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TIME TABLE IN EFFECT DECEMBER :ilst, 1886.
Flag Stations are marked thust
trains south bound—read down. trains north bound—read up.
No. 1. I No. r>. STATIONS. i No. 2. No. fi.c
T 55 am 810 pm Lv Cincinnati Ai (I 46 pm 640 am
10 26 am II 60 pm Lv Lexington 1 Ar 415 pm 40# am
it 85 am! 16 58 pm Lv )unction City Ar 648 pm! 640 am
6 30pm 1 915 am Lv Chattanooga Ar T fit) tim 555 piu
650 pm I 985 am Lv Wnuhatcliie - Lv 780 am 585 pm
t 7 07 pm| +9 55 ain Lv Morgnm ille Lv; +7 05 am +5 15 pin
t 7 65 pm; 10 11 am Lr Trenton Lv hi 45 am 455 pin
t 7 46 pm>lo 86 am Lv Rising Fawn Lv 681 am 487 pm
755 pin, 10 44 amiLv Sulphur Springs Lv 660 am 465 pin
18 66 pm 11 17 pm Lv Valley Head Lv +5 50 am; 855 pin
+8 55 pm 11 55 pm Lv.. Fort Payne Lv! +5 14 am 8 18 pm
to 80 pm 12 48 pm Lv Collingsvillc Lv; 465 any 630 pm
10 31 pm; 6 15 pm Lv Attalia Lv! +3 88 am 165 pm
2 35 pm Lv Sieele Lvj 16 50 pm
■ 2 58pniLv Whitney Lv 1628 pm
11 59 pm 337 pm Lv Springviile Lv 215 am 1148 ir.
12 40 am 423 pm Lv TTussville Lv| 183 am' 11 02 t. m
1 40am 535 pm Lv Birmingham Lv 12 56 am 10 15 i.m
+6 03 pm Lv .Wheeling Lv' +937 am
+6 12pm|Lv Jonesboro Lv| i 9 80 am
+2 46 am 059 pm Lv. Woodstock Lv +1132pm i 851 am
+7 06 pin Lv llibbville ..Lv +8 45 ain
7 15 pm Lv Vance Lv 8 37 am
7 35 pm iLv Coaling Lv 1 8 17 am
7 54 pm Lv Cottondale Lvj 10 47 pm, 8 06 am
347 am 815 pinjLv Tuscaloosa Lv 10 30 pin! 748 am
+8 58 pm Lv ; Carthage Lv t 7 18 am
|9 20 pm Lv Akron Lv ; +9 30 pm! 6 45 am
+5 08 am 952 inn Lv Et'TAW Lv 911 pmj 620 ain
536 am 10 15 pm Lv Boligee Lvl 849 pm 532 am
10 25 pm Lv Miller Lv 840 pm
547 am 10 32pmjLv Kpos Lv 835 pin 514 am
605 uni 10 58pm Lv Livingston Lv 816 pm 453 am
625 am 11 15 pm Lv York Lv; 755 pm 480 ain
+6 40 am 11 33 pmjLv Cuba Lvj +7 38 pm 414 am
+7 02 am 11 55 pm Lv Toonisuba Lvj +7 15 pm 351 am
740 am! 12 30amtAr Meridian Lv 640 pm 315 am
843 am 1 119 am Ar Enterprise Lv, 520 pm 2IS am
300 pm 785 am Ar New Orleans Lvj 10 40 am 800 am
12 sfi am Lv Meridian Ar 2 35 am
5 05 am Ar Jackson Lvl ,10 05 pm
7 80 am Ar Vicksburg Lvj j 7 30 pm
2 40 pm Ar Monroe Lvj |l2 20 pin
6 45 pm Ar Shreveport Lv 8 15 am
7 10 pm Ar Texas and Pacific Junction Lv I 7 50 am
R. CARROLL, General Sup't, Meridian. Miss. A. GRIGGS, Sup't, Birmingham, Ala.
JOHN C. GAULT, H. COLLBKAN, K. K. RYAN,
General Manger. Gen. Ft. and Pass. Agent. Ass't Ft. and Pass. Agent.
