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About The Red Cloud chief. (Red Cloud, Webster Co., Neb.) 1873-1923 | View Entire Issue (May 31, 1889)
rMammm isi!MCftaeaai nfeG?? 3d35&i--J" JJL3 Ife-ivvjr-r ? - i?TT V m MEMORIAL DAY. t EX will much wit droopm eeasers, March with arms re- veneato-eay; Wet aa konu sad busies caUtax; All will eease along the way. While the drum- corps O'er sad o'er Beats tke dead-march up aad down. Throat a the streets eX every tbva. Ob! wen may tbesesd arck touad today Vvr the comrades who oaee were brave for the fray. Who once wonld hare led la the fiercest charge. With hearts that were tn sad with hopes that were large: But they rest from strife. They have givea laelr life, Aad the Nation to-day will inarch to their graves As the ocean-tides march with their sotmdlBC waves, At God's command: As the cloud-billows starch, in silence grand. So the graves to-day through the breadth of the land. As In by-goae years. Shall be rich with showers Of the Nation's tears And the Nation's flowers. Comrades! sooa our forms must slumber Underneath the sod. For our souls are swiftly marching To the bivouac of (Jo J, But tho day shall still be honored At its worth, "By the soldiers' sens aad daughters Through the earth. They shall carry drooping banners, They shall march in silence all With no bugle call. I While the drum-corps O'er and o'er As before. Beats tho dead-march up and down, Through the streets of every town. For this day is set apart By the grateful Katioa's heart. Rev. Charles S. Newhall, in Chicago Advance. SERGEANT SAM'S STORY. How He "Was Saved by a Wom an's Love and Devotion. Written for This Paper. I ALT! Front! Bight Dress! Salute!" and the click of heels followed aa I looked up. The man I knew at once, but who was tho boy? In line they stood. Im movable as graven images, with right hands, palm out ward, at the visors of their forage caps. "Why, 8aml" "Colonel! shake! It does me as much goodtoseeyonas it did when we run up theeldflagatVicksburg. Thirty-eight, come here and shake hands with your ColoneL He knows you, sir, and all about .you, except some things you used to say -when the tight was hot; and when I see you coming, I cays: Thirty-eight, get into line, mind your drill and salute your -Colonel like a man and soldier. And didn't he Just do it. eh?" I took the hand of the great-eyed, brave boy in my own and watched him while he Intently studied my face. "Now, Thirty-eight, run on ahead and tell-them I'm coming back with our ColoneL You got to ration with me this one time, sir, if I carry you to my quarters. Fve wanted long to see you and I cant and -won't let you go." It was on the evening of Memorial Day that this meeting occurred. I had visited the town by invitation of the Q. A. R, and certain matter I had written for the occa sion was road during the ccremonle& After dinner I had again stolled toward the -church-yard and it was Just outside the .gate that I encountered Sergeant Sam and the boy. 8am Shingle was about the bravest, most reckless man in tho old Thirty-eighth reg iment volunteers, which for three years of the late war I had the honor to command. Brave they all were, but 8am waa the leader, and color-sergeant also, but he was likewise the most troublesome man; in the discharge of his duty none excelled him, but his profanity was fearful, he would drink to excess, and when drunk waa a demon. During one of our assaults upon Ticks burg, Lieutenant Sidney Foster, a slight, delicate young officer, was left in front of -the enemy's works when we were driven back, and the gigantic color-sergeant had. resigning his flag for a time, rushed be tween cross-fires, picked Foster up and car ried him, as a mother would a child, back Into safety. The act was so noble, so dar ing, that even the gallant foe, those who could see it, cheered for the brave fellow .and exulted in seeing him succeed. But he was terribly wounded before be did reach our lines, and shortly after re ceived his discharge for disability resulting from wounds received in action. Together with Foster, mustered out for the same rea son, he had gone to the Western home of .the Lieutenant, and hero it was I met him WOULD A CHILD. the occasiom meattoaed for the lest aime since. Ike boy bad started ahead, as ordered, theugh it was evident as would have glad Jy remained. "He's thoroughbred, Colonel trae blood through aad through, that boy is-aad I'm tramiBghim for a soldier, I am. 8eehow me obeys orders? I tell you when Uncle ,tomgeto Thirty-eight Foster for s soldier. ld glory wont wave ever a better or Thea that is the sob of your greet frlead, lieutenant Foster, to it?" That's bis sou, sir, aad Aer's." I looked more closely thaa ever at 8am :fcow his voice trembled as be spoke the last -arerd, How chaagsd he was, There was Ks -av ay a3l MlJbiIs flh rfk" isrSSsi-aA i21flKP ta H " I?r"Er d "ma AS AXOTHKB ao traos of the old riotoBs living, bo touch erhSBeararermrftytB Ms toagaage; aeta taint of the beast about hlra. I watted patiently for developments. "Way 6V yoa call that fine little fellow Tairsy-efeht?' " I asked. 