The Abbeville press and banner. (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, June 12, 1889, Image 7
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KEY. DR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUNDAY
SERMON.
Subject: "Our Need of Cleansing."
Text: "If I wash myself with snow
water, and should I cleanse my hands in
alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me t?the ditch,
and mine oivn clothes shall abhor me."?
Job ix., 30, 31.
Albert Barnes?honored be his name on
earth and;in heaven?went straight back to the
original writing of my text, and translated
it as I have now quoted it, giving substantial
reasons for so doing. Although we know
better, the ancients had an idea that in snow
water there was a special power to cleanse,
and that a garment washed and rinsed in it
would be as clean as clean could be; but if
the plain snow water failed to do its work,
then they would take lye or alkali and
mixed it with oil, and under that
preparation they felt that the last impurity
would certainly be gone. Job, in my text,
in most forceful figure sets forth the
idea that all his attempts to make himself
pure before God were a dead failure, and
that, unless we are abluted by something
better than earthly liquids and chemical
preparations, we are loathsome and in the
citch. "If I wash myself with snow water,
and should I cleanse my hands in alkali, yet
shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine
own clothes shall abhor me."
You are now sitting for your picture.
I turn the camera obscura of God's
word full upon you, and I pray that
the sunshine falling through the skylight
may enable me to take y6u just as you
are. Shall it be a flattering picturet or
shall it be a true one? You say: "Let it be
a true one." The first profile that was ever
taken was taken three hundred and thirty
years before Christ, of Antigonus. He had
a blind eye, and he compelled the artist
to take his profile so as to hide the
defect in his vision. But since that invention,
three hundred and thirty years before
Christ, there have been a great many proflies.
Shall I to-day give you a one-sided
view of yourselves, a profile, or shall it be a
full-length portrait, showing you just what
$ou are? if God will help me by His almighty
grace, I shall give you that last kind
of a picture.
When I first entered The ministry I used to
write my sermons all out find read them, and
run my hand along the line lest I should lose
my place. I haveliundreds of those manuscripts.
Shall I ever preach them? Never;
for m those days I was somewhat over-mastered
with the idea I heard talked all around
about, of the dignity of human nature, and I
adopted the idea, and I evolved it, and I illustrated
it, and 1 argued it; but coming on in
life, and having seen more of the world, and
ctudied better my Bible, I find that that early
teaching was faulty, and that there is nodignifcv
in human n/it.ure. until it is reconstructed
by the grace of God. Talk about vessels going
to pieces on the Skerries, off Ireland! There
never was such a shipwreck as in the Gihon
and the Hiddekel, rivers of Eden, where
our first parents foundered. Talk of a
steamer going down with five hundred
passengers on board! What is that to the
shipwreck of fourteen hundred million soub?
We are by nature a mass of uncleanness and
putrefaction, from which it takes all the omnipotence
and infinitude of God's grace to
extricate us. " If I wash myself with snow
water, and should I cleanse my hands in alkali,
yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch,
and my own clothes shall abhor me."
I remark, in the first place, that some people
try to cleanse their soul of sin in the snow
water of fine apologies. Here is one man who
says: "I am a sinner; I confess that; but I
inherited this. My father was a sinner, my
grandfather, my great-great-grandfather,
and all the way back to Adam, and I
couldn't help myself." My brother, have
you net, every day in your life, added
something to the original estate of
sin that was bequeathed to you ? Are
you not brave enough to confess
that you have sometimes surrandered to sin,
which you ought to have conquered? I ask
you whether it is fair play to put upon our
ancestry things for which we ourselves are
personally responsible? If your nature was
askew when you got it, have you not sometimes
given it an additional twist? Will all
the tombstones of those who have preceded
us make a barricade high enough
for eternal defenses? I know a devout
man who had blasphemous parentage.
I know an honest man whose father was a
thief. I know a pure man whose mother was
a waif of the street. The hereditary tide
may be very strong, but there is such a thing
as stemming it. Tne fact that I have a corminfc
natnirp is no reason whv I should Yield
to it. The deep stains of our soul can never
be washed out by the snow water of such in- j
sufficient apology.
Still further, says some one:- "If I have
gone into sin, it has been through my companions.
mv comrades and my associates;
they ruined me. They taught me to drink.
They took me to the gambling hell. They I
plunged me into the house of sin. They I
ruined my soul." I do not believe it. God
gave to no one the power to destroy you or
xne. If a man is destroyed he is self destroyed,
and that is always so. Why did you not break
away from them? If they had tried to steal
your purse, you would have knocked th&n
down; if they had tried to purloin your gold
watch, you would have riddled them j
with snot; but when thev tried to steal your
immortal soul, you placiclly submitted to it.
Those bad fellows have a cup of fire to drink;
do not pour your cup into it. In this matter
of the soul, every man for himself. That
those persons are not fully responsible for
your sin, I prove by the fact that you still
consort with them. You cannot get off bv
blaming them. Though you gather up all j
these apologies; though there were a great
flood of them; though they should come down j
with the force of the melting snows from
Lebanon, they could not wash out one stain
of your immortal soul.
Still urtner, some persons apologize for
their sins by saying: "We are a great deal
better than some people. You see people all
around about us that are a great deal worse
than we." You stand up columnar in your
integrity, and look down upon those who are
prostrate in their habits and crimes. What
of that,my brother? If I failed throughrecklessness
and wicked imprudence for ten thou
sand dollars, is the matter alleviated at all j
by the fact that somebody else has j
failed for Que hundred thousand dollars,
and somebody else for two hundred
thousand dollars? Oh, no. If I have
the neuralgia, shall I refuse medical attendance
because my neighbor has virulent
typhoid fever? The fact that his disease
is worse than mine?does that cure mine?