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TRENTON. DADE COUNTY GA., FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1887.
“FRAUDS DETECTED.”
Bermon by Rev. T. De Witt Tal
mago, D. D.
How Sin I* Found Out, Either In the
World Around, the World Within, or
the World Beyond—The Only ,
Sate Hiding Place,
Brooklyn, N. Y., Feb. 13 —Dr. Talmage
chose for fcis text to-day tbs twenty-third
verse of the thirty-second chapter of Num
bers: "‘But if ye will not do so, behold, ye
have sinned against the Lord; and be sure
your sin will find you out.” His subject
was: “Frauds Detected.” The sermon is
as follows:
On the snap of Palestine, Reuben and
Gad lie on the east side of Jordan. When
the Israelites, after their forty years’ wan
dering in the wilderness, reached the bor
ders of the promised land, these two tribes
asked leave to settle down there at once.
They also promised to go over Jordan and
help their brethren drive out their enemies.
But Moses was not very sure about them.
He told them that, if they kept their word,
all would be well; and then said: “But if
ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned
against the Lord; and be sure your sin will
find you out.”
What a solemn saying! How it grieves
you! The very sound of the words strikes
terror into us. The sinner skulks, and flees,
and does all that he can to hide himself; but
sin is an avenger or detective on his track.
The detective follows with slow end noise
less steps, but he is sure. He will not be
bribed, he can not be outwitted by the
criminal. He may seize the trembling sin
ner any day, and seize him he shall some
day. Every sinner has at last to say, like
the frightened Ahab: “Hast thou found me,
O, mine enemy!”
There are three worlds in which sin finds
us out—the world around; the world within;
the world beyond.
In the world around sin finds the sin
ner out, for sin is the mother of all shame,
sorrow and suffering. Yet every sinner
fancies that sin will not find him out. Visit
our prisons. I am sure every prisoner
there believed he would not be caught.
He knew that others had been caught, but
he expected good luck, as he calls it. He
was like the silly gambler who is sure
that he will win, lose who may. His sin
was done so cleverly, and in the dark. All
sinners are like these prisoners.
It is amazing in how many ways sin
finds men out. In the year 1800, France
being then at war with England, a Danish
vessel, suspected of being in the French
service, was captured at Kingston, West
Indies. But the charge could not be
proved. The sailors of the war ship Aber
gavenny, then at the same station, were
amusing themselves with catching sharks.
On opening a shark, they found in its maw
a pocket-book containing bills of lading,
which proved that the captured vessel be
longed to the enemy. The captain, when
pursued, had thrown his pocket-book into
the sea, and the shark had devoured it
The captain’s sin found him out through
the maw of the shark, and his ship became
a British prize.
If you read your history you will gather
proofs of my text—millions of them. For
all history echoes the words of Moses, the
first historian; “Besure your sin will find
you out.” All the great writers and poets,
especially of the heathen world, have one
favorite theme. They trace the career of
the successful sinner; he moVes along
fearless, haughty, defying Heaven; but an .
awful form is on his track, with uplifted
hand grasping the sword of justice, and
noiselessly stealing nearer and nearer him,
while he is surer of nothing than this—that
his sin will not find him out. The blow falls
upon him like a thunderbolt from a clear
sky.
These great writers love to bring out
what is called poetic justice. They show
what every page of history proves, that,
with the sinner it is “like for like” and
“measure for measure;'’ the slayer is
slain, the cheater is cheated, the doer is
done, the biter bit, the snarer snared in
his own net.
“ Blood for blood, and blow for blow,
Thou shalt reap as thou didst sow;
Age to age with hoary wisdom
Speakest thus to men.”