8am laughed. "Well, ye see. Colonel, right after he came here I took tfie old fig ures off my old cap and polishes 'era up and put 'era onto a little blue cap that the mother made for aim. You never see any thing or anybody so tickled in your life as be was, aad be uster cry for that cap, and thea put his hand ap to make folks see them figures and so we got to calling him Thirty-eight,' and be knows that aame best and is best known by that name, aad, doat yoa fear, ColoneL be don't nowise, noway disgrace the old Thirty-eight, he dont; he never picks a fight, but he fights any thing, and there aint no squealing when he gets licked. I'm first sergeant over that boy, I am, and I known him all through. I had promised to go to supper with Sam, and as he approached his home, which he pointed out in advance, I noticed a tavern one sight we webs sxttixo biobt here. near by; this gave me the chance to ask a question: "I suppose over there is your headquar ters most of the time, Sam?" "No, sir! There's just where you don't hit it There has not been a drop of that go into my mouth since the day I promised her." It was a neat house, with a good, old col ored servant, I was taken to and I enjoyed my supper with the old sergeant and the boy, and then, in the moonlight, on that Memorial Day, he and I sitting alone. enjoying our pipes, old Color-Sergeant Sam told me his story: "When we left the service, ColoneL I having neither kith nor kin, came out here with Leftenant Foster, he needed mo to help hold him up in one wny, and I surely needed him to hold me off from some of my ways. KWeU. he'd been married, as you may re member, on his leave of absenco about a year before we left, so we both went to work to fix np this place for the wife and little one, and I worked square and honest, though I still took my grog mighty regular, and was mighty fond of it, too, "When we got all things here ready for inspection and review, then the Leftenant he starts down to St Louis to get his back pay and final settlements and to bring the wife and baby home. He had some money of mine, and before he started he gave it to me, and all that money and most of my time I spent at that tavern you see over there. "You know what I am, ColoneL when rm on the loose, and I guess I got that time worse than ever, having no commanding officer whatever, and I kept it up, day and night, until I was crazy as a hoss in a barn afire. "ldldnt have any idea just when the Leftenant was coming home, and so one night as I came rolling back here, full as I could hold to my back teeth, I spied through the window a man moving about in the front room: 'twasn't an instant be fore I was in there and had him in my grip. I raLsed him up and was just shout to bring him in one smash on the floor when something somebody all in white kind of floated to my side and laid a hand on my arm. " 'Sam, Sam, it Is your Leftenant r that is what I heard, and a child could have fla ished me then. "You've heard men say, sir, bow they sometimes wished the earth could swallow them -that's how I felt So little, so brave, so quiet I didn't dare to look at her. I just laid the Leftenant down and turned to go away forever. " 'Sam, come here with me-come to your room,' she said. I obeyed better than ever I did even your orders, sir; but I didn't dare to look at her. You see she knew me from what he had told her, and her grand heart could forgive all that "I went to my bed aad she brought me my tea, and soup, made by her own hands, and she sat by me and talked to me as no one else ever talked, nor could talk to me neither preach nor scold it wasn't honest, friendly, loving talk and she told me how I had saved her husband for her, and how he loved me and she loved me and, Colonel, it fetched me bad, fetched me ev ery way, and she went and brought in a wee bit of a babby, and she says: 'Sam, I want you to look after and care for this lit tle Sidney as you did for his father, and you must promise me that you will, for I trust you. Sam.' "And, sir, I did promise her then and there, and 1 put myself on special duty to carry the colors before that boy, to carry them up and square to the front and that promise I have kept, and will keep to the end of my life, so help me, God! "We were very happy and well-content here all but me. I see that she was wearing her life out for her boy and husband, but what could I do? It was not for me to speak. Love her? I did love her but not in the way that men talk of loving women. What could I be to her, but Sara? I never touched even the skirt of her drees. 