If I, through my foolhardiness, leap off into
ruin, does it break the fall to knowthat
others leap off a higher cliff into
deeper darkness? When the Hudson rivter
rail train went through the bridge at Spuyten
Duyvil, did it alleviate the matter at all that
instead of two or three people being hurt
there were seventy-five mangled and crushed! i
Because others are depraved, is that any excuse
for my depravity? Am I better
than they? Perhaps they had worse
temptations than I have had. Perhaps
their surroundings in life were
more overpowering. Perhaps, O man,
if you had been under the same stress of
temptation, instead of sitting here to-day.
you would have *oeen looking through the
oars of a Denitentiary. Perhaps O woman,
if ycu hacl been under the same power of
temptation, instead of sitting here to-day,
you would be tramping the street, the laughing
stock of men and the grief of the angels
of God, dungeoned, body, mind and soul, in
the blackness of despair. Ah, do not let
us solace oursel ves with the thought that other
people are worse than we. Perhaps in the
future, when our fortunes may change, un
less uvu prevums 11^ we way ue wui^o lhhm
th9y are. Many a man after thirty years,
after forty years, after fifty years, after sixty
years, has gone to pieces on the sand
bars. Oh! instead of wasting our
time in hyper criticism about others,
let us ask ourselves the questions, Where do
we stand ? What are Our sins ? "What are our
deficits ? What are our perils ? What our
hopes ? Let each one say to himself: "Where
will I be ? Shall I range in summery fields,
or grind in the mills of a great night? Where?
Where ?"
Some winter morning you go out and see a
snow "bank in graceful drifts, as though bv
some heavenly compass it had been curved;
and as the sun glints it the luster is almost
insufferable, and it seems as if God had
wrapped the earth in a shroud with white
plaits woven in looms celestial.
And you aay: "Was there ever
anything so pure as the snow, so
beautiful as the scow ?" But you brought a
pail of that snow and put it upon the stove
and melted it; and you found that there was
a sediment at the bottom, and every drop of
that snow water was riled; and you found
that the snow bank had gathered up the
impurity of the field, and that after
all it was not 151 to wash in. And so I say it
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will be if you try to gather up these contrasts
and comparisons with others, and with these
apologies attempt to wash out the sins of
your heart and life. It will be an unsuccessful
ablution. Such snow water will never
wash away a single stain of an immortal
soul.
But I hear some one say: "I will try something
better than that. I will try the force
of a good resolution. That will be more
pungent, more caustic, more extirpating,
more cleansing. The snow water has failed,
and now I will try the alkali of the good,
strong resolution."" My dear brother, nave
you any idea that a resolution about
the future will liquidate the past? Suppose
I owed you five thousand dollars
and I should come to you to-morrow and
say: c'Sir, I will never run in debt to you
again; if 1 should live thirty years, I will
never run in debt to you again;" will you
turn to me and say: "If you will not
rim in debt in the future, I will forgive
you the five thousand dollars." Will you do
that? No! Nor will God. We have been
running up a long score of indebtedness with
God. U for the future we should abstain
from sin, that would be no defrayment of past
indebtedness. Though you should live from
this time forth pure as an archangel before
the throne, that would not redeem the
past. God, in the Bible, distinctly
declares that he "will require that which
is past"?past opportunities, past neglects,
past wicked words, past impure imaginations,
past everything. The past is a
great cemetery, and every day is buried in
it. And here is a long row of three hundred
and sixty-five graves. They are the
dead days of 1SS8. Here is a long row of
tnree Hundred and sixty-five more graves,
and they are the dead days of 1887. And
here is a long row of three hundred and sixty-five
more graves, and they are the dead
days of 18S6. It is a vast cemetery of the
past. But God will rouse then* all up with
resurrectionary blast, and as the prisoner
stands face to face with juror and judge, so
you and I will have to come up and look
upon those departed days face to iaca, exulting
in their smile or cowering in their frown.
"Murder will out," is a proverb that
stops too short. Every sin, however small,
as well as great, will out. In hard times
in England, years ago, it is authentically
stated that a" manufacturer was on the way,
with a bag of money, to pay off his han ds. A
man infuriated with hunger met him on the
road, and took a rail with a nail in it from a
paling fence and struck him down, and the
nail entering the skull instantly slew him.
Thirty years after that the murderer
went Taack to that place. He passed into the
grave yard, where the sexton was dieting a
grave, and while he stood there the spade of
the sexton turned up a skull, and, lo ! the
murderer saw a nail protruding from the
back part of the skull; and as the sexton
turned the skull it seemed with hollow
eyes to glare on the murderer;
and he, first petrified with horror, stood
in silence, but soon cried out. "Guilty!
guilty! O God!" The mystery of the
crime was over. The man was tried
and executed. My friends, all the unpardoned
sins of our lives, though we
may think they are buried out of sight
and gone into a mere skeleton of
memory, will turn up in the cemetery
of the past and glower upon us witn
their misdoings. I say all our unpardoned
sins. Oh, have you done the preposterous
thing*of supposing that good resolutions for
the future will wipe out the past? Good resolutions,
though they may be pungent and
caustic as alkali, have no power to
neutralize a sin, have no power to
wash away a transgression. It wants something
more than earthly chemistry to do
this. Yea, yea. though "I wash myself with
snow water, and should I cleanse my hands
in alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me in the
ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me."
You see from the last part of this text that
Job's idea of sin was very different from that
of Eugene Sue, or George Sand, or M. J.
Michelet, or of any of the nundreds of writers
who have done up iniquity in mezzotint,
and garlanded the wine cup with eg->
lantine and rosemary, and made the
path of the libertine end in bowers of
ease instead of on the hot flagging of eternal
torture. You see that Job thinks that sin is
not a flowery parterre; that it is not a tabletend
of fine prospects; that it is not
music, dulcimer, violoncello, castanet
or,r\ Pontoon YttrtAC all mftlHnor milSlf*
together. No. ^He says it is a ditch, long,
deep, loathsom i, stenchful, and we are all
plunged into it, and there we wallow and sink 1
and struggle, not able to get out. Our robes
of propriety and robes of worldly profession
are saturated in the slime and abomination,
and our soul, covered over with transgression,
hates its covering, and the covering hates the .
soul until we are plunged into the ditch, and
our own clothes abhor us.