I will give you two of the most striking
instances of this I have yet met with. In
1693 Louis XIV., of France, destroyed the
tomb of the Emperors of Spiers by the
hand of an officer named Hentz; and on
the very same day in 1793, exactly one hun
dred years afterward, by one Hentz, the
representative of the people, the tombs of
the French Kings at St. Denis were broken
open, and the ashes of Louis XIV. were
the first scattered to the winds. That was
a case of ironical retribution—that is, a
punishment which seems cruelly to
mock the sinner, by giving him his own
sin back to his owu bosom.
Not many years ago a Mormon Bishop
named Lee was shot on the very spot
where twenty years ago he had massacred
a company of emigrants. As he sat down
on the coffin provided for his body, while
the soldiers were preparing for his execu
tion, his eyes rested on a great cross over
the grave of his victims, with this inscrip
tion: “Vengeance is mine, 1 will repay,
saith the Lord. ”
One of the shortest and most telling ser
mons I ever heard was by a friend who
had charge of a hospital Going round his
wards with him one Sabbath morning vve
came to a young man whose secret sins
had found him out. As the doctor laid bare
his hideous sores—the sight was enough to
sicken you—he said in a slow and solemn
tone: “Be not deceived; God is not
mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap. For”—still uncov
ering and dressing the running sores—“he
that soweth to the flesh shall of his flesh
reap corruption.” The poor man’s face
changed color, his eyeballs grew Jarger,
and I felt as if I had been present at the last
judgment,
“I can not look on one of my children,”
said the father of a large and respectable
family, “without seeing in them the effects
of the sins of my youth.” His sins had
ruined his health and theirs. These are
not pleasant things to say, but you need to
be told them.
The whole Bible is a sermon on my text,
The first sin—the sin of Adam and Eve
how soon it was found out! Cain, was not
he lound out? The very earth cried out
against him and the mark on hta forehead
advertised his crime to all the world. The
sinners in Noah’s day were found put by '
the flood; on Lot’s day, by the destruction
of Sodom, Joseph’s brethren in Egypt,
Aehan and his Babylonish garment*. Go
bazi and his gold, Jonah in the storm,
Hainan hanged on his own gallows, Man
asseh and his blood-shedding, Judas and
his pieces of silver, Anannias and Bap
pbira—all, all found out
Think of the children of Israel in tho
wilderness, under their judges and kings,
at the Babylonish captivjty, at the destruc
tion of Jerusalem, and now scattered over
the earth—their sin ever finding them out;
and every chapter in Revelations reads the
same warning. The world around is like
the glaciers, those vast rivers of ice, that
creep from mountain tops into the Swiss
valleys. Sometimes knapsacks, and even
travelers have fallen down the gaps or
cracks in them, hundreds of feet. But by a
sure law of nature, every article at length
comes to the surface, and is lifted aloft, as
if by hands of snow. So sin somehow is
always moving towards the surface.
The poet Hood, illustrates this point in
his poem called “The Dream of Eugene
Aram.” Aram had murdered a man, and
cast hie body into “a sluggish water, black
as ink, the depth was so extreme.” Next
morning he visited tho spot.
“ And saw the black accursed pool,
With a wild, misgiving eye:
And he saw the dead in the river bed,
For the faithless stream was dry.”
He next covered the corpse with a heap of
leaves, but a mighty wind swept past and
laid the secret bare before the sun.
“Then down I cast me on my face,
And first began to weep,
For X knew my secret then was one
That earth refused to keep;
On land or sea though it should be
Ten thousand fathoms deep.”
In the world within, sin finds us out.
How wonderful is the in every
breast over which conscience reigns. Con
science is the voice of God in the soul; or,
as Paul calls it, “the law of God written in
the heart.” Thus each is ever hearing of
a court of justice in himself.
Some sinners are never found out in the
world around; they are not openly pun
ished; but for all that they don’t escape.
They carry a detective within from whom
they might escape if they could tear out
their very nature. Conscience finds them
out. Any how conscience does worry the
sinner with remorse.
