The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1911-03-20

ger signal to be placed at the cross
| ings. Hundreds of thousands of sug-
gestions were offered, and from among
them all the great corporation select
ed that with which we are so familiar
today--the cross-boards saying Stop.
Look Listen' If ] were called upon
today to compose a danger signal to
be placed at the danger points along
the road of life, the wording on that
signal would be the words OF this
text The soul that sinneth, IL shall
die
somehow people have the notion
that they are going on forever re-
gardless OF the way they conduct
their lives; this is very much mis-
taken notion; the Scriptures distinct
ly teach us that those only go on
living who are capable of life. and
that sin destroys the ability to live
forever. And fortunately for our
guidance, this fact is not hard to
see. Many statements concerning the
future we must wait to verify. but
this statement that the soul that sim
heth shall die Is fact which may be
observed by all interested beholders.
1t is law of the moral realm lust
like whatsoever man soweth he shall
reap is q law in the physical realm.
Sin Is the seed of death, and without
any possible exception, it ALWAYS
bears its legitimate fruit. There IS
no more chance that seed of sin will
ever bear happiness, than there is
that seed Of corn will bear peaches.
Ihere are certain poisons which are
always deadly to the body 1t is ut
terly impossible for a man to take
good dose of strychnine and still
live Prussic acid will kill, him
quicker, and alcohol not so quick.
But any of the poisons mean death
to the body. Now sin Is always poison
to the soul. Some poisons work quick
er than others, but every one of them
means death of the whole soul event
ually. We readily see the action of
the poison of sin on the soul, because
most sins are slow-worling poisons:
and this Is divlnely arranged by our
good heavenly Father, who desireth
not the death of a sinner, so that he
may have opportunity to turn from
his sins and live. By being slow in
action, sin causes the death of first
one part of the soul and then of an
other part, until the whole soul is
dead.
zone of the attributes of the soul
of man Is that monitor which we all
Know as conscience. This is one of
the first places at which sin strikes,
because the more desperately the
conscience is wounded. the less re-
sistance the remainder of the soul is
capable OF offering. When conscience
no longer condemns a sinful act:
when man can do hurt to his neigh
Dor by word or deed without inter-
ference from his conscience; when he
begins to break through all religious |
and moral restraints, and really be- |
gins to think that the wrong things
he does are perfectly right and proper |
such man has succeeded in drinking
the poison of sin until It has actually |
killed his conscience. That much of |
his soul is dead and useless.
"Another vulnerable point at which |
sin early strikes is moral courage. |
Any man who is a wrong-doer never
has the courage to rebuke others who |
do wrong He can't stand out in the |
light and rebuke sin, because he is |
afraid to testify against others least |
his own actions should be brought to |
the light. This is the reason why so |
many supposedly good citizens array |
themselves on the worldly side in
moral civic issues. Sin has destroyed |
their courage and their manliness, so
that they hide in place OF taking a
firm stand on the side of right against
the forces of wrong Every sinner
you ever saw Is n moral coward it
takes an honest man, whose heart is
right with God TO stand and look his
fellow men in the face.
"Sin is the death OF liberty. III
have heard men with the manacles
of sin tightly fastened about their
hands and feet boastng of their lib
erty, A sinner is always a slave,
whether he is in the church or not.
The law of habit is such that we do
things because we are accustomed to
doing them. Sinners contract the
habit of certain sins, and when they |
awake to the injury they are doing
themselves, they find they have con-
traeted habits which have become
second nature, and when they try to
oXtricate' themselves they discover to
their horror, that they are bound |
with a chain which is all but impos-
sible to break. Sin holds the sinner
in a terrible grip, and induces him
to go on and on doing the things
which he has been in the habit of
doing.
another attribute of the soul that
Is attacked and 'stling 20 death by sia