'Love' was not the aame for it "She was fading and fading away; ao oae but me seemed to notice it, but I could see it every day aad hour, and I did not know if I'd feel glad or sorry. She did not be long here, she was kin to God aad to His, aad her place was above. "Oae aight we were sitting right here, where we are bow, aad she heard little Sid give a whimper from bis cot "Tb called,' she said, aad got up aad weatta. "Aa boar after I beard the Leftenant cry, aad jumped; ws fouad her white aad love ly as ever, with the baby in her arms, stretched epos her bed; bat she had gone home to the God that loved her-to the Ood she loved. "It wasnt long before he went, too; be didn't seem to care to want to live after that and Bothlag could rally him, not evea the tricks of little Sid, that was the peart ess baby you ever see, just as he's the brightest boy lathe world now. "One night, the Uttle chap was lathe cot with me, aad I beard the Lofteaaat call la his weak voice: " Sergeaat, the boy. quick!' "I bad just time to raise the child se his father could pat bis Uasagalast the baby cheek wheal see it was all ever with my Iff8 r n Leftenant he'd got bis discharge -a detail as assise artere where' he aad she wtmeT meet and know no more sorrow, or pala, or trouble, "And since then, so far as in me lays, rve been a father to Thirty-eight I meaa HU tie Sid. He loves me, I know he does, and there is no use os earth for me but for him. I'm strict as I ought to be with him, orders is orders, and I see that hs obeys 'em; but he knows how old Sam loves him. 'Out wL.ire you were to-day. Colonel out at that graveyard, they are both buried. I dug his rrave, and I dug iter's. No hands but mine would I let make ready the last home on earth of these two, and there is where I found you. aad there and here is where any one can find me. The Leften ant left enough for the boy. and I have my pension from Uncle 8am, and I live happy, content and a clean man." "Do you go to church, Sam?" I asked. . "WelLno. sir, I don't," be replied. "To tell the truth, I don't take kindly to their arti cles of war; there's two of 'em here and each talks directly opposite to the other and Z&2R",! EJlSLrLES booked for eternal and everlasting roast ing. 'Tain't that way she talked, there was nothing but tho late of God in all she ever told me. and I'm more than willing to risk all my chances on her teaching. The boy i goes to the church and Sunday-school, I tain t for me to keep him from them, but rm they men grinned at the idea of old Sam being there, and the women smiled, and the girls sniggered, and that kind of told me that I had to keep away from there er get into a fight, and so. when little Sid goes there, I just sit nut by the graven yonder, by his grave and hv and I hear enough to do me all the good that can be done me here on earth. "Younever expected to hear this talk from old Sam, did you, Colonel Well, I wouldn't say the same to any other man on earth, but I have just been aching for years to ask some one that I could trust if I am right or not, and you 're the man I most wanted to see. I want to know if I am wrong in doing as I try to do. What do you think? "She left me her boy, he left the boy in my care. I know I try to do the best for him, and I believe she sees how honest ly I work to do it "1 could no more do what would shame me before her than I could have deserted my colors. I am not crazy or one of your Spiritualists, but I do seem to hear her. do feel that she is always near me and satis fied with what I do or try to da Do you think I am right, or do you think I am a fool?" "This is Memorial Day for alL and all hearts are tender-but it is 'Memorial Day me for every day of my Ufa Memory of i my duty to her boy, of my gone Leftenant ' and of her who saved me, whose words made a real man of me and who went home to God and left me something to live and hope for am I a fool for all this. Colonel?" 