I know that some modern religionists caricature
sorrow for sin, and they make out an ,
easier path than the "pilgrim's progress"
that John Bunyan dreamed of. The road
they travel does not stop where John's did, at
the city of Destruction, but at the gate of 1
the university; and I am very certain
that it will not come out where John's did,
under the shining ramparts of the celestial
city. No repentance, no pardon. If you do
not, my brother, feel that you are down in
the ditohr what do you want of Christ to lift
you out? Jf you have no appreciation of
the fact that you are astray, what do you
want of him who came to seek and save that
which was lost? Yonder Is the City of
Paris, the swiftest of the Inmans, coming
across the Atlantic. The wind is abaft,
so that she has not only her engines
at work, but all sails up. I am on
board the Umbria of the Cunard
line. The boat davits are swung around.
The boat is lowered. I get into it with a
red flag and cross over to where the City of i
Paris is coming and I wave the flag. The
captain looks off from the bridge ana says :
" What do you want ?" I reply : 411 come
to take some of your passengers across
to the other vessel: I think they will be safer
and happier there." The captain would look
down with indignation and say: ' 'Get out of
the way, or I will run you down." And then
I would Dact oars, amiast tne jeering 01
two or three hundred people looking
over the tatfrait. But the Umbria
and the City of Paris meet under different
circumstances after a while. The City of
Paris is coming out of a cyclone; the life
boats are smashed; the bulwarks gone; the
vessel vapidly going down. The boatswain
gives his last whistle of despairing command.
The passengers rim up and down the
deck, and some pray, and all make a great
outcry. The captain says: "You nave
about fifteen minutes now to prepare
for the next world." "No hope!" sounds
from stem to stern and from
the ratlines down to the cabin. I
see the distress. I am let down by
the side of the Umbria. I push
off as fast as I can toward the sinking
City of Paris. Before I come up people
are leaping into the water in their anxiety to
get to the boat, and when I have swung up
under the side of the City of Paris, the
frenzied passengers rush through the gangway
until the officers, with ax and clubs
and pistols, try to keep back the crowd,
each waiting his turn to come next.
There is but one life boat, and they all
want to get into it, and the cry is: "Me
next: me next!" You see the application
before I make it. As long as a man going
on in his sin feels that all is well, that ne is
coining out at a beautiful port, and has all
sail set, he wants no Christ, he wants no help,
he wants no rescue; but if under the flash of
God's convicting spirit he shall see that by
reason of sin he is dismasted and wateri
?_,i ?:? J ?
iU56CVA1 ?"*** IXXiAJ VHXJ UUUgUUi J
the sea where he cannot live, how soon he
puts the sea glass to his eye and sweeps the
horizon, ana at the first sign of help
cries out: "I want to be saved. I
want to be saved now. I want to be saved
forever." No sense of danger, no application
for rescue.
Oh, that God's eternal spirit would flash
upon us a sense of our sinfulness! The Bible
tells the storjr in letters of fire, but we get used
to it. We joke about sin. We make merry over
it. What is sin? Is it a trifling thing? Sin is a
vampire that is sucking out the life blood of
your immortal nature. Sin? It is a Bastile
that no earthly key ever unlocked. Sin? 1$
is expatriation from God and heaven. Sin?
It is grand larceny against the Almighty,
for the Bible asks the question:
""V\ ill a man rob God?" answering it in the
affirmative. This Gospel is a writ of replevin
to recover property unlawfully detained
from God.
In the Shetland Islands there is a man
with leprosy. The hollow of the foot has
swollen until it is flat on the ground. The
joints begin to fall away. The ankle
thickens until it looks like the foot of
a wild beast. A stare unnatural
comes to the eye. The nostril
is constricted. The voice drops to an
almost inaudible hoarseness. Tubercles blotch
the whole body, and from them there comes
an exudation that is unbearable to the beholder.
That is leprosy, and we have ail got
it unless cleased bv the grace of God. See
Leviticus. See II Kings. See Mark. See
Luke. See fifty Bible allusions and confirmations.
The Bible is not complimentary in its lanL.
f \
guage. It doss not speak mincingly about
our sins. It does not talk apologetically.
There is no vermilion in its style. It does
not cover up our transgressions with blooming
metaphor. It does not sine about
them in weak falsetto; but it thunders out:
"The imagination of man's heart is evil
from his youth." "Every one has gone back.
He has altogether become filthy. He is
abominable and filthy, and drinketh in iniquity
like water." And then the Lord
Jesus Christ flings down at our feet this humiliating
catalogue: "Out of the heart
of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,
fornication, murders, thefts, blasphemy."
There is a text for your rationalists
to preach from. Oh. the dignity
of human nature! There is an
element of your science of man
that the anthropolocist never has had
the courage yet to touch; and the
Bible, in all the ins and outs of the
most forceful style, sets forth our natural
pollution, and represents iniauity as a frighthil
thing, as an exhausting tning, as a loathsome
thing. It is not a mere bemiring of the
feet, it is not a mere befouling of the hands;
it is going down, head and ears under, in a
ditch, until our clothes abhor us.
My brethren, shall we stay down where sin
thrusts ns? I shall not if you do. "We cannot
afford to. I have to-day to tell you that
there is something purer than snow water,
something more pungent than alkali, and
that is the blood of Jesus Christ that
cleanseth from all sin. Ay, the river
of salvation, bright, crystalline and heaven
born, rushes through this audience with
lowy tide strong enough to wash your " ??
completely and forever away. Oh, Jesus, let
the aam that holds it back now break, and
the floods of salvation roll over us.
Let the water and the blood,
From thy side a healing flood,
Be of sin the double cnre,
Save from wrath and make me pore.