I must tell you what remorse is: A fox
was once caught in a trap, but in the morn
ing only one of his legs was found. The
wise creature when caught concluded that
it would be better to limp back to his den
with three legs, than, having four legs, to
perish in pain. He turned upon his leg and
gnawed it through. The fox teaches you
the exact meaning of remorse; for the word
means to bite backwards, to gnaw one’s
se If.
Bin finds the sinner out when conscience
devours the soul. That heathen New
Zealander understood this, who gave back
a coin that he had stolen from the white
mao, because of the quarreling going on
inuide him, as he said, between the good
man and the bad man. In the newspapers
there is often a notice headed, “ Con
science Money.” People who have cheated
tli-j tax-gatherer afterwards send the
Hk-hey they should have paid him—found
out, not by the tax-gatherer, but by their
own conscience. Many criminals have
given themselves up to the judge because
the prison, and even death itself, was not
so dreadful as and some, like
Judas, have
death did not seem so terrible aAMife tort
ured by a guilty conscience.
Many men have lots of money and fine
houses and splendid health, and yet the
scowl on the brow, the curled lip, the
fierce eye, the joyless face, the bitter
words, show that they are not happy.
Why! Sin has found them out in the
world within, and they will not come to
the Saviour for pardon and peace.
Even the monster, had to fly from
the spot Where he had caused his mother
to*\be murdered. Under the lashes of con
scitnce be fancied that he was haunted by
he'}\ angry ghost, and that he heard the
blowing of a ghostly trumpet, and wailings
over her tomb. He was like the infidel
Lord Lytton, ‘who was sometime s so
frightened that he rushed into the bed
room of a friend in order that he might, in
his company, shield himself from the ter
rors of the spiritual world. At last he had
to forsake his splendid mansion, because it
was too near the grave of one whom he
had ruined. „
The poet Byron confesses how his sin
had found him out. To escape from
thoughts of sifi and self he took to travel
ing, as thousands do; but he felt like the
unresting Cain, for travelers beyond the
seas change their clime but. not their con
science. Memory and conscience break
out like a plague in a ship in which the
prodigal hopes to sail anew from his sin.
It would be a grand mistake to think
that only great sinnors and great sins are
found out by conscience. De Quincy, the
opium eater, tells us what he felt about it.
He saw a mighty phantom, ever growing
more and more colossal, striding after him
in pursuit from forgotten days. One folly
most people would have thought little of
it —one folly at the age of seventeen
haunted him for more than half a-century.
He used often to liken conscience to the
whispering gallery in St. Paul’s, London.
A word whispered ever so gently is loudly
re-echoed at the other. In youth con
science chid him in sullen whispers; in cld ,
age, at the other end of his life gallery, the j
same conscience spoke to him as in peals
of thunder. The still, small voice which
the boy heeded not returned to the old man
like the crack of doom in terrible self-re
proaches.
What an awful discoverer of'-sin your
conscience is I Be sure your sin, whether
it lie great or small, will find you out.
Augustine says that his old sins haunted
him in his dreams. Cowper used tp sit in
the farthest cornerof the room, imagining
that the voice of conscience was loud
enough for every one to hear it. Samuel
Johnson told a friend that the reason be j
often started and spoke to himself in com- I
pany was that he was upbraiding himself
for the sins of his youth. A man whose
outward life was blameless told me that
he once lay at death’s door for a few days.
He remembered his whole past life, or,
rather, he saw it all as in a picture. His
mind was strangely strengthened and en
larged, so that he was able to take in the
whole at once. Little acts done in his
boyhood, such as unkind words and the
stealing of little things from his mother
and sisters, thousands of such deeds
seemed as if done yesterday, and filled him
with a worse pain than that of the body.
How pitiful is the case of the man whose I
sin, unforgiven, finds him out when death i
is knocking at the door. 1 have seen such |
cases, and I pray God that I may never see
the like again. Death comes and the dying j
man net ready, declaring that be has no
hope! But death won’t wait! God grant
that your stn may find you out now, so that
death may find you undismayed.
