Year: 1861

Mr. Beecher's sermons z-z-----==


1t seems to me that much that mars
life is what. we call infirmaty and that
when we die, we leave behind us many
Things that tse call faults and foibles; and
sin as the trees shed their leaves when
the winter comes. When the body dies,
oh. how much viii perish that is the re-
suit ef the forces OF those passions which
sleep with the flesh When we go from
Ills world how shall we released from ten
thousand things that belongs to our phys
ical state, and tend to hinder our sprtu-
al development? When we come to cur
selves in the presence of God, and be
like Him, of how much shall we be rid
that seems to render US unfit for living or
dying and when in departing from earth
we shall be stripped of the flesh and all
its Influences, we shall find in ourselves
beauties and glories more than we have
ever dreamed that we possessed.


A life without the Divine influence up
on the soul, is a life ofisnorance and i'm
beciiity. No man can come to himself
except by coming to God. There is ma
ny AID many a flower that never will
blossom in our climate, because it needs
more of tropical heat tan our elm ate
affords. There is many a man that never
knows what is in him because he has not
had heat of the eternal trcpic whicL is
required TO make him grow in stem,
blossom and fruit /; because he is with
holding himself; because he is sitting in
darkness, being an unbelever and be-
cause in shutting himself out from God !,
he shuts himself out from himself.


A man who does not know how. to do
bad does not know how to do good.


Men say that when a bad man becomes
good, he is apt to be very good. 1t is SO !;
but being bad had nothing to do with it,
An energetic man is as energetic in good
ness as In evil. The man that has bot
tom, force, power that pene.rates every
part of his nature. when he becomes
good, takes the royalty of that force into
his higher nature, though before it may
have been only in his baser nature.


By sorrow and by joy by joys which
are but bright eolors and by sorrows
which are but shadows of bright colors /;
by prayer; BY influences of the sanctus.
ry by your pleasure by your business :
by ,everses by successes and by fail
urss by what strengthened your conf
bence and what broke it down by the
things that you mourn over by allthese
God is working in you. And you are to
be perfect according to the things you
plan, but according to the Divine pattern.


Some men do not believe in the Bible,
but they do believe in virtuous formulas.


AS if such formulas were not offshoots
of the Bible They do not believe III
religion, but they do, in equality and
justice and purity and truth. As if these
things were of any age. They are un
der the influence Of religion, and that in
them which is noble and true. is the pro-
duct of religion, and may be traced back
20 religious influence. So that persons
presented as exceptions to the truth, thai
men cannot live without the power of God
in 1t he soul, prove this truth rather than
disprove it. ~


Think about yourself, what you want:
what you like, what respect people ough
to- pay you, what people think of you,
and lken to you nothing will be pure
You will spoil everything you touch
you will make sin and misery fer your
sell, out of everything which God sends
ycu you will be as wretched as you
choose Oh earth, or in Heaven either.


Ii, growing along the highway of life,
men are found blossoming intosexcellenc
and purity and love and fdelties, how
much more would they abound in these
things if they were planted in the Garden
of the Lord, where their roots would run
out into Divine truth; and were their head
would be lifted up in the conscious rains
and sunlight of Gods influence ?sS Es
The world is full. of wise maxim'
drawn from experience, teac hing men lc
/


be strong bodily and in secular affairs.
| But when a man attempts to get aboy,
the average of human culture, and de
vslop himself as spiritual and moral
creature, living not by sense, but By
faith, then he finds the world penurious
in-its provisions.


The grand popularity of this Scripture
teaching is, that our true life is not tina
which grows up naturally that isaac
cording to the influences which surroune
us ipgnature and in society but that ou
true life is that which is involved in u


when we come under the influence of th


mind of God.


! g Men can never be brought to the hi gh