Part 2

I thought that I never should have any more bad feelings; I expected to rejoice evermore. This state of things continued about three weeks; when at family prayer in the evening I was very much blessed. “Heaven came down my soul to greet, and glory crowned the mercy seat.” I was praising God with a heart overflowing with love, when suddenly my _jaws closed_; I wanted to continue praising God, but could not; my jaws were set together like a steel trap; _they would not open_. I thought it would be some relief if my wife or sister would pray. I tried to turn around to see why they did not, but could not; I was immovably fixed on my knees. I began to wonder _what was the matter_. The devil told me it was a _paralytic_ stroke. I said, “Yes, I guess it is;” then darkness came upon me. I did not feel quite as well after that. The next accusation was I had got a fit of _apoplexy_, to which I said, “Yes, I guess I have;” then darkness spread over me afresh. _He_ said that I was a fit subject for apoplexy, and probably I was very near my end, as they generally died with the third fit. I consented to all he said as true, and before this passed off I was feeling bad, _all through ignorance and unbelief_. I do not know how long I remained in this helpless condition, but when I came out I felt that I had been shocked with a heavy battery. While in this condition I was in full possession of every faculty of the mind, and remember distinctly all that occurred. I was a disbeliever in the power of the Holy Ghost to slay people, notwithstanding I had been accustomed to seeing such things from youth, but really believed it to be mesmerism or excitement. After I came out of this it occurred to me that perhaps what I had just experienced was the power of the Holy Ghost; and if so, I had done wrong. I went immediately to have the matter settled. I told my father that I wanted to be right, and if what I had just passed through was the effect of the Holy Ghost, let it come on me in the same way again. I felt it coming as before; and _he_ that said it was a fit of apoplexy, now said, “Look out, it will kill you.” I sprang to my feet and _cried_ to the Lord to stay his hand. It seemed to me that I could not live under the pressure, under that weight of love that God was letting down into my soul and on my body. I went to bed, but not to sleep. The accuser was after me; he told me that my duty was very plain. “Ever since God converted you, you have been continually asking Him to bless you; it has come very near killing you, and will if you continue in this way; _now_ you must ask God _not_ to bless you.” I very soon learned that these suggestions were from the devil; and that to be the Lord’s entire, to follow the Lamb whithersoever he would lead us, was to place ourselves in direct opposition to the mass of those that profess the religion of Jesus Christ. I began to realize that the religion of Jesus Christ _was peculiar_; unlike the world; and if I saved my soul, I must be peculiar. The question came with force: _Are you willing to be peculiar for God?_ My spirit seemed to be willing, but the flesh rebelled. I thought much of my good name. Now I saw, that to be a _real_ child of God, was to suffer and bear reproach. O, how I writhed in agony. What! to have my good name cast out as evil, _to be misunderstood_, considered as _filth_, rejected of men. Here was _dying_; this was _painful_, to bring all my powers to submit to the will of God. I thought, when I was converted that I had given all to him; but here was something that I did not see at that time. I had commenced a pilgrimage, and had no disposition to go back. I had left _Sodom_, and still the command was ringing in my ears, “_Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain lest thou be consumed_.” As the light was shining upon me, _and the way_, and after much wrestling in prayer, not only my will responded to the will of God, but I could say all through me--

“Lord, obediently I’ll go, Gladly leaving all below.”

After this my peace flowed like a river.

“Jesus all the day long Was my joy and my song.”

I lived in a heavenly atmosphere, far above the common walks of life. Glory to God and the Lamb forever! for a salvation that has _life_ and _peace_ and _joy in the Holy Ghost_, amen! and amen! The fire burns while I write--bless the Lord! I believed that Jesus saved me from _all_ my sins. I did not understand the nature of inbred sin. I had felt nothing but love to God and all mankind. _The roots of old depravity had not yet been disturbed, hence I did not believe they existed._ I was soon to be tested upon this point.

Soon after my conversion I had placed in my hands several works on holiness: Wesley, Wallace, Foster, and Mrs. Palmer. On examining these books I felt that I had got in the _first_ blessing all they claimed for the _second_. I was soon to learn that justification, though clear and positive, _did not remove the roots of bitterness_, the remains of the carnal mind.