Lot us get down on both knees and bathe in
that blood of mercy. Ay, strike out with
both hands and try to swim to the other.shore
of this river of God's grace. To you is the
word of this salvation sent. Take this
largess of the divine bounty. Though
you have gone down in the deepest ditch
of libidinous desiro and corrupt behavior,
though you have sworn all blasphemies
until there is not one sinful word left for
you to speak, though you have been submerged
by the transgressions of a lifetime,
though you are so far down in your sin that
no earthly help can touch your case?
the Lord Jesus Christ bends over you
to-day, and offers you his right hand, proposing
to lift you up, first making you whiter
than snow, and then raising you to glories
that never die. "Billy," saia a Christian
bootblack to another, ltwhen we come up to
heaven it won't make any difference that
we ve Deen DOOiDiacKS nere,ior we snail gee in,
not somehow or other, but, Billy, we shall get
straight through the gate." Oh, if you only
knew how full aad free and tender is the
offer of Christ, this day, you would all
take Him without one single exception; and
if all the doors of this house were locked
save one, and you were compelled to
make egress by only one door, and I
stood there %jd questioned you, and the
Gospel of Christ had made the right impression
upon your heart to-day, you would answer
me as you went on, one and all: "Jesus
is mine, and I am His!" Oh, that this might
be the hour when you would receive
Him! It is not a Gospel merely for
footpads and vagrants and buccaneers;
it is for the highly polished and the
educated and the reiiued as well. "Except a
man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God.'' Whatever may be your
associations, and whatever your worldly
refinements, I must tell you, as
before God I expect to answer in
the last day, that if you are not changed by
the grace of God, you are still down in the
ditch of sin, in the ditch of sorrow, in the
ditch of condemnation; a ditch that empties
into a deeper ditch, the ditch of the lost.
But blessed be God for the lifting, cleansing,
illustrating power of His Gospel.
The voice of free grace cries, Escape to the mountain;
For all that believe, Christ has opened a fountain.
HaUelujah! to the Lamb who has bought us our
pardon:
We'U praise film again when we pass over Jordan.
mniriM^n i AT n H
IMfMAJNtii.
THE BAR.
5Vhy call it a bar? Say, whence it derived
This name for a depot of spirits of evil?
Was the name by some sly friend of virtue
contrived,
Or, like the thing named did it come from
the devil?
I'll tell you what it means?'tis a bar to al
good,
And a constant promoter of everything
evil;
Tis a bar to all virtue?that's well understood?
A bar to the right and a fort for the devil.
Tis a bar to all industry, prudence and
wealth,
A bar to reflection, a bar to sobriety;
A bar to clear thought and a bar to sound
health,
A bar to good conscience, to prayer and to
piety.
A bar to the sending of children to school,
To clothing and giving them good education;
A bar to the observance of every good rule,
A bar to the welfare of family and nation.
A bar to the hallowed enjoyment of home,
A bar to the holiest earthly fruition;
A b?r that forbids its frequenters to come
To the goal and rewards of a virtuous ambition.
A bar to integrity, honor and fame,
To friendship and peace and connubial
love,
To the purest delights the*, on euTtli we may
claim,
A bar to salvation and heaven above!
?Chicago Sun.
BEER AND I.N TEMPERANCE.
Rev. J. C. Allen, pastor of the Hanson
Place, Brooklyn (M. E.) Church, spoke on a
recent evening at ti e Greenwood Baptist
Church, in that city. Speaking of the use of
beer, he said:
"In 1S30 the famous beer act in England
was passed with the view of deceasing intemperance
by encouraging the use of beer in the
place of more ardent liquors. Lord Wellington
boasted that the securing of the passage
of that act was one of his greatest victories.
It was not many years before Parliament
was compelled to repeal the act because beerdrinking
had become so extensive. If we
look among the statistics of the drinking
classes we will find that there are 600,000
male habitual drunkards, 1,500,000 male tipplers;
the drinkers spend annually $900,000,000;
they consume 75 000,000 gallons of beer;
there are used 27,000,000 bushels of grain,
which, if ground into flour, would make 5,500,000
barrels. The money spent for drink,
if strung out in rows of dollar bills, would
make 473 belts for the globe."'
SIGNIFICANT FIGURES.
In 1SS0 there were 3152 places in the United
States where liquors, distilled, malt and
vinous, were manufactured. These manufactories
had an invested capital of $118,037,729;
they employed 33,G9S persons; they
paid in wages $15,078,579; they used material
to the value of $S5,921,374, and their manufactured
products were estimated at $144,291,241.
In the same year (1S80) there were 20,303
places where agricultural implements, boots
and shoes, including custom work and repairing,
but not including rubber goods,
were made. These establishments employed
a capital of $118,65$, 333, about the same as
the liquor business; they employed 178,219
persons; they paid in wages $87,711,736;
they used material to the value of $154,073,915;
and their manufactured products was
worth $276,028,389.
By making a comparison we find that
$118,000,000 employed in the manufacture of
intoxicating liquors gave employment to
33,608 persons against 17S,219j when employed
ifi the manufacture of agricultural instruments,
boots and shoes, ijhe same sum invested
in the former paid to labor $15,078,579
again-.t $67,711,736 when employed in the
latter. The same sum employed in the former
bought of the farmers and other producers
of material in the TJnited States, materials
to the value of $85,921,374 against
$154,073,915 worth of materials, when engaged
in the latter. So we see that $118,000,000
employed in the manufacture of agricultural
implements, boots and shoes, employed
five and one-third times as many
persons, paid four and one-half times as
much in wages, and bought of the farmers
and other producers about twice as much
material, and its manufactured products
were worth twice as much money as the
same amount of capital invested in the
manufacture of liquors. And besides the former
was distributed to 20,000 localities, while
the liquor industry was confined to 3000
localities, mostly large cities.
Tested in this way, the liquor industry cannot
stand a comparison with that of tlje manufacture
of agricultural implements, boots
and Bhoes,
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RELIGIOUS READING.
SIN BLOTTED OUT.
"I will forgive their iniquity, and I will
remember tljeir s'n no more," Jer. 31:34.
'"I, even I am He that blotteth out thy
transgressions for Mine own sake, and will
not remember thy sins," Isa 43.25.
I was sitting al:ne in silence,
For my heart was hushed and sad.
As I thought that my conscience pointed
To the records my Father had
Then it seemed ihat he softly whispered?
"I have blotted the records, child,
And the page of the book is open
Stainless and undefiled.'
But I feared, for the tempter told me
Some sins nr.d so det-p a dye
That a trace of the rignteous record
Still stood in tlw court on high.
So aguin mv Father whispered?
"I liave blotted the records all,
Not a lingering stain remaining,
Where my holy glances fall."
Then I thought that the dead were rising,
I thought the last da}' had come,
I thought that I stood and trembled,
Fearful, and cowed, and dumb.
