Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1888 — TURN FROM EVIL WAYS. [ARTICLE]

TURN FROM EVIL WAYS.

Reformation and rftw to Bring it About, T«adaaey of Human Nature Toward Bril Tb 1 nar»—hnrrh*« Tjo Of .on U«prl Kithar than Attract the Erring. , f Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Chicago last Subject: “Reformation from Evil Habits.” Text: Proverbs xxiii., 36. “When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.” Onr libraries are adorned with an elegant literature addressed to young men, pointing out to them all the dangers and perils of life—complete mapß of the voyage, showing all the rocks, the quicksands, the shoals. But suppose s man has already made shipwreck; pappose be is already off the track; suppoee he has slreadTyrone astray, how is he to get back? That is a ffeld comparatively untonched. I propoae to address

myself this evening to such. . There are those in this Sndience who, with every passion of their agonized sonl, are ready to bear this discussion. They compare themselves with what they were ten years ago, and cry oat from the bonrhg-s in which they are incarcerated. Now, if there be any in this bouse, come with an earnest purpose, yet feelirg they are bevond the pale of Christian sympathy, and that the sermon can hardly be expected to address them. theD, at this moment, I give them my right hand and call them brother. Look up. There is glorious and triumphant bore for you vet. 1 sound the trumpet of Gospel deliverance. The church ie ready to spread a banquet at your return, and tho hierarchs of Heaven to fall into line of bannered procession at the news of your emancipation. So far as God may help me, I propose to show what are the obstacles of your return, and then how you are to surmount those obstacles. The first difficulty in the way of yonr return is the force of moral gravitation. Just as there is a natural law which brings down to the earth anything which you throw into the air, so there is a corresponding moral gravitation. In other words, it is easier to go down than it is to go up; it is to do wrong than it is to do right. Call to mind the comrades of your days—some of them good, seme of them bad. Which most affected you? Call to mind the anecdotes that you have beard in the last five or ten years—some of them are pure, and some ol them impure. Which the more easily sticks to your memory? Daring the years of your life you have formed certain conrtes of conductsome of them good, some of them bad. To which style of habit did you the more easily yield? Ah! my friends, we have to take but a moment of seif-in-spection to find.out that there is in all our souls a force of moral gravitation. But that gravitation may be resisted. Just as you may pick up from the earth and holt! it in your hand toward heaven, just so by the power of God’s grace a soul fallen may be lifted toward peace, toward pardon, toward heaven. Force of moral gravitation is in every one of ue.but power in God’s grace*) overcome that force of moral gravitation. The next thing in the wav of your return is the power of evil habit, 1 know there are those who say.it is very easy for them to give up evil habits. I do not believe tnem. Hero is a man given to intoxication. He knows it is disgracing ms destroying his property, ruining him, body, mind, and soul. If that man, being an intelligent man and loving his familv, could easily give up that habit, would he not do so? The fact that he does not give it up proves that it is hard to give it up. It is a very easy thing to sail down stream, the tide carrying you with great force; but suppose you turn the boat up stream, is it so easy then to row it? As long ss we yield to the evil inclinations in our hearts and onr bad habits,we are sailing down stream; but the moment we try to turn, we put our boat in the rapids just above Niagara and try to row upstream. Take a man given to the habit of using tobacco, as most ot you do, and let him resolve to stop, and he finds it very difficult. Twenty-one years ago I quit that habit, and I wouid as Boon dare to put my right hand in tho fire as once to

