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The Golden Age for July 4, 1907.
THL LIGHT OT LITT
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb. Len G. ‘Broughton
“Let your light so shine.” (Matt. 5:16.)
UMANLY speaking, influence is the
greatest force w-e have to meet. Saul
once ordered his messengers to take
David, and when they attempted to do
it, they found the servants of David
prophesying, and Saul’s messengers be
gan to prophesy also. A second order
was given and a second set of men
went to take David, and they turned
J
out the same way. Then a third set was sent, and
they, too, went to prophesying. Now Saul decides
to go himself, and, behold, he goes to prophesying.
This is influence. There is no way of estimating
the power of sanctified influence. There is not a
country on earth that has not in some way felt
the power of Christian influence. There is not a
calling in life that is not better because of Chris
tian influence.
This is just as Jesus intended in the text. “Let
'your light so shine before men, that they may see
your good works, and glorify your Father which
is in Heaven.”
CHURCH CLUBS.
1. This light must shine in the church.
The church doesn't always shine for Jesus. 1 know
plenty of churches that had rather hear a good
anthem by the choir than to save a poor sinner.
I had a good deacon’s wife to say of me once, that
I was too great a crank on “saving sinners.”
Churches too frequently are nothing but social
clubs with the “social” life out. I'd about as
lief seek life among the marble slabs of your
cemetery as spiritual power in some of your
churches.
A church that is afraid of public sentiment or
some man’s money is the devil’s own agency for
hindering Christ Jesus.
We can never hope to lift up the world until
the church itself is lifted up. A church service
should be characterized by interest, enthusiasm and
freedom.
The way church members have of greeting stran
gers is enough to chill an angel. Let the greeting
be a hearty one. Let strangers feel the throb of
sanctified influence when they come into '■your
church, and you'll soon find your church on a boom
and sinners being saved.
2. This light must -shine in business.
A Christian wants to keep before him two rules:
1. I will not engage in any business that is wrong
in itself or its tendency. 2. 1 will not engage in
any right business with wrong methods.
There is no such thing as religion on Sunday,
and business during the week. It is all religion or
no religion.
When a man comes to Christ he has no more
secular life. Everything is then sacred. Our busi
ness is just as much our worship as our prayers.
This is the only way the church can ever impress
the world.
RELIGION IN POLITICS.
3. This light must shine in our politics.
I know many folks don’t like to think of mixing
religion with their politics. They are willing to
mix the devil with politics, but are mighty uneasy
when we talk of getting in a bit of religion.
A Christian can’t help carrying his religion into
his politics. It is a thing that sticks with him
whether or not. It is like measles, the more you
mix the more it spreads.
Politics needs religion. It has been run by the
devil long enough. God wants the dirty thing
sanctified. This can never be done so long as
Christian people put a bushel over their lights
when they go to vote.
Let the church wake up just here. Hell has run
our politics long enough. Let’s enter in for our
Sfenograhically reported for The Golden Age.—Copyright applied for,
rights. Take hold of the reins of government for
Jesus Christ and make laws for Him.
MOTHER’S INFLUENCE.
4. This light must shine in our homes.
Theie is no place where the Christian influence
is needed so much as in the home. It is the great
est institution in this world. It is said when The
seus was going into a fight his sister would tie
a silken cord around his ankle. And when she
found he needed encouragement she would pull the
silken cord. This would nerve the fighter to do
his best. Oh, how many a man has found himself
nerved by the silken cord of a wife’s influence!
How many a boy would have gone forever but for
the pulling of the silken cord of his godly mother’s
influence and prayers! Come, mothers and fathers,
behold your power in Jesus Christ to mold and
shape the destiny of those who cross the threshold
of your home.
Several years ag'o, a mother’s only boy went off
to school. She prayed him to go to church when
ever he heard the church bells ring. The first Sun
day away from home he was going into the woods
with some boys to play cards, and as he went he
heard the church bells; “Stop, boys!” he said,
“My mother is speaking to me —I’ll go to church!”
Oh, it saved the boy!
Shine for Jesus in your home. Never fail. It
is the place of greatest power for God and hu
manity.
IN SOCIAL LIFE.
5. This light must shine in your social life.
Man is a social being. We see Jesus recognizing
this fact in the case of the man of Gadara, who,
when he was healed, clothed and in his right mind,
was told by Jesus to go home to his friends.