1 answered him "No" and in my soul I believe that the sweet spirit of the gentle wife and mother must hover over, control and guide the glorious efforts of the old soldier, so strangely changed in nature, who continually strives to do as she would have him do, to bring her boy into all the paths of manly truth and nobility of life, who has so far subdued his own nature as to kill all the savage within him, and who, from a loving, beautiful reverence, keeps and will keep while he lives one unend ing, sacred and ever-remembered "Me morial Day." Alex. Duke Bailie. THE CHIVALROUS COLONEL. How Be Aided an Unfalthfal WIT to Elope from Her Hushaad. HE Memphis & Charleston railroad crosses the Louisville ft Nashville at De catur, Ala., and as the train approached the place a woman who had been very nervous for some time past suddenly began to weep. The ColoneL who is big of heart as well as of stature, asked the cause of her trouble, and after a bit she explained : "I I have a presentiment of trouble. A man who has vowed to make me trouble comes to Decatur very often, and I feel that I shall meet him here." "But he wont'tdare speak to you!" 'Ob, yes, he will. He dares do any thing." "Well, I'll seo you over to the other train, and if he's around he'd better look out for himself." "Thank you ever so much. I'm really afraid of my Ufa" The other train was waiting for us, and the Colonel took the lady and started across the platform. They were suddenly con fronted by a man who made a grab at her, and as she screamed the Colonel shot out with his right and knocked him clean over a baggage-truck. He put the woman into a car, dropped off as the bell rang, and got back to the truck just as his victim was get ting up. "Who struck me!" asked tho man as he looked around him. "I did," replied the ColoneL "No man can insult a lady under my protection." "Do you know her!" " Never spoke to her until a quarter of an hour ago." "Read this." And he handed out a telegram sent to him at Huntsville from Nashville. It read : "George Blank Your wife is running away with John Doe. They will change for Memphis at Decatur." He had come down to intercept them, been knocked out by tho ColoneL and the tram was ten miles away before he opened his eyes. We bad not noticed John Doe, but he was probably in one of the other cars. Detroit Free Pressi The Way of Insurance Mow. "John," said tho accident agent, "be sure anddropinatoIdCurmudge's as you pass this morning and express your sympathy over the loss of bis brother in the railway accident recently. Express mine to him "But old Curmudge had ao brother ia the accident," said the patient solicitor. "WeU, what in all that's unholy has that got to do with it!" said the ageat, cheerily, "all he can do is to tell you so." "Bat it might unnecessarily alarm him," persisted the solicitor. That's the point; that's exactly the point," returned the accident agent, cheeri ly. "Alarm him as much as possibto. His owb policy mas out aext Bftath, and it is oae of our duties to remind our patreas that ia the midst of life we are surrounded byaecideBts." 3 "Aad John," he added, as the pattest soucitor departed oa hto erraad, "take this banana peel aad put it carefully oathe f rout steps. It is by attendee to details that tab symmetry of perfect basiaess ia built up." Insurance Herald. Wkmita. Kan., boasts of a Mohawk de. toctive bureau. Every detective ia s hawkshaw. sot stove Hd to Irs proof. too old a dog to learn new tricks whea J "" -'"'J' " .. try to whip 'em into me. wun ol ana unuer preparation iney I dtd im tn Minn.li nnm or Mm linfcthn ' """ "" ""I " " . Q, -W .. V WW V -.--, W - - HUMAN UNCLEANNES3. Dr. Talmas; Discourses on Original Sin in Man. Natural Foulness of the World No Good Apeleales For Mia Titer to No Panto Without Repentance Christ Ready to Cleanse All. la a late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T. De Witt Talmage took for his text: "If I wash myself with snow water and should I cleaase my hands in alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." Job ix. 30-3L The preacher said : Albert Barnes honored be bis noma on earth and in Heaven went straight back to the original writing; of mv text, and I ing.abstaatial reason, for so doing? AN though we know better, the ancients had an idea that in snow water there was a special power to cleanse and that a gar ment 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 It be gone. Job, in ray text, in most forceful figures 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 ditch." "If I wash myself with snow water, and should I I cleanse my hands in alkali, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." Tou are now sitting for your picture. I turn the camera nbscura of God's word full upon you. and I pray that the sun shine falling through the skylight may enable me to take you just as you are. I Shall it be a flattering picture or shall it be a true one? You say: "Let it be a true one." The first profile that was ever . taken was taken. 