Bin finds us out in the world • beyond.
Moses does not say when or where our sin
will find-.us out; but he says that it will
surely find us out some time and some
where. Many great sinners are never
found out on earth, especially in foreign
lands where the law is weak; their guilty
secrets r are buried with them in their
graves. In others, conscience has been
slain or silenced, so that they are not
found out in the world within. “But ’tis
not so above.” Many wicked men die
calmly without any fear. Yet sin finds
every sinner out before the great White
Throne.
The wonderful discoveries of science
show us, in many strange and startling
ways, our sins, if not forgiven, may find
us out in the other world. A church in
Italy was so built by accident that It formed
what is palled a whispering gallery. Ouo
or two found out the secret, and when their
neighbors were confessing their sins in a
whisper to the priest they heard all dis
tinctly at the other end. Now, this whole
world may be by design what that church
was by accident, and the sinner’s whisper
on earth may be heard by an ear in Heaven.
Between earth and Heaven there may be
an echo, informing against the sinner.
Again, science proves that every ac
tion leaves a mark that can never be de
stroyed—oceans can’t wash it out. Apart
from pardoning mercy, we shall have to
face an indelible past. You know how
photographs are taken. Well, some dis
coveries suggest that all our deeds may be
photographed in the skies. On the Judg
ment Day the sinner may be, as it were,
ushered into a room, the walls of which
are covered with bright pictures of all his
sins.
A man of science says: “The air is one
vast library, on whose pages are forever
written all man has ever said or woman
whispered.” Then our actions, our every
thought, may be telegraphed to the skies.
The latest discoveries of science may well
make us tremble, for they come very near
proving that our deeds make marks
by which they may be easily found out in
the world to come. But., be that as it may,
God’s word leaves no doubt about tho fact.
We must all appear before the judgment
seat of Christ; and every hidden thing
will then be brought to light. To have sir
finding us out in this world is painful; to
have sin finding us out in the world within
is more painful still; but to have sin find
ing us out in the world to come is the most
terrible of all, for how shall we ever
escape from it there?
Think what a detective sin is! A French
man, who had been sought for in vain by
the King’s spies, was one day at a gay par
ty, when, without a moment’s notice, a de
tective laid his hand on him, and he was a
prisoner. Bo sin m<r*- seize the sinner at
any moment and drag him to judgment.
But you are a sinner; and what do yon
mean to do with sin ? Be sure it will find
you out. And what then ! Be beforehand
with it; find it out yourself; confess it; go
straight to God and the Saviour with it.
In the days of Caesar Augustus, who is
mentioned in the Now Testament, there
lived a great pirate, for whose head a largo
reward was offered. He said to himself:
“I shall soon be caught, now that a hue and
cry has been raised against me; Caesar’s
war ships are scouring the seas, and will
hunt me down.” He disguised himself and
got into Caesar’s presence, and claimed the
for the pirate’s head. “But where
is it?” Caesar asked. “Here it is,” he said,
“I am the pirate.” He threw himself at
Caesar’s feet, implored mercy and offered
to serve in the imperial navy. And he was
pardoned. Be like him, except in one
point. Do not disguise yourself, but tear
off every disguise, and, confessing your
sin, make the name of Jesus your only
plea. Find • out your sin, before it finds
you out. Like the prodigal, inform against
yourself before God.
Sin is on your track like the avenger of old
pursuing the Israelite who had shed blood
unawares. Like that flying man, haste tc
the city of refuge. Do not look toward it,
or hang around the gate, but get fairly in
side without delay. Make Christ youi
hiding place, and you are safe. You cud
never thank God enough for the Saviour.
How dear to our hearts should this grace
be! how welcome His Gospel! Be found
in Him, as Paul says; and then when the
avenger seeks you, he wifi find only Christ,
your surety ami shield. Be sure that be
fore the great White Throne sin will not
find out those who are found in Him.
Better Fall Than Not Try.
Failure is tho next b>st thing to success;
it may even be a better thing than success.