And the awful book was opened?
But the judge in the silence read,
"I have blotted out thy transgressions,"
In a moment my terror fled.
Oh! since He has kindly whispered,
I surely may trust His word.
And rest in the blessed message
My listening ears have heard.
So I will not think of the record,
For the record has pass d and gone,
'Tis blotted out now and forever,
And the page from the volume torn.
?William Luff.
THE FREE GIFT.
We need not attempt the explanation of
Christ's p .wer to overcome our weaknesses
and subjugate our wills; it is sufficient to
know that He can do all this for the believer
bocause it is of grace. That power by
which we become the sons of God at conversion
is not merited in any sense by us; it
comes as a free gift. In the subsequent life
of the Christ an, even to the end, all that he
receives is unmerited. He cnn boast of nothing.
He who thinks that he can indicate the
secret grounds of righteousness, upon which
he may claim anything for Himself, is wholly
astray. If he should tnink at any time that
ho is deserving, because of earnestness in
Christ's work, he at once depreciates the gift
of grace. In that hour he builds upon a
sandy foundation.
Who w 11 care to fix limits to this power
which is who ly a gift? Who will say, UI despair
of deliverance from my weakness,"
when we know that deliverence is not
through finite strength, but of infinite grace?
Well may we wonder how omnipotent
strength can be proffered to every one who
will receive, even to those who have nothing
A J J.r X. T
lo recuinm-uu meui iaj uiviuo icgmu. x*\j a.
around. Behold the multitude of witnesses
ready to own the excellency of th s plan of
salvation. Take, for example, those who
have been in bondage to timidity. Grace
fr m God only could set them at liberty. He
has spoken, and now a'l is changed. That
"fear of man which brinjreth a snare" is
gone; that diffidence which is very often the
minifestation of self or pride has given place
to hi ly boldness; that hesitating tone in
spiritual matters has risen to clear and emphatic
utterance. What spiritual progress
would there be among God's people
were all to accept fully this "eternal lire"
that is declared to be "without
money and without price! Think,
also, of the many who are being
comforted amid their earthly sorrows. Does
it not enhance the consolation to remember
that it is bestowed as a favor, not through
personal merit? Our heavenly Father is saying:
"I know your need; I witness your
tears; I will not wait; I cannot le ive you
comfortless." So He corn s to the lowliest,
and says: "I will rest you;" "Do not think of
being either worthy or unworthy;" "You
have only to think of me and of mf help;"
"My grace is sufficient without any preparation
on your part." Oh, the matchless gift!
Oh, how this thought is amplified in St.
Paul's epistles! He tells us that victory in
the dying hour is given to us. And the open
window in the Apocalypse discloses the
celestial multitude, having their golden harps
all attuned to the melody of grace.
SABBATH COMMUNION.
Do we sometimes find it difficult to withdraw
ourselves from worldly affairs and fix
our thoughts upon eternal interests? Under
such circumstances there is no surer way of
relief than to select some portion of the Holy
Scripture, making this the tberae of earnest
study. It is not best to wait for the impulse
of feeling before beginning the exercise.
Open the Bible at nny page. Remember that
every passage contains within itself a sacred
deposit of truth. More than this, consider
that the divine Word possesses for the sincere
soul a self-revealing energy, a power of
interpretation, as well as if application to
the conscience. Divine revelat on is infinitely
superior to all human composition in this
particular.
It was on a Sabbath morning, after a
week of unusual distrac ion, that a Christian
man sought to free himself from engrossing
cares. He realized the importance of laving
aside these burdens before engaging in" the
public services of God's house. He found
himself utterly at the mercy of inlrudiug
worldly thoughts. The spirit that rules in
all marts of trade would rush in unbidden.
He knew very well that to yield himself to
this clamor from without in the early morning
hours of the Sabbath would mar the sacred
privileges of the entire day. Finally,
without any unu ual religious emotion, but
chiefly from a conviction of duty, he opened
his Bible, as was his habit, before attending
church. His eyes rested on theso words: "It
is by the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed,
because His compassions fail not
They are new every morning; great is thy
faithfulness. Th.' Lord is my portion, saith
my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. The
T ? ? J "J +V?ntvi 4 lint. for Him
Jboru 15 guuU U1IIAJ luvrn u?'?w .W.
to the soul that seeketh Him. It is pood
that a man should both hope and quietly
wait for the salvation of the Lord."
His attention -was arrested bj- the delightful
melody of *hese verses. It was not long
before the compassion of hi - Heavenly Father
bep;an to dawn upon him in a new way.
With a seuso of great indebtedndss, his heart
grew warm in love toward God. It was impossible
that the worldly spirit should henceforth
displace tfle devotional, having gained
through tho living Word the knowledge of
Divine things.
We live in a 1 ime when the Christian is
often sorely tried. Questions of public
finance, questions relating to civil policy and
th" right method of removing great social
evils, will likely invade his hours of devotion.
No ordinary means will avail. He
needs supernatural assistance. Tho spell
binding biin to earth eannot be broken, only
as the eternal principles of righteousness are
revealed: ami then not in mere intellectual
pe! ceptions, but in the powerful unfoldings
of tiuth in his soul.?Thi Christian Advocate.
Have you ever done anything for Christ
that has scarred your heart or your body?
' If a man keop my saying, he shall never
see death;" when we come to die, our eyes
will so really see Jesus Himself that we |
shall not see death.?/', i?. Hctvcrgal.
Thote who live in the love of Christ should
never be melancholy, for they have a thousand
sources of jov of which others know
nothing.?Mrs. Ellis. God
has lent us the earth for our life; it
is a great entail. It belongs as much to
them who are to come after us, and whose
names are already written in the book of
creation, as to us; and we hnvo 110 right by
anything that we do or neglect to involve
them in unnecessary pennlties, or deprive
them of benefits wh ch it was in our power
to beaueath.?John lluskin.
TOE MECCA OF MALT AND ROM.
These are hard times for saloon keepers?
outside of New York State.