330 years before Christ, I of Antigonus. He had a blind eye, and he compelled the artist to take his profile so as to bide the defect in bis vision. But since that invention, 331 years before Christ; there has been a great many pro files. Shall I to-day give you a one-sided view of yourselves, a profile, or shall it j be a full length portrait, showing you just ' what you are? If God will help me by His almighty grace. I shall givo you that last kind of a picture. When I first entered the ministry I used to write mysermonsall outand read them, and run my hand along the line lest I should lose my place. I have hundreds of those manuscripts. Shall I ever preach i them? Never; for in those days I was somewhat overmastered with the idea I heard talked all around about of the dig nity of human nature, and I adopted the idea, and I evolved it and I illustrated it, and I argued it; but coming oa in life, and having seen more of the world, and studied better my Bible, I find that that early teaching was faulty, and that there is no dignity in human nature until it is reconstructed by the gracs of God. Talk about vessels going to pieces on the Sker ries, off Ireland ! There never was such a shipwreck as in the Gibon and the Hidde- keL rivers of Eden, where our first par ents foundered. Talk of a steamer going down with five hundred passengers on board! What is that to the shipwreck of fourteen hundred million souls? 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 alkili, 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 con fess 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, bave you not, every day in your life, aided something to the original estate of sin that was bequeathed to you? Are you not brave enough to confess that yoa have sometimes surrendered to sin which you ought to have conquered? I ask you whether it is fair play to put upon our ancestry thing for which we our selves are personally responsible? If your nature was askew when you got it, bave 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 bad blasphemous par entage. I know au honest man whose father was a thief. I know a pore 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. The fact that I have a corrupt nature Is no reason why I should yield to it The deep stains of our soul can never be washed out by the snow water of such in sufficient apology. Still further, says some one: "If Ihave gone into sin, it has been through my companions, my comrades and associates; they ruined me. They taught me to drink. They took me to the gambling helL They plunged me into the house of sin. They ruined my soul." I do not believe it God gave to no one the power to destroy you or me. 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 them down; if they had tried to purloia your gold watch you would have riddled them with shot; but whea they tried to steal yoar immortal soul you placidly submitted to it. Tuose bad fellows have a cup of fire to drink; do not pour your cup into it la this mat ter of the souL every maa for himself. That those persons are aot fully responsi ble for your sia, I prove by the fact that you still consort with them. You caa not get off by blaming them. Though you gather ap all these apologies; though there were a great food of them; though they should come dowa with the force of the meltiag snows from Lebanon, they could aot wash out one staia of your im mortal souL Still further, some persons apologise for their sias by saylag: "We are a great deal better tbaa some people. You see people all around about as that are a great deal worse thaa we are." Yoa stand ap columnar ia your integrity, and look dowa upon those who are prostrate ia their habits aad crimes. What or that, my brother? IX I failed through reckless ness and wicked imprudeace for 10,O0, Is the autter alleviated at all by the fast that somebody else has failed for tfOO.MS, aad somebody else for 1900,000? O. ao. if I have the aearalgia, shall I refuse med ical attendance because my aelghbor has virulent typhoid fever? The fact that his disease is worse thaa mias does that miael If L through my f eelhardi- WBA AI. . & . .