About four weeks after my conversion, one cold day in March, I wanted to move a stove of the Clinton air-tight pattern from one room to another with the fire in it, just as we were using it, as it was cold, and the only stove we had up. I laid my plans, and commenced the job in earnest. I succeeded in getting the pipe in position and the stove moved, but now came the tug of war. The pipe would not go together as I expected. I had been feeling remarkably good, but suddenly my feelings underwent a tremendous change; I seemed to be all on fire; and like Mount Vesuvius, just ready to belch forth fire and lava. You ask, dear reader, what was the matter? Why, my pipe would not go together; and besides, I pinched my fingers, the smoke filled my eyes, and yet the pipe would not unite. Again and again I pinched my fingers and smoked my eyes until it seemed to me that I should _burst_ if I did not curse and swear with all my might. I set my jaws together like a steel trap, lest I should give vent to the _smoke_ that raged within. I finished my job, and away I went, to where no eye but God could see me. I fell on my face and cried for mercy. This element in my heart gave me more pain than anything I had ever met with. O, how I loathed myself. I saw clearly the nature of my _disease_. Old depravity was at the bottom of all this difficulty. The tree had been cut down, but the roots were all there.

Dear reader, these roots may not have affected you just as they did me; but if you are not _sanctified wholly_, they are there, in the heart and will, when the hot breath of Apolyon comes upon you, strive for the supremacy. This experience brought clearly to my mind, the doctrine of _sanctification_ as taught by John Wesley. I commenced in earnest the study of the Bible, to learn God’s will in this matter. I found it full of holiness. I saw that it was not only my privilege to be made holy in this life, but a _positive_ command: “_Be ye holy, for I am holy._” My conviction for this blessing was deep, clear, pungent and abiding. O, how my soul cried out after a clean heart. I said that if the religion of Jesus Christ did not take out all sin from the heart, it was a failure.

Blessed be God! I have proved that Jesus Christ can save to the uttermost. In fifty-eight, at a camp-meeting in Bergen, N. Y., I was enabled to give myself fully to God, and to claim Jesus Christ as my full and complete Saviour. O, how I felt the blood washing and cleansing my heart, from all the remains of the carnal mind. When the blessing came I was lost to all surrounding objects; but what communion I had with the Father and with the Son, and with the Holy Ghost. Light shone all through me. I could see every part of my moral being; and O! how clean and pure; _those roots_ were gone. My soul cried out--

“’Tis done, Thou dost this moment save, With full salvation bless, Redemption in Thy blood I have, And spotless love and peace.”

III.

ABOUT MY TOBACCO.

For years prior to my conversion to God, I had firmly believed that “strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” The consecration to be made in order to receive the grace of God and eternal life seemed to me to include every thing: all we think, speak or do. To meet this demand, my business relations had to be given up. I had used tobacco about twelve years; but in making my consecration to God I left this out. It had never occurred to me that it was wicked to use it; in fact, I had never heard or read that it was. I had associated with the Methodists from my youth up, and knew that her preachers, class-leaders and stewards used it; and having an exalted opinion of them, had come to look upon the practice as harmless. And yet it did seem to me that preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ ought to be clean and pure. God the Holy Ghost, let me see, the first time I used it after my conversion, that it was wrong for me to use it. As I put the filthy stuff in my mouth, the Holy Spirit said, “What do you do that for?” This came with such force that I was very much startled. I replied that I used it for the dyspepsia. The Spirit said, “You have no dyspepsia; and if you had, tobacco would not cure it; it rather creates it.”

I then tried to hunt up other reasons for using it, as the Spirit of God continued to press the question, “What do you use it for?” But all my reasons were completely upset by the clear reasoning of conscience and the Holy Ghost. I now perceived that God was trying to teach me the way of life more perfectly. He said, “You have given yourself to me, to be mine entirely.” I said, “Yea, Lord, all is thine.” “Your body is a temple for the Holy Ghost; you are to be temperate in all things; nothing must enter it that defileth; tobacco defileth it. All you possess belongs to God--your money, your time, talents--all are his, and must be used for His glory; hence you cannot spend your money for tobacco.”

A great many ways were pointed out to me in which I could glorify God in a proper use of what He had given to me, instead of an investment worse than useless. Every time that I used it after my conversion, until I wholly abandoned it, this same controversy was kept up. In reading the Bible I found it condemned the practice. I became satisfied that I had got to abandon either the one or the other--my tobacco or Jesus Christ. I could not remain justified and defile myself with it.

Now came the giving up process. I resolved to do it gradually, lest I should be made sick, for the tempter told me that would be the result. I then threw away my box, and carried what tobacco I had down cellar, determined not to use it but three times a day, and thus by a gradual process work a cure. I soon wanted a chew. Down cellar I went and took the weed; it never seemed to taste quite so good before; so self suggested the idea of putting a little in my pocket; I might want a little very much; so I put a little in my pocket; and thus I continued to do until my tobacco was all gone; and instead of carrying it in a box, or in one pocket, I had it in nearly every pocket about me. Oh, how mean I felt when I was brought to a realization of my bondage to such a filthy habit. It had wound its slimy folds about me so long that I seemed to be completely within its power.