There's the Saloon Keepers' Association of
Cincinnati for instance, which has resolved
that its members must keep open on Sunday,
and that it will fine them $10 each if they
don't. And Philadelphia fines them if they
do.
If they don't like it, they may come to
New York. There are still a few, a very few,
choice corners here which are not occupied
by saloons, and the people of the State
seemed, when last heara from at the polls, to
think that we haven't saloons enough. The
$10 may bo made payable to the police.?New
Ytrk Press.
It is charged that at least six members of
the Chicago Common Council are always
drunk in their seats when there isa session.
THE CABINET.
PEN PICTURES OF THE PRESIDENT'S
ADVISERS.
Sketches of the Eight Men Who Administer
the Departments of the
Government?How They Dive
and How Tliey Work.
A tour of the possible Presidents is an
interesting pastime nowadays, says the
Washington correspondent of Philadelphia
Eecord. By possible Presidents, I
mean, of course, the eight members 01
the Cabinet, who are by act of Congress
in the line of promotion upon the death
or disability of the President or VicePresident.
It is not certain that the
Secretary of Agriculture, the baby of the
Cabinet, is in this line of promotion, for
he is not mentioned, of course, in the
"Presidential Succession act" because his
office had not then been created. But I
suppose that under the general terms of
the act creating the eighth Cabinet place
its incumbent is given all the powers and
privileges of his colleagues. But, at all
events, uUncle Jere" is a member of the
Cabinet and a good fellow, and so we
will call on him, too.
Blaine's department occupies the southern
wing of the new Stanawar?State,
navy and war?building, which stands
just west of the Executive mansion, on
the site of the old war and navy buildings.
Secretaries Blaine, Proctor and
Tracy, who control it, have adopted
somewhat more stringent rules for the
admission of visitors that are prescribed
in other departments. Unless you are a
Senator or a representative of a department
official you can only see them personally
at twelve o'clock on Mondays,
Wednesdays and Saturdays?newspaper
men being, of course, excepted here as
everywhere.
Blaine is the latest member of the
Cabinet for getting down to his office,
1J ! ! iJI t A _ 1 XT
seiuom arriving until ?\j o ciocii, tut;
hour at which he begins to receives Senators
and Representatives. But this is not
because he gets up late, for he is a light
sleeper and an early riser. It is because
he takes time at his desk in his comfortable
rooms at the Normandie to read the
morning newspapers, which he does like
an old newspaper man; dispose of some
of his private correspondence, and pass,
with the assistance of Walker Blaine,
upon some of his public business, so that
Walker is apt to carry a portfolio full of
papers to and fro for his father every day.
When he: can the Secretary of State walks
the few blocks by way of Lafayette park
from his hotel to his department. His
hair and beard are entirely white, his
face is more deathlike than ever, but his
form is straight and his step is springy.
At a distance his age would not be at all
apparent to a casual observer.
The office of the Secretary of State,
having been finished and furnished several
ysars Tsefore the others, is faded compared
with those of the Secretary of War and
the Secretary of the Navy. Still it is a
handsome room, with a fine wood floor
covered with rugs, elaborate frescoes, a
great square mahogany desk for the Secretary
in the centre, a smaller one for
his private secretary in one corner, bookcases,
cabinets and a fine globe scattered
around, and a number of portraits on the
wall.
But we must not keep the Secretary of
State waiting. He stands up to receive,
sitting down and tilting back in his chair,
with his lflfrs crossed. if hfi settles down
to a good talk with you. He takes your
hand with his old fervor, and his eye
still dances and sparkles?as I believe it
will when he is dead. He always says
something pleasant when he can, and, if
possible, something clever, too; and so
with a smile and a bow you are dismissed.
From 10 to 12, like all the Secretaries
in this building, he receives Senators
and Representatives on all days except
Thursday, which is reserved for
members of the diplomatic corps exclusively.
On Mondays there are not so
many Senators and Representatives calling
as to take all of the two hours, so that he
does not lose the whole morning. At 12,
except on Cabinet days (Tuesday and
Friday), when he must be getting over to
the White House, he receives the public
ufitil 1 or 2, as business will permit.
Then, on his return from the Cabinet,
he works away on official business until 5
o'clock, when he drives down the avenue
to a private gymnasium, and either takes
some prescribed exercise or a massage
treatment. Hiii physician has told him
that he must take from four to six hours'
exercise every day. Before he went into
the Cabinet he walked several miles each
day. But now he considers himself fortunate
when he is'noi detain at his office
after 5, and can get an hour s exercise before
dinner. He dines with his family
in their private dining-room at 7 and
then works most of the evening at official
business if he does not go out to dinner.
Mrs. Blaine is superintending the reconstruction
of the Seward mansion on Lafayette
square, which they have leased
for ten years, and which they will occupy
in the fall, so that the Secretary is relieved
largely of that. He has a great deal of
private business;, though, with his real estate
here, and Ills railroads there, and his
mines far out in the West. Altogether he
has too much work to do and gets too
little exercise, and he will be very glad to
get a little rest after a while.
William Windom, Secretary of the
Treasury, comes next in order on the
list. To see him we cross over through the
Whitp House grounds, in front or in rear
of the White House, and walk up to the
second floor of the Greek temple known
il. _ m 1 !1Jli TTT* J1 1
lis uie ireasury ounuing. vvmuom iiub
changed the office of.the Secretary of the
Treasury from the southeast comer, where
Manning and Fairchild had theirs, to the
centre of the south side, where he uses
Assistant Secretary Thompson's old room
as his main office, and the chief clerk's
old room, opening out of it, as his consultation
cabinct and real working den.
Windom, like George "W. Childs, whom
he so much resembles, looks just the same
as he did twenty-five years ago?face as
unwrinkled, hair and Whiskers as dark.
It is his sunny nature which keeps him
young. He is never ruffled, but is always
6miling. He walks over to his department
from Hotel Arno, on Sixteenth
street, just north of the White House,
with an easy moving step so as to get to
his office by 9 o'clock. He ^ees everybody
who comes at all hours of every day
when he is in his office and his work will
permit. Most of the time from 9 till 3
or 4 o'clock he is standing on his feet
listening to the office-seeker and his
friends. Between callers he signs papers
or eats his simple luncheon. After 2 or 3
or 4 o'clock, when the last caller goes, he
buckles down to work, and by 6 has
pretty well cleared his desk and made up
the work he will do at home. For after
fir _ ' . .
dinner he goes at it again and works till
bedtime.