- . Ma Bess, leap off late rata, does it break the fall to kaow that others leap off a higher cliff iato deeper darkness? When the Hudson rail train went through the bridge at Spaytea DayviL did it alleviate the matter at all that instead of two or three people being hurt there were seventy-five mangled and crushed? Because others are depraved, is that aay excuse for my depravity? Am I better tbaa they? Per haps they had worse temptations thaa I have had. Perhaps their surroundings ia life were more overpowering. Per haps, O man, if you had been under the same stress of temptation, Instead of be ing here to-day yoa would have been looking through the bars of a penitentiary. Perhaps, O woman, if you had b)en under the same power of temptation, instead of sitting here to-day ycu would be tramp ing the street the laughing stock of men and the grief of the angels of God. dun geoned, body, mind aad soul, in the black ness of despair. Some winter morningyou go out aad see a snow bank in graceful drifts, as though by some heavenly compass it bad 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 yoa say : "Was there ever any thing so pure as the snow, so beautiful as the snow?" But you brought a pail of that snow and put it upon tuestove and melted it; and you found that there was a sedi ment 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 fit to wash in. And so I say it will be if you try to gather up these con trasts and comparisons with others, and with the apologies attempt to wash out the sins of your, heart and Ufa. It will be an unsuccessful ablution. Such snow water will never wash away a single stain of an immortal soul. But I bear some one say: I will try something better than that I will try the force of good resolution. That will be more pungent, more caustic, more extir pating, more cleansing. The snow water has failed and now I will try the alkali of the good strong resolution." My dear brother, bave you any idea that a resolu tion about the future will liquidate the past? Suppose I owed you 46,C00 and I should come to you to-morrow and say: "Sir, I will never run in debt to you again; if I should live thirty years I will never ran in debt to you again;" will you turn to me and sav: "If you will not run in debt in the future I will give you the $5,000." Will you do that? No! Norwill God. We have been running up a long score of indebtedness with God. If for the future we should abstain from sin that would be no defravment of past in debtedness. Though yoiT should live from this time forth pure as an archangel be fore the throne that would aot re deem the past God, in the Bible, distinctly declares that He "will require that which is past" past op portunities, past neglects, past wicked words, past impure imaginations, past ev ery thing. The past is a great cametery, and every day is buried in it And here is a long row of 365 days. They are the dead days of 1SS8. Here is a long row of S65 more graves, aad they are the dead days of 1887. And here is a long row of S6j more craves, and they are the de:id days of 1886L It is a vast cemetery of the past But God will rouse them all up with resurrectioaary blast and as the prisoner stands face to faca with juror and judge, so ycu and I will have to come ap and look upon those departed days face to face, exulting ia their smile or coweriBg in their frown. 'Murder will out" is a proverb that stops too short Every sin, however smalL as well as great will out In bard 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 heads. A maa infuriated with hunger met him oa the road and took a rail with a nail ia it fn m a paling fence aad struck hira down, and the nail entering the skull instantly slew him. Thirty years after that the murderer went back to that place. He passed into the grave yard where the sextoa was digging a grave aad while be stood there the sped) of the sexton turned up a skull, and. lo! the murdeier saw a nail protruding from the back part of the skull; it seemed with hollow eyes to glare oa the murderer, and he, first petrified with horror, stood ia silence bat sooa cried out "Guilty! guilty! O God!" The mystery of the crime was soon over. The man was tried aad executed. My friends, all the unpardoned sias of oar lives; hough we may think they are buried out of sight and gone into a mere skeleton of memory, will turn up ia tho cemetery of the past aad g ower upon us with their misdoings. I say all of our unpardoned s ns. O, bave you doae the preposterous thing of supposing that good resolutions for the future will wipe out the past? 