Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1906-08-11

gun, and the birds poor mangled body
falls over Il quivering corpse God does
not destroy an immortal soul as a
! treaCherOus murdCrOus Indian would
stoalthly creep up and tomahawk and
scalp the sleeping immigrants before
they could leap to their feet and grasp
| their rifles and fight for their lives.
God does not deal with man in this
| matter as if he had to build as Robert
Louis Steyensons grandfather built.
| That great engineer, Robert Stevenson,
built the famous lighthouse upon the
dangerous rocks Of Little Cumbrac.
| He built it between the storms which
often howl about and lombard the
Scottish coasts. When you build on
that coast you must hasten or you will
be swallowed up in the surgngs of the
seas. But God says: Man, you can
build your house in the dry season of
the east. You viii have plenty of time
to build it. You must not be slOthful
or lazy. Time flies but it does not fly
so quickly that YOU will not have plen-
| ty Of time TO do the work which | have
given you to do, if you will only con-
scientiouSly apply yourself to that
work" The rainy seasons are conf
! ing" he warns us. But the rainy sea-
sons will not come before the dry sea-
sons have given you plenty Of time TO
prepare for the onrushing deluge.' Is
not this true Interpretation of my
| text? Is not this a true Interpretation
of the history of our personal lives?
Let us reckon today how long your
"dry season." or years Of building have
| lasted. Ten years twenty years, thirty
years. forty years, fifty years, have
they been. What. For some Of you
have they not lasted sixty yearsl For
the first ten or thirteen years of your
life you may not have been responsible
for what you did, but since then you
certainly have been responsible. The
other day the chaplain Of one of the
largest state penitentiaries told my
people that few years ago there was
sentenced to his penitentiary q boy
who came there i'll short trousers to
serve a sentence Of many years. If
that boy, because he had committed
fendlsh crime, was looked upon as
morally responsible, does not God hold
us morally and spiritually responsible
for what we have builded since we
entered our teens my teens" As
we speak those words how far they are
back in memory for some Of us. Yes,
God does not work a snap Judgment
upon any one hore today. He gives US
our work to do. He gives us long
dry season. or years Of preparation,
N which TO do that work What have
you builded in your years Of prepara-
ton? 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 preparation for the ''rainy season.
we are all builders We cannot get
away from that fact Every one Of
US is building consciously or uncon-
sciously. We are either building upon
the rocks or we are building 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 Mr.. Spurgeon
tells us that on his grandmother's man
telpiece among other marvels, there
was an apple In bottle. This apple
completely filed the inside Of that bot
tie and was four or five times larger
than the bottles neck. AS little boy
Spurgeon used to climb up on chair
and study that bottle. He kept saying
10 himself, How could great big ap-
pie like that get into that neckf' Then
he tried to unscrew the bottom of the
bottle. Then he took it down and held
il TO tne light to see whether or no the
glass had been broken and glued to-
gether again. No, not one of these
facts could account for the big apple
in the bottle. But one day he found
out the explanation. While he was
nlavfng in the orchard he saw his
grandmother take another bottle and
place it over very small apple and
then tie the bottle 10 the stem and
leave It there. Yes she left ii there
until the little apple grew into big ap-
pie. and she put that SECOND bottle with
its apple alongside of the Lrst bottle
with its big apple Oh the manlelpiece.
When | read that illustration l said to
myself, "Ah, that is the growth Of life"
We grx up without thinking of the
future. / vi some day we are suddenly
halted b. 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 connection
that we mghs easily shake off. but in
our maturity we are prisoners. he
careful how you build, for every hour
we are building for good or we are
building for evil. We are laying the
foundations Of 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 pic
lures in the parable of my text? Shall
we place one away off from the hab-
itations Of man in the midst Of the
Sahara desert? Shall we take a car
avan 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
i'm and month out. until we locate 1t