His offices are plainly but solidly furnished,
well carpeted, gorgeously frescoed
and adorned with oil portraits of
Sherman, Folger*and others of his predecessors.
Everybody leaves Windom with
regrer, ior ne is a very agreeaDie nosi.
l'He always was so pleasant," might with'
truth be written on his tombstone. He
stands this strain so well, though he gets
so little exercise, that it is hard to connect
him in this world with a tombstone.
Next in the line of promotion comes
the Secretary of War, the veteran Governor,
Redfield Proctor, of Vermont, the
richest man in the Cabinet. To see him
we must go back to the Stanawar, where
his office is a splendid room on the west
side of the same floor as Blaine's. Proctor,
gray with years and bent with work,
looks quiescent and even phlematic. But
he is the most nervous man in the Cabinet.
He always walks as he talks. He
does not mean to shake you off; he is unaffectedly
courteous to you, but he must
walk. He walks up and down when he
is dictating to his stenographer; he walks
up and down when he eats his luncheon.
He walks over to the Department from
the Arlington and back again when the
weather will let him. Like most millionaires
who have made their millions, if not
themselves, he is an early riser, and usually
anticipates his clerks at the office.
He has very few officeseeking callers, and
has been able to learn more about his office
than any of his colleagues, except the
Secretary of the Navy.
The Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin
F. Tracy, of Brooklyn, comes next. His
office is that of his predecessor on the
eastern side of the same floor and directly
in line with Secretary Proctor's. Tracy
uses the little inner room more constantly
than Whitney did, giving up the long
show office with its costly woods and
intra and fpssroes and the oil nortaits of
his predecessors to Lieutenant T. B. M.
Mason, his naval secretary; Henry W.
Raymond, his private secretary, and
their clerks. He is a gray-haired, graywhiskered
man, with a benevolent expression,
a clever tongue and a pleasant
laugh. He is very apt to have his callers
brought in one at a time into his inner
office, where, on the famous Monitor
desk, he does most of his work. He gets
over to his office from the Arno a little
after 9, goes back for luncheon at 2 and
gets away finally at 6 o'clock, working
often, however, in the evening at the
rooms. For, like all the rest, he has too
many callers just now to permit him to do
all his day's stint at his office, and, like
all the others, he dislikes to let it go over
from day to day.
The Postmaster-General comes next.
To see him we must ride all across the
business part of town to the crowded
small-roomed postoffice department on
Seventh street. There is not a goodsized
room in this department, nor one
which is handsomely furnished, and the
Postmaster-General's is no exception. In
contrast with the magnificent offices we
have just left, the newest and finest in
Washington, his rooms seems shabby.
But they seem to be the most attractive
rooms in Washington. From the time
the doors are opened in the morning
until the time they are closed in the evening
his callers are coming and going.
There is a little ante-room where his typewriter
works off behind a screen the letters
he has taken in shorthand from the
Postmaster-General's dictation. It is
small, and usually full of waiting visitors.
Then there is his fonnil office, which is
not much larger, and is pretty well filled
by his big desk, two leather-covered sofas,
several leather-covered chairs and a cabinet.
What space is left is also usually
filled. The Postmaster-General may be
found here, sitting in a tilting chair behind
his desk or standing leaning on the
mantel-piece where Benjaipin Franklin sits
solemnly surveying his successor. Or he
may be in his inner office, about the same
size, and just beyond, where his faithful
private secretary, Mr. Jones, writes neat
notes all day long. As likely as not that
inner office is filled, too, although usually
it is not, since he reserves it for confidential
conferences. Portraits of his
predecessors look down from every wall.
The Postmaster-General gets down to
his office in the official rattle-trap, called
by courtesty a coupe, any time between
7:30 and 8:30, having already, after
breakfast and prayers, accomplished some
work. He does a good deal before 9
o'clock, when the visitor first gets in, unless
he has a special engagement with
the Postmaster-General, and then Mr.
Wanamaker gets in his work in the interstices
of interviews until 4 o'clock,
when the outer doors are closed and no
office-seekers are admitted. By 5 most of
them are gone, and between that and 7
he can get in two solid hours of work.
After dinner he goes at it again. If he
is not careful he will break down. A
temperate, methodical man can. do wonders
of work, but there is a limit to
every man's powers. Still, I do not think
he wastes work, and perhaps the postoffice
department and a great business
cannot be successfully ruu in any other
way. The Postmaster-General is very
agreeable, even if he does look at you
rather peremptorily through his eyeglasses
now and them. He is rapidly
learning vvasningron -ways as weu us
Washington men, and will be more proficient
every day. He did a very wise
thing when he bought the FrelinghuysenWhitney
house. In fact, and by tradition,
it is one of the most attractive
houses in Washington. The PostmasterGeneral
will not feel fully settled here
until his wife and daughters join him in
the fall. Then he will probably give up
his weekly trip to Bethany, and worship
every Sunday in his pew at thfe Church of
the Covenant.
Right across F street north of the Postoffice
Department stands another Greek
temple kuown locally as the Patent Office,
because the Patent Offip~ is in it. It
is really the Interior Department, and
contains most of the business of that de- i
partment. Here in the large room which <
has been occupied by all his immediate i
predecessors Secretary Noble, next in the i
line, sits at a handsome desk when he is i
not standing up to greet or dismiss some j
caller or conferring with him in his little <
office at the side. Noble is a gentle, pa- i
tient man, but quick enough to decision ,
and determined enough in his eonclu- i
sions. He has Windom's tactful way of i
putting a refusal so that it seems almost i
like a favor. It is well, for he divides the \
honors of having the largest number of i
callers with all the others. Noble works
early and late at nights. His predeces- ?
sors, especially Lamar, have often been j
obliged to work all night to catch up with ]
the enormous current of work. So far i
he has not had to do this, but he may
come to it yet, for his hours are all hcurs
as it is. He takes his exercise In walking
to and fro.