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 aay of the hundreds of writers who bave done up iniquity in mezzotint and garlanded .the wine cup with eclantine and rosemary, aad 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 aot a tableland of fine prospects; that it is not music, dulcimer, violoncello, castanet and Paucan pipes, all making music together. No. He says it is a ditch, long, deep, loathsome, stenebful and we are all plunged into it aad there we wallow and sink aad struggle, aot able to get out. Our robes of propriety and robes of worldly profession are sat urated ia the slime and abomination, and our soul, covered with transgression, hates its coveriag aad the coveriag hates the soul until we are planged Into the ditch aad cur owb clothes abhor us. I know that some modem religionists caricature sorrow for sia, aad they make oat aa easier path thaa the "Pilgrim's Progress" that Joha Buayaa dreamed of. The road they travel does aot stop where John's did. at the city of Destruction, but at the gate of the aaiversity; aad I am very certaia that it will not come oat where Joha's did, aader the shiaiag ram parts of the celestial city. No repeataaee, aopardoa. If yoa do aot my brother, feel that yoa are dowa ia the ditch, what do you waat of Christ to lift you out? If you bave ao appreciatiea of the fact that you are astray, what do yea waat of Him who comes to seek aad save that which was lost? Yoader is the City of Paris, the swiftest of the lamaas, coming across the Atlantic. Thewiadis abaft so that she hss aot oaly her eagiaes at work, but all sails an. I am oa board the TJmbria of the Caaard line. The boat davits are swung around. The boat is lowered. I get iato it with a red flag aad cross aver to where the City of Paris Is comiag; and I wave the Hmg.- The Captaia leeks off from the bridge aad says: "What do yoa waat?" I reply: "I come to take some of your passengers across to the other vessel. I thiak they will be safer aad happier there." The cap taia woald look dowa with indignation and say: 'Get out of the way, or I will run you down. Aad them I woald back oars, amidst the jeering of twe er three nunared people looking over the taffrail. But the TJmbria and the City of Parle meet under different circumstances after awhile. The City of Paris is coming eat of a cyclone; the lifeboats are smashed;-, tho bulwarks gene; the vessel rapidly go- mgdown. The boatswain gives hie last whistle of despairing command. The passenger. run up aad dowa the deck, and some pray, and all make a great out- cry. The captaia says: "Yoa have about fifteen minutes now to prepare for the next worliL" "No hope!" sounds front stem to stern and from the ratlines down to the cabin. I see the distress. I am let down by the side of the TJmbria. I push ore as fast as I can toward the sinkinz City of Paris. Before I come up the people are leapiag iato the water in their aaxiety to get to the beat and whea I have awung up under the side of the City of Paris, the f renziad passengers rush through the gang way until the officer, with axe and club and pistols, try to keep Lack the crowd, each wanting his turn to come next Then is 1 ut one life boat aad they all waat 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 sins feels that all is well, that be is coniing cut at a beautiful port and ha all sail set. ho wants no Christ h wants no help, he wants no rescue; but if under tho flash of God's convicting: spirit he shalt see that by reason of sin he is dismasted , and waterlogged, and going down into the trough of the sea where be can not live, ho.v soon be puts the sea glass to his eye and sweeps the hor zoti. and 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 dancer, no application for rescue. O, that God's eternal spirit would flash upon us a sense of our sinfulness! The Bible tells tho story in letters of fire, but we get used to it. We joke about sin. Wo make merry over it. What in sin? Is it a trifling: thing! Sin is a vampire that is sucking out the life Mood of vour im mortal nature. Sin? It is a Bantile that no earthly key ever unlocked. Sin? It is expatriation from God and Heaven. Sin? It is grand larceny against the Almighty, for the Bible asks the