But here I resolved to try the strength and power of grace divine. I now determined to be a free man; sink or swim, survive or perish, living or dying, I meant to have the victory over this habit. I got down before God in the dust, told him all about my weakness, and about my miserable habit, and cried, “O Lord, deliver me from this filthy, wicked, intemperate habit, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

Blessed be God, help came. I got the victory. Oh, glory to God and the Lamb forever and ever. Every band was severed; I was free, and blessed be God, I have walked at liberty ever since. I have never had the least desire to use the weed since I was delivered from my bondage to filth. Since then I can sing--

“Now I am from bondage free, Every chain is riven; Jesus makes me free indeed, Just as free as heaven.”

IV.

THE PLAGUE OF NARCOTICS.

A part of this article is from the pen of Dr. Talmage. He said that America had some as bad plagues as those of Egypt, and characterized narcotics as follows:

“In all ages the world has sought out some flower or herb or weed to stimulate, to alleviate, or to compose its griefs. A drink called nepenthe calmed the nerves of Greeks and Egyptians. Theben women knew how to compound it. Nepenthe passed away and next came hasheesh, manufactured from Indian hemp. Whole nations have been stimulated, narcotized, and made imbecile with the use of accursed hasheesh. Visions are conjured up gorgeous and magnificent beyond all description, but it finally drags down body, mind and soul. I knew one of the most brilliant men of this city (Philadelphia) taken captive by this drug. Friends tried in vain to save him. First body gave way, then his mind. He became a raving maniac, blaspheming God into a starless eternity.

OPIUM is the scourge of nations.”

In 1861 we used 109,000 pounds. In 1887 not far from 1,000,000 pounds. At the present--1888--we have, beyond doubt, more than 1,000,000 opium consumers. That is appalling! Don’t think that those are merely barbaric Asiatics.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, after conquering the world, was conquered by opium. There are thousands, more women than men, who are being bound body, mind and soul by this terrific drug. There is a great mystery about some families. You don’t know why they don’t get along. The opium habit is stealthy, deceitful, deathful. You can cure one hundred drunkards where you can cure one opium eater.

Have you just begun to use it for the assuagement of physical distress? I beg of you stop! The pleasures at the start will not pay for the horrors at the end.

MORPHIA is a blessing from God for the relief of pain, but it was never intended to be prolonged for years.

Statistics show that there are opium eaters in this country exceeding a million. With some hydrate of chloral is taking the place of opium.

BARON LIEBIG knows that one chemist in Germany makes half a ton of hydrate of chloral a week. There are multitudes taken down with this drug. _Look out for hydrate of chloral!_ You never heard a sermon against opium, but it seems to me there ought to be ten thousand pulpits turned into a quickening flame, thundering Zion’s warning against this black narcotic.

You all know what botanists describe as NICOTIANA. You know it as the inspiring, elevating, emparadising, nerve-shattering, dyspepsia-breeding, health-destroying tobacco. I shall not be offensively personal on this subject, for you nearly all use it. You say that God made it, and it is good. Yes, it is good to kill moths, to kill ticks on sheep, to strangle all kinds of vermin, to fumigate pestiferous places. You say God created it for some particular use. Yes, so He did henbane, and nux vomica, and copperas, and belladona, and all those poisons.

You say men live to be old who use it. Yes, in the sense that the man lasted well who was pickled. Smokers are turned into smoked livers. You should advise your children to abstain from it, because the whole medical fraternity of the United States and Great Britain pronounced it the cause of wide-spread ill-health. Drs. Agnew, Hamilton, Woodward--the whole medical fraternity, Allopathic, Homeopathic, Hydropathic and Eclectic denounce it. The use of tobacco tends to drunkenness. It creates unnatural thirst. The way that leads down to a drunkard’s grave and a drunkard’s hell is strewn thick with tobacco leaves. _That man is not thoroughly converted who has not only got his heart clean, but got his mouth clean also._

BEN. FRANKLIN said he never saw a well man in the exercise of common sense who would say that tobacco did him any good.

THOMAS JEFFERSON argued against the culture of tobacco.

HORACE GREELEY said: “It is a burning stench.”

DANIEL WEBSTER said: “Let those men who smoke go to the horse shed.”

One reason why there are so many victims to the tobacco habit is because so many ministers smoke and chew. They smoke until they have bronchitis, and then the dear people must send them to Europe. I can name three eminent clergymen who died of cancer in the mouth, an evil caused by their tobacco. There has been many a clergyman whose tombstone was covered up with eulogy, who ought to have had an inscription, “Killed by too much Cavendish.” Some smoke until the room is blue, their spirits are blue, the world is blue. The American clergymen who are indulging in the habit should repent. How can a man preach repentance when he indulges in such a habit. I have known _Presbyteries and General Assemblies and General Synods_ where there was a room set apart for ministers to smoke in.