The place to do best work for Jesus is with
our friends. By properly observing this fact we
might be able to overturn any wrong customs of
today.
Suppose the Christian young women of this coun
try would resolve to stand out against the theater
the dance, the card, and the punch-bowl, how easy
it would be to put these abominable practices
away.
A young woman in one of my meetings came out
against the theater. She was a woman of great
influence, and the result was the complete overturn
ing of the theater custom among about a hundred
leading young people in the community. Oh, what
an awful responsibility! Christian people, hear me
as I plead for my Lord: “Let your light so shine
before men, that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”
“YOU NEVER PRAYED FOR ME, FATHER!”
Let us not get careless about this. Life is too
uncertain. Whenever I speak" on this line I think
of two experiences related by Mr. Moody. The
first was concerning a man of great wealth. One
day his eldest son had been borne home uncon
scious. They did everything that man could do to
restore him, but in vain. Time passed, and after
terrible suspense he recovered consciousness.
“My son,” the father whispered, “the doctor
tells me you are dying.”
“Oh,” said the boy, “you never prayed for me',
father; won’t you pray for my lost soul now?”
The father wept. It was true he had never
prayed. He was a stranger to God. And in a lit
tle while that soul, unprayed for, passed into its
dark eternity.
The father has since said that he would give
all his wealth if he could call back his boy, only
to offer one short prayer!
“FATHER, DON’T WEEP FOR ME!”
What a contrast is the other father! He, too
had a lovely son, and one day he came home to
find him at the gates of death. His wife was
weeping, and she said:
“Our boy is dying; he has had a change for the
worse. I wish you would go in and see him!”
The father went into the room and placed his
hand upon the brow of his dying boy, and could
feel the cold, damp sweat was gathering there;
the cold, icy hand of Death was feeling for the
cord of life!
“Do you know, my son, that you are dying?”
asked the father.
“Am I? Is this death? Do you really think I
am dying?”
“Yes, my son; your end on earth is near.”
“And will I be with Jesus tonight, father?”
“Yes, you will soon be with the Savior.”
“Father, don’t weep; for when I get there I will
go straight to Jesus and tell Him that you have
been trying all my life, to lead me to Him! ’ ’
H . I?
The Way Our Grandfathers Ebaded
Postage Dues.
Every branch of business has been outstripped
by the government postal service, which, in fifty
years, has become an enormous transporter of writ
ten and printed matter and small packages. Before
ISSO the service was primitive and costly. Let
ter postage was paid on delivery, there being no
stamp system as now, so people were not always
glad to get letters, for fifty-cent pieces were scarce
in most folks’ pockets in those days.
The bulk of the mail matter then went toward
the West, and a curious custom of evading postage
dues arose. This is the way it was managed.
Albany was the great central point for the de
parture of emigrants, situated as it was at the
head of navigation on the Hudson, at the entrance
to the Erie canal, and at the confluence of the
post roads where the stages began their journeys.
Travelers from New England would take letters
destined for the West, and on reaching Albany,
if that was the end of their journey, would stick
them in a rack in the stage office specially con
structed for the purpose. The passengers who
waited the departure of vehicles or boats would
scan this rack and if they observed missives bound
their way would take them as far as their roads
lay together and put them in another similar rack
at some post station. In this way thousands of
letters reached their destination without charge.
The method was not always swift. Sometimes a
letter would be three months on its journey, but
people were then more intent upon economy than
speed in their communications, and it suited their
purpose, anyway. When the railroads began to
make men move faster in travel and business the
volunteer postmen were relieved of their task and
the postal service began its great evolution.—-Ex.
Mr. Amos Boggs had his own ideas of sermons.
When asked his opinion of the learned discourse
given by a clergyman from the city, he stroked
his beard and replied: “If there was anybody
there that calc’lated to find out the road to heaven,
they’d have been a mite disappointed, I reckon,”
he said, slowly; “but, if they wanted to know
how to get from Egypt to Jericho and back, they’d
have found out. It jest depends.”—Exchange.
* >5
A six-year-old lass had been housed most of the
winter with diphtheria. The ugly card in the front
window represented to her imprisoning authority.
As soon as she was well her parents wished to move
to another location. So the afternoon of the day
that she was first able to return to school she
came home to find another great sign—“For rent”
—staring from that front window. The child ran
bi eathlessly to her mother and wailed, with visions
of another “durance vile” before her, “Oh, moth
er, what have I got now?” —Exchange.