where sits the shepherd poet watching his
 sheep, we see a trascendent beauty shin
 ing from the face of the psalmst. David
 is not looking down to earth, but away
 off. Far, far away is his vision. He
 seems to be watching his dear ones He
 looks as though all the treasures of the
 hills and all the wealth of the seas were
 about to be given him. He seems to hear
 music sweeter than any human being ever heard before. We look at his rap tured face a moment. Then we ask: What is 1t, David? What do you seer