The Attorney General closes the list of
* ? "- 1 " " " 1 '
T-rf T * 'TT'i ^
possible Presidents, unless iwe take in tha
Secretary of Agriculture, as I mean to do.
We must go uptown again to see Williani
Henry Harrison Miller. He sits up in the
fine room which Benjamin Harrison Brewster
decorated and furnished so elegantly
on the second floor of what is commonly
called the Freedmen's bank building, just
north of the treasury, across the avenue.
Down stairs, where the poor fieedmeni
banked their money "forever and ever,"
sits the court of claims. Overhead, where
me managers 01 tne xxeeamen s Dureau
used to meet, sits the Attorney General in
eastern luxury. He is a simple, matterof-fact,
man, strongly resembling Garfield
in his ways. Miller's hours are like
those of most of the others. Here is biff
own account of his day:
Usually I put in an appearance at the
office about 8:30 in the morning, and do
not leave the department, save for a brief
intermission for lunch, until about 6
o'clock in the evening. After taking
dinner, 7:30 o'clock will find me back at
my desk, for I do not carry any of my.
work to my hotel. About 10 o'clock I
shut down for the day and go to bed,'
and it is not much trouble for me to go'
to sleep. But I do not propose to keep*
this up, for the strain is too great, anai ?
would break a constitution of iron if persisted
in. !
Living at the Riggs house, he has only
a few steps to go between his room and
his office. He treats his visitors at the
department as though they were all'
clients at his law office. He takes hir
exercise voth the President almost every,
day. It is in their walks and drives that
they have their momentous talks which'
people are always wondering about. Miller
walks well with the President, being
about his height, but Ms face is dark, and
his hair and his beard are still mostly
black.
The Secretary of Agriculture, Governor
Jere Rusk, father of Blaine D. Rusk, (
is far separated from all his Cabinet con- .
freres. His department is away over toward
South "Washington, beyond the mall
which George Washington wanted to run
between the White House park and the
Capitol. Rusk's building is a gingerv
?J I :?i? 4-v.wvn.
vreau turau ui UIXUDJS UI iwu ui MUOO
colors, with various gaudy decorations
and mansard roof. However, he flies his
flag every day in the week, and signs his
name right heavily with the only gold
pen in the Cabinet. Busk is the taUesfr
man in the Cabinet, I should think,with
a great shock of white hair, and a farmerlike,
straggling white beard. He is a
bluff, hearty, loud-voiced Westerner, who
wants to please as many people as possible.
He has to disappoint a lot every
day, for places in the Agricultural Department
are greatly sought after since many
of them are below the limit of the classified
service. 4 'Uncle Jere," as everybody
familiarly calls him, works as hard hero
as he did at home, gets up with the
chickens and goes to bed with the owls.
He lives at the Ebbitt House and rides
over and back in the very respectable office
carriage which Dr. George B. Loring
bought for the Department of Agriculture
when he was commissioner. He would
do better to walk, for the distance would
just give him needed exercise.
The Backing Horse.
Most persons who have witnessed the
vicious and acrobatic antics of the "bucking
bronco" in Buffalo Bill's and other
wild Western shows have supposed that
the animals were merely acting a part to
which they had been trained, like the
trick-mule of &e circus. The fact is
that these traits are in the nature of the
beast; and what the horses do on exhibition
is as nothing to the diabolical contortions
which they go through when ,
endeavoring to unseat a cowboy rider on
their native prairies. The broncos of the.
Southwest, like the cross-bred Indian and
cayuse ponies of Montana, are not usually
broken until they are four or five years
old, and then their training is of the
rudest and most impromptu character.
Individual animals, like individual men,
exhibit tempers and idiosyncrasies of their
own; but even the best-tempered cow- T
ponies will sometimes buck on a frcaty
morning. Such "mavericks" are turned
over to hands who make a specialty of
conquering horses that are determined
not to be ridden; for a great many thorough
cowboys who are good horsemen in
the sense of being able to get the best
work out of their string of steeds in a
round-up do not pretend to be able to sit
a hard-pitching or vicious animal. The
horse-tamer, with his wonderful lariat,
brings the rebellions horse to the ground by
a noose around one of the fore feet; then;
he mounts, and pursues his dare-devil,
anti-bucking tactics until the shaggy pon$
is dazed and cowed into meek submission.
?Frank Leslie's.
Noted American Trees.
The big tree of California.
"Old Liberty Elm," at Boston.
The "Burgoyne Elm," at Albany,,
N. Y.
The immense ash trees planted by General
Washington at Mount Vernon and;
now the admiration of visitors.
The weeping-willow over the grave of
Cotton Mather in Cop's burying-groundr
near Bunker Hill, taken from a tree that'
shaded the grave of Napoleon at St.,
Helena.
The Cary tree, planted by the roadside
in 1S32 by Alice and Phoebe Cary, is a;
large sycamore, standing on the turnpike,
from College Hill to Mount Pleasant,
Hamilton County, Ohio.
The "Washington elm still stands atCambridge,
Mass. It is on Garden street,;
a short distance from the colleges, and is a1
large, well-preserved tree. An iron fence
is built around it, and on a stone in
front is the following inscription: "Under
this tree George Washington took
command of the American armv, July 3,
1775."
A Singular Freak.
West Virginia offers a very singular
specimen of liliputian humanity in thedaughter
of John E. Miller, of Hampshire
County. She is twenty-three years
of age, cannot walk or talk and is but
twenty-six inches tall. Always lying iir
i little cradle, she is enabled to keep a
sharp lookout on all that is going on; no
one has yet been sharp enough to call for
an article in the house that the little one
could not point out. Her memory is
most remarkable. A new song or poem
repeated in her presence is never forgotten.
If the same song or poem is again
repeated or sung with the variation of
but a single word the little prodigy will
show her disapproval by yelling lustly
and frowning a frown that cannot bo
mistaken. IIow such a remarkable mem
ory can find resting place in a neaa no
larger than a teacup has long been the
wonder of physicians and servants who
have journeyed from far and near to test
the remarkable gifts of the little wonder.)
? Washington Star. .. i