indulge in it. Why? Because it was such a terrible struggle to get over it. Now, let a man be advised by his physician to give up the use of tobacco. He goes around not knowing what to do with himself. He cm not add np a line of figures. He can not steep of nights. It seems as if the world had turned nrlaidft-jdown. He feels that his business is going to rum. Where - before he is kind and obliging be is now scolding and fretful. The composure that characterized him has given away" to' fretful restlessness, and he has become a complete fidget. What power is it that has piled a wave of woe over the earth and shaken a portent in the heavens? He has tried to slopamokiug. Aftera while he says: “I am going to do as I please The doctor doesn’t understand my case. I am going back to the old habit.” And be returns; everything assumes its usual composure; his business seems to brighten. The world becomes an attractive place to live in. His children, seeing the difference, hai’ the return of their fathers g-nial disposition. What wave of color has dashed blue into the sky, and greenness into the mountain foliage, and the glow of sapphire into the sunßet? What enchantment has lifted a world ot beauty and joy on his soul? He has gone back to smoking Oh, Che fact is, as we all know in our own experience, that habit is a taskmaster; as long as we obey it, it dc«3 not chastise us; but let us resist, and we find that we are to be lashed with scorpion whips, and bound with ship cable, and thrown into the track of bone-breaking Juggernauts. Daring the War of 1812 tbeer was a ship set en fire just above Niagara Falls, and then, cat loose from its moorings, it came on down through the night and tossed over the falls. It waß said to have been a scene brilliant beyond all description. Well, there are thousands of men on fire, of evil habit, coming down through the raoids and through the awful night of temptation toward the eternal plunge. Ob, how hard it is to arrest them. God only can arrest them. Suppose a man after five, to", or twewty years of’evil doing resolves to do right.’ Why all the foroes of.darkness are allied against him. He cannot sleep nights. He gets down on his knees in the midnight and cries: “God helpme!” Hs bites his lip. He grinds his teeth. He clenches his fist

in a determination to keep his purpose. He dare not look at the hottlse in e wme store. Itis one long, bitter, exhaustive, hand-to-hand fignt with inflamed, tantalising and merciless habit. When he thinka he is entirely tree, the old inclinations pounce upon him like a pack of hounds with their muzzles, tearing away at the flanks of one poor reindeer. In Paris there is asculptnred rej r mentation of Bacchus, the God of Revelry. He is riding on a panther at fall- le«p. Oh! how suggestive.' Let every one who is speeding on had ways understand he not riding a docile and well-broken steed, bat he is riding a monster, wild and bloodthirsty, going at a death leap. How many there are who resolve on a better life, and say: “When shall I awake?” but, seized on by their old habits, $7: “I will try it once more; I will seek it yet again!”'

I have also to say that if a man wants to return from evil practices society re-pul-ea him. Deeiring to reform, he says: “Now I will shake off my old associates, and I will find Christian companionship:” And he appears at the cbnrch door some Sabbath day, and the usher greets faint with as much as to say: “Why, you here? You are the last man I ever expected to see at church! Come, take this seat right down by the door, instead of saying: “Good morning: I am glad you are here. Come; I will give you a first-rate seat, right up by the pulpit.” Well* the prodigal, not yet discouraged, enters a prayermeeting, and some Christian man, with mure zeal than common sense, says: “Glad to see you; the dying thief was saved, and I suppose there is mercy for yon.” The young man, disgusted chilled, throws himself on his dignity, resolved he will never enter into the house of God again. Perhaps not quite fully discouraged about reformation, he aides np by some highly respectable mr he used to know, gorag down the street, and immediately the respectable man has an errand down some other street. Well, the prodigal wishing to return takes some member oi a Christian association by the hand, or tries to. The Christian young man looks at him, looks at the fadedapparel and the marks of dissipaiiou, instead of giving him a warm grip of the hand offers him the tip ends of the long fingers of the left hand, which is equal to striking a man in- the fact! Oh, how few Christian people understand how much force and gospel there is in a good, honest handshaking! Sometimes, when you have felt the need oi encouragement, and some Christian man has taken you heartily bv the haud, have you not felt tnrilling through every fiber of your body, mind and sonl an encouragement that was just what yon needed? You do not know anything at all about this unless you know when a man tries to return from evil courses of conduct he runs against repulsions innumerable. We say of some man, he lives a block or two from the church, or half a mile irem the church. There are people in our crowded cities who live a thousand miles from church. Vast deserts of indifference between them and the house of God. The fact is, we must keep our respectability, though thousands and tens of thousands perish. Christ sat with publicans and sinners. But if there came to the house of God a man with marks of dissipation upon him, people almost threw up their hands in horror, as much cs to say: “Isn’t it shocking?” How these dainty, fastidious Christians in all our churches are going to get into heaven I don’t know, unless they have an especial train of cars, cushioned and upholstered, each one a car to himself. They can not go with the great horde of publicans nnd sinners. 0! ye who curl your lip of scorn at the fallen, I tell you plainly if you had been surrounded by the same influences, instead of sitting to-day amid the cultured, and the refined, and the Christian, you would have been a crouching wretch in stable or ditch, covered with filth and abomination. It is not because you are naturally iny better, but because the mercy of God has protected you. Who are you that, brought up in Christian circles and watched by Christian parentage, vou should be so hard od the fallen? ' ——