To say that one has failed, is to say that ho
has striven; and to say that he has striven,
is to say that ’se has acquired strength in
the boy who was taunted by
his the class for failing in a
protracted attempt to answer a hard ques
tion, replied: “Well, I would rather try
and fail, than do as you did—sit still and do
nothing.” A child’s perceptions of truth
and a philosopher’s conceptions of truth
often, come very near together; and what
that boy felt George Eliot expresses:
“Failure after long perseverance is much
grander than never to have a striving good
enough to be called a failure.” And the
lesson of that boy’s failure was a better
teaching than any direct teaching from the
text of the lesson itself. It is the part of a
teacher’s wisdom to turn to good account
the lessons of ignorance and failure, us
well as of knowledge and success.— S. S.
Times.
A Profitable Investment.
We know of no way in which a man of
means can do so much good as by invest
ing in young men or women. Suppose
that a wealthy merchant decides to do this,
and asks each of our city missionaries, and
the heads of our State institutions, or the
chaplains, to be on the lookout for young
men or women who long to be somebody
and yet hardly know how to begin, or are
prevented by relatives dependent upon
them. The city, the country, contains a
great many such cases, who might be wise
ly helped and judiciously started on their
upward way; and the benefit to themselves,
to the State, to the world, no man can esti
m ate. —Conyregationa l at.
The first step in debt is like the first step
in falsehood, almost involving the neces
sity of proceeding in the same course, debt
following debt as lie follows lie. Hayden,
the painter, dated his decline from the day
he first borrowed money.— Samuel Smiles.
True eloquence I find to be none but the
Mrious, hearty leve of truth, —Milton,
VOL. IH—NO* 52,
PLtADIN'3 FOR SODOM.
International Sunday-School Lesson for
February 20, 1887.
[Specially arranged trom S. S. Quarterly.}
Gen. 18:23-33; commit verses 23-26.
23. And Abraham drew near and said: Wilt
Thou also destroy the righteous with the
wicked?
21. Peradventure there be fifty rightooua
within the city; wilt Thou also destroy and not
spare the place for the fifty righteous that are
therein?
25. That be far from Thee to do after this
manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked;
and that Ihe righteous sho.uld ..be as the wicked,
that be far from Thee. Shall not the Judge of
all the earth do right?
66. And the Lord said: If I find in Sodom
fifty righteous wjthin the city, then I will spare
all the place for their sakes.
37. And Abraham answered and said: Behold
now. I have taken upon me to speak unto the
Lord, which am but dust and ashes.
28. Peradventure there shall lack five of the
fifty righteous; wilt Thou destroy all the city for
lack of five? And He said: If X find there forty
and five, 1 will not destroy it.
29. And he spake unto Him yet again, and said;
Peradventure there shall be forty found there.
And He said: I will not do it for forty’s sake.
80. And he said unto Him: Oh, let not the
Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure
there shall thirty be found there. And He
said: I will not do it, if I find thirty there.
81. And he said: Behold, now.l have taken upon
me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure
there shall be twenty found there. And He
said: I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake.
32. And he said; Oh let not the Lord be
angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Per
adventuro ten shall he found there. And He
said: I will not destroy it for ten's sake.
33. And the Lord went His way, as soon as He
had left communing with Abraham; and Abra
ham returned unto his place.
Time— B.C. 18117, fifteen years after the
last Jesson.
Place—Hebron about twenty miles south
of Jerusalem.
Abraham— Now ninety-nine years old,
with one child, Ishmael, son of Hagar. ,
Sarah, ninety years old, and still childless.
Progress of Events —1. Birth of Ishmael,
B. C. 1910. 2. Fifth appearance of God to
Abraham, B.C. 1897. 3. Abram’s name (ex
alted father) changed to Abraham ( father of
a multitude). Sarai’s name changed to
Sarah. 4. The covenant of circumcision.