It is time we had an anti-tobacco reform in the _Presbyterian_, the _Baptist_, and the _Congregational_ churches.”

Thank God there is one church, the FREE METHODIST, that has a pure ministry. _They_ are not defiled by “_narcotics_.” None are received into the Free Methodist Church that use tobacco in any way, in the ministry or laity.

V.

A CALL TO THE MINISTRY.

The Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is a system of instruction. It contemplates the instruction of the ignorant until the whole world shall be enlightened; until the knowledge of Christ shall cover the whole earth as the waters cover the sea. It makes provision for having this instruction perpetuated. God provides for every department of this stupendous work of bringing this wicked world back from her revolt to Christ and God. To this end the ministry were appointed. Under the old dispensation God appointed men to preach and teach. They were termed prophets. They spake as they were moved upon by the Holy Ghost. Enoch was a preacher. He taught the doctrine of a general judgment, the resurrection of the dead, and a just retribution for our conduct in this life.

He taught the duty of repentance of all wrong deeds. He enforced his preaching by a godly life. “He walked with God!” “God spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness.” In these far off ages they were blessed with teachers. Abraham was a preacher of righteousness in his day. Other patriarchs said of him: “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” Samuel, Elijah and Elisha were of that number that taught the people.

The Christian dispensation had in its very beginning teachers appointed directly by divine authority. Take one text among many: Eph. 4:11-13. “And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”

Again: “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

God has ordained that by a holy ministry the Gospel shall be preached, and the world brought back to Christ. Thus far the call to the ministry has been stated by way of preface. God makes choice of His own laborers for this, the grandest of all positions in this life, preaching the Gospel. We cannot take this responsibility upon ourselves, if we do we are simply hirelings, as is the case, we fear, with too many that occupy the sacred desk.

Many, I have no doubt, have been called to the pulpit by their parents. They have looked upon the ministry as an exalted and an honorable position, and have entertained an all-absorbing desire that their boy should preach the Gospel. They may have been pious and devout people, but have made a very common mistake of supposing their desire to be the voice of the Spirit calling their boy to the ministry. In order to meet the obligations of the ministry, what God requires, and what the people demand, the call to this high and holy position _must_ come from God. In these days of compromise and corruption there are too many pulpits, instead of being a light-house erected upon a dangerous coast, to warn the mariner of their imminent danger, giving an uncertain sound.

God’s ministers have all been called into the ministry. They have not taken it upon themselves. It has come to them like an awful night-mare in the still hours of the night; when about their daily cares; sleeping or waking; journeying by land or sea; among friends or foes; whether suffering from poverty or abounding in wealth; woe is me if I preach not the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This will look like a stupendous job, almost like an insurmountable task to the person truly called of God to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. At the same time they will feel, O, how poorly qualified I am for such an undertaking. And the more they look at themselves the greater the burden seems to grow. To be an embassador of the Lord Jesus Christ, chosen of Him, commissioned to treat with a rebel government, those in open rebellion to His divine majesty, is higher honor than was ever bestowed upon any other mortal. The crowned heads of this world might well envy the very smallest man or woman that wears the royal diadem that Christ puts on the brow of His servants. To me, there was always a sacredness connected with the ministry of Christ. From my earliest recollection I have looked upon the minister of God as occupying the very highest position and receiving the highest honor awarded to any of earth’s subjects; and how men thus called, can come down from so high and holy a calling to mingling in the rottenness of the day, is a profound mystery to me, and how men can consent to be put in a semi-nude state, cable-towed, hoodwinked, and then take upon themselves obligations too horrible for humanity, and by those professedly called to be a minister of Christ, to me is certainly incomprehensible.

The Master says, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” When God calls a man to preach it embraces all there is of the individual, with all possible development: mental, moral and physical; so that the man of God will improve every chance of doing good and of getting good, including hard study for the development of the mind; practicing the laws of health for the development of our being for greater efficiency in the Master’s service.

The word of the Lord is: “Study to show thyself approved unto God.” Success comes on this line of action. I believe that the minister should study and write as though the whole thing depended on this for success; and then he should pray as though everything depended on prayer; and when he gets into the pulpit he should trust alone in God the Holy Ghost as though entire success depended on help from above. On this line the stream of salvation will flow into the pulpit and into the pew, and the results will be the salvation of precious souls and the sanctifying of believers. Glory to God. Amen.

We are to glorify Him with our physical powers, as these belong to Him. Hence, we will carefully study ourselves, the laws that govern our own being, eat and drink, labor and rest so as to produce the greatest development for His glory.