I think manjalso areoftenhindered from return by the fact that churches are too anxious about their membership, and too anxious about their denomination, and they rush out when they see a man about to give up his sin and return to .God, And ask him how he is goinj: to be baptized, whether by sprinkling or immersion, and what kind of a church he is going to join. Ohl my friends, it is a Catechisms, and Episcopal Liturgies, and Methodists Lovefeasm, and Baptistries to a man that is coming out of the -d»T.iw«aa,nf,ain.in.tp th&_fiLnTinftg light nf the Gospel. Why, it reminds me of a man drowning in the sea, and a lifeboat pat out for him, and the man in the boat says to the man oat of the boat: “Now, if I get you ashore, are you going to live on my street?” First get ashore, and then talk about the non essentials of religion. Who cares what church he joins, if he only joins Christ and start lor heaven? Oh! you ought to have, my brother, an illuminated face and hearty grip for every one that tries to turn from his evil way. Take hold of the same book with him, though his dissipations shake the book, remembering mat “he that converteth a sinner from the error of his ways shall save a soul from death and hide a multitude of sins.”

Now, I have shewn you these obstacles because I want you to understand I know all the difficulties in the way; but I Rm now to tell you how Hannibal may scale the Alps, and how the shccklee may be unriveted,anJd how the paths of virtue forsaken may be regained. First of all. my brother, throw yourself on God. Go to Him frankly and earnestly, and tell Him these habits yon have, and ask Him if there is any help in all the resonrees of omnipotent love, to give it to you. Do not go with along rigmarole people call prayer, made up qi “ohs” and “aha” and “forever and ever amens!” Go to God and cry for help! help! help! and, if yon can not cry for help, just look and live. I remember in the late war, I was at Antietam, and I went into the hospitals after the tattle, and said-to a man: -“Where are ; ou hart?” He made no answer, but held up his arm, swollen and splintered. I saw where he waa hart. The simple fact is, when a man has a wounded soul, all he has to do is to hold it up before a sympathetic Loid and get it healed. It does not take any long prayer. Just hold up the wound. Then, also, I couniel you, if you want to get back, tcM}ait all yoar bad associations. One unnoly intimacy will fill

your soul with moral distemper. In all tne ages of the Church there has not been an instance where a man kept one evil associate and was reformed. Go home to day, open yonr desk, take out letter paper, stamp and envelope and then write a letter something like this: Then sign yonr name, and send the letter by the first post Give np yonr bad companions or give np heaven. It is not ten bad companions that destroy a man, nor three bad companions, nor two bad companions, but one. What change is there for that young man I saw along the street four or five young men with him, halting in front of a grogshop, urging him to go in, be resisting, violently resisting, until after a while they forc< d him to go in? It was a summer night and the door was left open, and I saw the process. They held him fast, and they put the cap to his lips, and thev forced down the strong drink. What chance is there for Buch a young man?

I counsel yon, also, seek Christian advice. Every Christian man is bound to help yon. If yon find no other human ear willing to listen to your story of struggle, come Jo me and I will by even sympathy of my heart and every prayer, and every toil of my hand stand beside yon in the straggle for reformation; and as I hope to have my bwn sins forgiven and hope to be acquitted at the Judgment Seat of Christ. I will not betray vou. First of all seek God, then seek Christian counsel. Gather up all the energies of body, mind and soul, and, appealing to God for success, declare this day everlasting war against all drinking habits, all gamiDg practices, all houses of sin. Half-and-half work will amount to nothing; it mnst be a Waterloo. Shrink back now and you are lost. Pash on and you are saved.