5. Sixth appearance of God to Abraham.
6. The six apoearances are recorded in (1)
Gen. 12:1; (2)'12:7; (3) 13:14; (4) 15:18; (5)
17: 1-8; (6) 18: 1-15.
Introductory— Fifteen years pass away
with few events, save the birth of Abra
ham’s son Ishmael. Then the Lord ap
peared twice within three months, renewed
His promises, changed the names of Abra
ham and Sarah as a token of their fulfill
ment, and established the convenant of
circumcision. The lesson to-day is in con
nection with the second of these two ap
pearances, or the sixth from tho first call
in Ur.
Helps over Hard Places —The heavenly
visitant*: three angels in the form of men
visit Abraham and are welcomed. He was
hospitable, and “entertained angels un
awares” (Heb. 13:2). The threatened punish
ment: God reveals to Abraham His pur
pose of destroying Sodom, where Lot lived.
Sin had borne its fruit, and the wicked few
must be destroyed in order to save the
whole race from corruption. The Inter
cessor: Abraham. He had this privilege on
account of his life of faith and obedience
(v. 19). The prayer of the righteous man
availeth much. Jesus Christ is our inter
cessor. For whom he' interreflex: Lot, who
had selfishly chosen Sodom, and for the
wicked city which hated Abraham and his
religion. 23. Abraham drew near: to the
Lord, who had come in the form of one of
the three men (v. 22). Destroy the righteous
with the wicked: in war, pestilence, earth
quakes, this seems to" be so; but
note (1) that wo do not always know
the full circumstances; (2) God cares
for each individual', and will permit
only what is good for him (Rom. 8 :28);
(3) life is not limited to this world;
Heaven will make all right; (4) often the
righteous are partakers in tho sin, when
they have not done all they could to make
the sinners better. 26. Fifty righteous . . .
I will spare all the place for their sakes: because
so many good would be a holy leaven to
keep the whole from being so wicked; and
saving the others for their sakes would
tend to lead them to repentance.
Subjects for Special Reports— The- in
tervening history. The Angel of the Lord.
Hospitality and its reward. Destruction
on account of* sin. v The prayer of tho
righteous. Interceding for others. Right
eous perishing with the wickei. The
whole city is saved by ten righteous men.
Golden Text —ln wrath remember
mercy.—Hab. 3:2.
Central Truth— The Christian’s desire
and prayer for the salvation of others.
New Testament Light on Old Testa
ment Themes —l. What lesson are
we taught in the New Testament
from Abraham’s entertaining these
strangers! (Heb. 13:2.) What ve
we twice commanded bv Paul to be?
(Rom. 12:13; 1 Tim. 3:2.) 2. What is
said of the prayer of the righteous? (Jas.
5 :16.) Why can only the righteous be ef
fectual intercessors for others? (John 15:
14,15.) Who intercedes for us? (Heb. 7:
22, 25.) What precept of Christ did Abra
ham fulfill? (Matt. 5: 44,45.)
practical suggestions.
1. Be given to hospitality. “Be careful
to entertain strangers, for thereby some
have entertained angels unawares.”
2. The fruit of sin is destruction. The
punishment of the wicked is mercy to the
world.
8. One of the privileges of believers is to
pray for the world, for the worst of men,
for the enemies of God and man.
4. We all need an Intercessor, even Jesus
Christ the righteous.
5. By past answers to prayer we gain
faith and courage to ask larger things.
6. The righteous are the preservers of
the nation. They are the salt, the leaven,
through which the nation will be re
deemed.
7. If the salt have lost its savor, and the
leaven its power, they will perish with the
ungodly.
Divine Tenderness.
We may dwell so much on the duties we
owe to God that we don’t realize as we
should how much we may appeal to and
me Him. There are pious, well-meaning
men, who keep on thinking of God as one
to whom they are bound to render the
routine of devotion, but who never rise
into a perception of the familiar tender
ness wit 4 which He would smooth the
vexauons if h s children if t£ey would
turn to him, the Father, who is in tbeli
at Work.