question: "Will a man rob God?" answering it in the affirm ative. This gotpel 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 tl it on the ground. The joints begin to full away. Tho ankle) thickens until it looks like the foot of a wild beast A stare unnatural comes to the eye. The nostril is constricted. Tho voice drops to an almost inaudable hoarse ness. Tubercles blotch the whole body, and from them there comes an exudatioa that is unbearable to the beholder. That is leprosy, and we have all got it unless cleansed by the grace of God. See Levi ticus. So Second Kings. See Mark. See Luke. See fifty Bible allusions and con firmations. The Bible is not complimentary in its language. It does not speak mincingly about our sins. It does not talk apologet- ically. There is no vermilion in its style. It does not cover up our trangressions with blooming metaphor. It does not sing about them in weak falsetto; but it thunders out: '"The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth" "Every --r one has goae beck. He has altogether Jar become filthy. He is abominable and filthy, and "drinketh in iniquity like water." Aad then the Lord Jesus Christ flings dowa at our feet this humiliatinf-, catalogue: "Out of the heart of men pro ceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication. murders, thefts, blasphemy." There Isa text for your rationalists to preach front O, the dignity of human nature! There Is an element of your science of man that the anthropologist never has had the ecu age yet to tcuch. and the Bible, in all the ins and cuts of the rco.t forceful atyle, sets forth our natural pollution, and rep resents iniquity as a frightful thing, as aa exhausting thing, as a loathsome thing. It is aot a mere befculing of the hands; it is going down, head and ears under, ia a di'ch. until our clothes abhor us. My brethren, shall we stay down where sia thrusts us? I shall not if yoa da We can not afford to. I bave to-day to tell you that there is something more paegeat thaa alkali, and that it is the blood of Jesas Christ that cleanseth from all sia. Ay, the river of salvation, bright crystallna and Heaven born, rushes through this audience with billowey tiie strong enough to wash your sins completely and forever away. O. Jesus, let the dam that holds it back now break and the floods of salva tion roll over us. Let the water and the Mood. From thy side a healing flood, Be or sin the double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure. Let us get down oa both knees ana bathe in that flood 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 salva tion seat Take this largest of the diviae bounty. Though you have grown down in the deepest ditch of libidinous desire and corrupt behavior, though you have sworn all blasphemies until there is not one sinful word for you to speak, thoagb you have been submerged by the trans gressions of a lifetime, though you are so far down in year sin that bo earthly help can touch yoar cose the Lord Jesus Christ bends over you to-day and offers you His right hand proposing to lift yoa up. first making you whiter tban snow, and then raising you to glories that never die. "Billy," said a Christian bootblack to another, "whea we come up to Heaven it won't make aay difference that we've beea bootblacks here, for we shall get ia. not somehow or other, but Bil v, we shall get straight through the gate.' O, if yoa oaly knew how fall and free and tender is the offer of Christ this day yoa would all take Him without oae single exceptioa; and if all the doors of this house were locked save oae and yoa were comeelled to make egress by oaly oae door aad I stood there aad questioned yoa aad the gospel of Christ bad made the right im pressioa apoa year heart to-day yoa would aaswer me as yoa went out on aad all: "Jesus is mine aad I am His!" O, that this might be the hour whea yoa woald receive him! It is aot a gos pel merely for footpads aad va graats aad buccaneers; it is for the highly polished aad the educated aad the refined aa welL "Ex cept a man be bora agaia he caa not see the kiagdom of God." Whatever may be your associations, aad whatever yoar worldly refinements I mast toll y as fcf fere God 1 expect to aaswer iarrhe test day, that it you are aot changed by the grace of Gcd yoa are still dowa ia the ditch of sorrow, the ditch of coademaa tiea; a ditch that empties late a deeper ditch, the ditch of the lost Bat blessed be God for the lif tiag; cleaasiag, lastratiag fewer of His gospel. O 1 r l