The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-08-12

words how far they are back in memory for some of us. Yes. God does not work a snap judgment upon any one here to- day. He gives us our work to do. He gives us a long dry season" or years of In which to do that work What have you huilded in your years of What have you done for man, and what have you done for God?
 We Are All Builders.
 But while L was pondering upon our dry seasons" or years of preparation which have come to us in rearing our life work, this thought came upon me with driving force: During our years of prepa ration for the rainy season" we are all builders We cannot get away from that fact Every one of us Is building, con sciously or uneonseiously We are either building upon the rocks or we are build ing upon the sands. We must be the wise man of the parable or the foolish man of the parable. There is no escape We have to keep doing, and we must keep growing, growing for good or growing for evil.
 In one of his sermons Mir. Sturgeon tells us that on his grandmother's mantelpece, among other marvels, there was an apple in bottle. This apple completely filled the inside of that bottle and was four or five times larger than the bottles neck. As little boy Sturgeon used to climb up on chair and study that bottle. He kept saying to himself: How could great big apple like that get Into that neckT' Then he tried to unscrew the bot tom of the bottle. Then he took 1t down and held 1t to the light to see whether or no the glass had been broken and glued together again. No, not one of these facts could account for the big apple in the hot I44tN 1n. 1, 41. planatlon. While he was playing in the orchard he saw his grandmother take an- other bottle and place it over a very small apple and then tie the bottle to the stem and leave it there. Yes, she left 1t there until the little apple grew into big apple, and she put that second bottle with it's apple alongside of the first bot tie with It's big apple on the mantelpiece When I read that illustration I said to myself. "Ah, that is the growth of life." We grow up without thinking of the fu- ture, and some day we are suddenly halt ed by limitation that has been around us from early years unknown to us. By some act or some neglect, some sin. or some weakness we have entered into bonds which limit and stunt our growth. It seemed a light thing at the beginning, only habit or a connection that we might easily shake off, but in our maturi- ty we are prisoners. Be careful how you build, for every hour we are building for good or we are building for evil We are laying the foundations or our houses upon the solid rock or upon the shifting sand. We are building and we cannot help but build all through our lives.
 Our Growth Stunted.
 But where shall we locate these two houses which Christ dramatically pictures in the parable of my text? Shall we place one away off from the habitations of man in the midst of the Sahara desert? Shall we take a caravan amid the ruins of old Memphis and with these plunging ships of the desert travel on and on, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, until we locate it amid an endless sea of sand? Where shall we build the other house? Shall we place 1t upon the highest pinnacle of q Matterhorn or upon Mount Chlmborazo? Shall we build it upon some dizzy crag where the eagle builds her eyrle to rear her young? May, nay" you answer; mot in either one of those places must you build one of the two houses of the text When Christ illustrated a truth he never used absurd comparisons. The house which was built upon rock was not built upon an inaccessible mountain height. The house which was built upon the sands was not situated in the center of an impassable desert In all probabil- ity the wise man and the foolish man or this parable of the text built their houses very close togethre In all probability these two men were neighbors, and as neighbors their families associated with each other" My friend. l believe you are right I believe these two men of the parable were not only neighbors, but that I,o1 odi fa and VVbpn fhaV biult their houses they built them at the same time. That is just such dramatic contrast as Christ nearly always draws in his parables.
 I go still further than that. I believe the two farms of these men lay about in the same parallel position at the foot of the mountain range, one half in the valley and the other half upon the hill- sides Methinks I can see these two men going out to select their sites to build. The wise man. like the ant, selects n site for his house upon a mount or hill which forms a natural watershed. Then he digs down and down until he strikes the rock Then he starts off to cut his lumber and drag it up with the OK teams While on his way he passes his neighbor and finds his house nearly finished. How is it," he asks that you are ready to put on your roof, while I have just dug the founda- tion of my house?' The other answers; q spared myself that trouble. l have simply leveled the soil without digging a foundation It Is easier and quicker that way.p The wise man says "Neighbor, neighbor, you must not build your house there Why, you are at the foot of that canyon Then this soil is all porous. It Is full of water now. It is nothing but d mess fquieksand. When the rainy sea sons come and the freshets leap and tear and rush out of those mountains you will be swamped in night "Bosh, says the foolish man. "You are pessimist. You are a miserable hunter of trouble. You are always anticipating tornadoes. The simple fact is we nave had sunshine and dry season so long that I do not believe we are ever going to have another rainy season Here I have selected my site, here I am building my house, and here I intend to stay" Do you wonder that when the deluge came that foolish man ; house was destroyed because he would not take the advice of the wise man, but built his house upon the sands?
 Left Out the Foundation.
 The parable of my text divides the whole human race into two groups-the wise mans group and the foolish mans group. To which group do you belong? Are you the foolish man building your house upon the sand and refusing to take the advice of the wise men who have come to us for years begging us to stop building in folly ? Did I say for years? Yes, for in all this great audience there is not one of us who Is building his house upon the sands through ignorance No sooner did we in youth select our building sites upon the sand than our loved ones gathered about us and warned Us of our errors Our fa- buc paO did