Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/samjonessermons01jone SAM JONES’ SERMONS. CHICAGO: Rhodes & McClure Publishing Co. 1886. Copyright 1886 BY Rhodes & McClure Publishing Co. * * T HE following pages reveal the secret of Mr. Jones* wonderful success as a revivalist. These sermons have been carefully culled from a large number of Mr. Jones’ best discourses. This book has been printed from special reports ot Mr. Jones’ work. Mr. Jones has been indorsed by pulpit, press, and public. His career is eminently successful. His efforts are rewarded by the conversion of thousands. Sam. Jones, as lie is commonly called, was born in Chambers county, Ala., Oct. 16, 1847. He was brought up, where he resides, in Cartel svilie, Bartow county, Georgia. His relatives have been church-members for many years; four of his uncles were ministers of the gospel. Sam’s father was a lawyer, and gave him the best possible education. His mother was, likewise, very religious. Samuel began legal practice with brilliant prospects. Pie became quite dissipated. His father’s death- bed ex- hortation caused him to reform. Soon after, he married Miss Laura McElwain, of Eminence, Ky., who cheers him yet. He became a traveling preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, in October, 1872. He was suc- cessful in his work. Gradually, he became a traveling evangelist. He met with extraordinary encouragement, and worked in several Southern states. He attracted the attention of Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, who employed him in a grand revival at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Then, after holding meetings, which attracted wide- spread attention, in several Southern cities, Mr. Jones at- tacked Satan at St. Louis. Thence his work branched out. He has engagements for many months ahead. Mr. Jones often uses slang and other uncouth lang- uage to attract attention. He is one of the most sensational preachers in the world, yet his meetings produce intense interest and an immense harvest of converts, most of whom “stick.” Withal, he is indorsed by leading orthodox ministers wherever he goes. Sam. W Small. One of the curiosities of humanity is the history of Sam. Small, the converted journalist. “Moody and San- key’’ are no more inseparable than the “Two Sams.” Mr. Jones’ co-laborer in the Lord’s work was born in Knoxville, Tenn., about 1842. He lived in Georgia and New Orleans in youth. He graduated at a Virginia col- lege, and became a lawyer. Obeying natural impulse, he changed into a journalist. After working on several papers, and marrying a Con- gressman’s daughter, Mr. Small accepted a place on the staff of the Atlanta Constitution , and became official sten- ographer of the Atlanta Superior Court. His writings, as “Old Si,” in the Negro dialect, gave him a national repu- tation as a humorist. After occupying various government clerical positions, and working at the journalistic treadmill, he came to the pivotal point of his life. He took his children, a valise, a clean shirt, and a bot- tle of whisky, and went to Cartersville, to see and hear Sam. Jones. He became converted, and abjured whisky and journalism forever. Sam. Small is a gilt-edged, morocco-covered edition of Sam. Jones. They promise to do a grand and ever in- creasing work. Mr. Small has more polish than Mr. Jones, and is a better speaker. Since Dec. 13, 1884, Mr. Small has done what he could for the advancement of the Re- deemer’s kingdom, and has a brilliant future before him. SAM. SMALL— “Old Si.” The Christian Light 13 The Christian Life 41 The Virtue of Honesty 48 Fighting the Devil 68 Be Not Weary in Well Doing 86 Everyday Religion 108 Walking With Christ 122 H< >w to Lead a Christian Life 148 Exhorting 173 We Need Consecration 183 Conscience — Record — God 185 Prepare for the Life to Come 204 Do Not Delay Repentance 225 Pursue Not Evil 248 It Pays to Be Righteous *. 268 Eternal Damnation .... 290 JONES’ $ n THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. We invite your attention — your prayerful attention — to tlie 16th verse of tlie 5th chapter of the gospel by St. Matthew : Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works? and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. I will read the two preceding verses: 14. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill can not be hid. 15. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. This is the 15th verse: Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a can- dlestick. I have frequently gone into a community, and while there, I have kicked the bushel off a great many men’s lights, and they would fall out with me and say I put their light out. And I didn’t. Their light had gone out over ten years before, when they went and turned that bushel down over it. It went out the minute they turned that bushel over it. Sometimes it is the bushel of neglect. (13) H SAM JONES’ SERMONS. Sometimes it is the bushel of willful transgression. Some- times it is the bushel of avarice. And there are a thousand bushels that will be furnished you at any time you want one to turn down over your light. And at any moment, if you put a bushel over your light — if your light was burning and you have taken and turned a bushel and put over it — you will find your light is out. And don’t be fool- ish enough to think that the man that removed the bushel put your light out. It was the bushel turned down over it that put the light out. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a can- dlestick, that it may give light unto all that are in the house. Now the text: Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. THE EARNESTNESS OF LIFE. Joseph Cook, the Boston Monday lecturer, said on one occasion, “Gentlemen, this universe up to the edge of the tomb is no joke.” And if in this world the realities of the world, the pleasures and enjoyments and friendships and associations of this world up to the edge of the tomb are no joke, then we may rest assured that there is no joke in the tomb and no jokes beyond the tomb. And it is well enough for us, amid the rush and cracking on of life, to stop now and then and listen. There are some voices that may be heard if we would listen. God speaks occa- sionally. I know the roar of commerce and the rush of trade and the whistle of the engine arid the click of the tel- egraph have well nigh drowned out the voice of God, but amid all life’s confusions, on our pilgrimage to the grave, we ought to stop now and then and bend our ears and listen to that voice that never mis^d a human step, nor ever mis- directed a human heart — that ?till small voice that breaks THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 15 the silence from above and hushes the noises of earth, and makes me see who I am and what I am and whither I am bending. And in this verse this morning there is a mes sage for every one of us. I got this verse from the memorable sermon of our Sav- ior. This was a wonderful sermon. I have often thought if I ever get to Heaven I would hunt up some intelligent man who heard this sermon. I would go to him and I would ask him to describe the manner of its delivery, its ef- fect upon the audience, and I would have him give me a description of the face of the Son of God as he uttered these words. We little preachers think we are doing well if we announce a text and play for a few minutes each on our “ firstly 55 and “ secondly ” and u thirdly,” but do you know that in this one sermon the Lord Jesus Christ announces and discusses 120 different propositions. Oh, what a preach- er he was ! I have sometimes thought if he had had a dif- ferent audience he would have preached quite a different sermon; a man walking among men and preaching among men and to men. I often think of the sermon and of the discourse on homiletics delivered by the colored sexton of the First Methodist Church in Memphis. He has been sexton of that church for thirty years and more. He is a pious, consistent, good man. The preachers on one occa- sion, during a revival meeting there, were dk cussing the mode of preaching, and what w r as the most efficient means. THE sexton’s IDEA OF PREACHING. This old colored man jumped up, and, said he, “ Brethren, I have seen for years that mode of preaching. Our pastor don’t put the fodder down low enough. I went to see our preacher in his study a few mornings ago and he had six books o] en before him. I said to him, 6 Brother, if yon i6 SAM JONES' SERMONS. get one sermon out of six books, you are going to put that fodder up where I can’t reach, and where a great many others can’t reach,’ and,” said lie, “ Before God, I have gone into church hungry many a Sunday morning, and left hun- gry, and,” said he, “ Thank God, we have got a preacher now that just puts the fodder down on the ground and every- thing can reach it.” And that’s a fact. Everything can reach a thing when it is on the ground, and as far as I am concerned, I believe it is the Christly way to find a common level and stand on that level to preach to the masses. And if you see me drop down at all while I am here, you may know that I am seeking a level, and that’s all the meaning there is in it at all. If you see my style don’t exactly suit you, and the grammar, and rhetoric and logic is a little butchered, I am just endeavoring to adapt my style to my crowd; don’t forget that, and I’ll find your level before I leave you. (Laughter.) And I want to say before I proceed farther, I will relieve your minds this far : I shall not ask the Centenary Church in St. Louis for a certificate of good behavior while I am here. I am not going to ask you for a certificate of any sort, or a recommendation to Cincinnati, the place to which we next go. In the first place, I don’t think I need a cer- tificate from you all, and in the second place, I don’t know whether your certificate would be worth anything, anyhow. (Laughter.) So I will relieve your minds that far. And we say to you in love and kindness, we don’t want anybody to indorse us, but want every Christian in St. Louis to co- operate with us. You all do the co-operating and God will do the indorsing, and then we will be elected by a large majority. And further, we say : If anything suggests t smile or laughter you can laugh or smde. If anything sug- gests a tear, there is nothing prettier in the house of God THE CHR1STAIN LIGHT. 1 7 than the tear that wouldn’t stain an angel’s cheek running down your face. But understand : There is just as much religion in laughing as in crying. Don’t forget that. AN EXPLODED NOTION. This old idea that when God’s children come together they must be solemn and serious — that’s something that is as big a mistake as the preacher made when he told those sinners in St. Louis that God was mad with every one of them, and was just waiting to catch them in a close place, and was going for them when he got them in a tight fix. Both those mistakes are as big lies as were ever perpetrated upon the face of this earth. Neither one is true. If you feel like laughing, you laugh. If you feel like crying, you cry. But don’t think either one is pious. It is not. One of my children laughs a good deal — laughs a great deal; another one cries. I don’t think either is pious — I don’t that. And if you feel more like laughing than crying, you laugh. As far as solemn looks are concerned, if I had been stealing something, or robbed a widow, or been drunk during the past week, when I came into church on Sunday morning, I would look solemn, because I would know that was the time to look solemn ; but if you have been behav- ing yourself and acting right, you just wear a smile as broad as you please when you come into the presence of God. That is the kind of smile for God’s children to wear when they have done right. That is the way my children, do. When they have been doing well and doing right, they are full of smiles and pleasantry. But just be certain that one of them has been doing wrong, and he comes up mighty solemn, and it is a time to be mighty solemn, too. Whenever you know that you have been doing right you 2 i8 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. can wear a smile in church. But if you have not, you want to be mighty solemn, and I want you to be. Our Savior, as I said, was not only a wonderful preacher, but a pre-eminently practical one. He had something to say to every one, and this message comes to us this morn- ing : Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. Did you ever see such a string of pearls as this text — such a monosyllabic utterance ? Let — your — light — so — shine — before — men — that — they — may — see — your — good— works — and — glorify — your — Father — which — is — in — Heav- en. How, let us take, perhaps, the most important word in this text, and let us analyze it. Let us take the word “ light . 55 THE ANALYSIS OE LIGHT. Light. We know very little what it is as a principle un- less we analyze it. What is light in the sense in which it is used here? We will say, in order that we may be prac- tical, that light, in the sense in which it is used in this text, is a trinity in unity. Its principle is faith in God. Its es- sence is love to God. Its development is obedience to God. How, the plain English of the text is to tell us: “ Let your faith and love and good works so shine, so appear, that others may see them, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven . 55 “ Let your faith , 55 first. And now, let us be consistent with ourselves and consistent with the truth. If “ light 55 is this trinity in unity — faith, love and obedience — then what is the contrast? Darkness. What is that? It is unbelief, enmity, disobedience. How, these are unmixable. You can’t mix either of the ingredients of the one with those of the other. I must THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 19 have faitli and love and obedience on the one hand, if I have light. I shall have the other elements if, instead of light, I have darkness. Now, faith! Faith! Oh, how omnipotent faith is! Faith brings God to me and brings God to my help, and if God be with me and all the world against me, I am in the infinite majority. God is on my side. I believe. I be- lieve. Now, there are people in this country that we call fa- natics — enthusiasts. Now, I say, if this book is true, and I believe this book, am I a fanatic ? If this book is true and I believe this book, am I an enthusiast ? If this book is true, and I believe it, am I mad? Now, you have read a great many strange things that I have done and said, and a great many things that I never did and never said (smiling at the reporters), and if you had to be hanged to-morrow you couldn’t pick out the things I had said or had not. I am not sorry that anything has been said about me at all. The devil does a great deal of advertising for me and does it free. If I had to pay for all the advertising I have got it would break me in three minutes, and he does it gratis. (Laughter.) who is crazy ? But take it for granted that all that has been said, and all that has been reported as having been done and said, is true — am I crazy ? Am I crazy ? If this book is true, and I believe it, I want to be so crazy that I can not keep my mouth shut a single moment. If this book is true, and I believe it, I want to be so crazy that I will work for God and souls just like I was hired by the day to work my way to Heaven. If this book is true, I am not crazy, but Broth- er Tudor has about 300 or 400 members of this church that 20 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. are so crazy that they won’t pray and won’t open their mouths for God; that are so crazy that they won’t do anything. Ah me ! the most deadly fanaticism that ever overshadowed the souhis that which makes a man lock his arms, fold his arms and walk right along down into the fire without quiv- ering a nerve or jerking a muscle. That is the sort of fa- naticism that says: “ Keep cool. Don’t get excited.” That is the sort of fanaticism that breeds stagnation, and Stagna- tion is the last station this side of Damnation. You can’t 2*0 beyond Stagnation without going on to Damnation. And I read a few days ago where an eminent preacher stood up in his pulpit on Sunday morning before a vast congrega- tion, one that packed every pew, and preached against re- ligious sensationalism, and there hadn’t been a drunk or any- thing which made a stir in his church for twenty years. He preached right square against religious sensations and relig- ious fanaticism and there hadn’t been a drunk in his church for twenty years. That is like a poor old fellow pushing up his tombstone lid and sticking his head out and telling all the balance of the tombstones : u Be quiet ! Don’t kick up any row! Keep perfectly still.” (Laughter.) And then, he drops his top slab back and lies down in his grave all right and says : “ I’ll never die until I’m dead.” (Laughter.) THE COMPULSION TO SPEAK. I never will be quiet as long as I have a tongue to talk and lungs to breathe. God help me to believe this book and know this book is true, and then I will let the world judge whether I am crazy or not. I believe, and I tell you when a man believes that book, tie is going to do some mighty strange things in this world. I tell yon when St. Paul believed, and when Luther believed, and when John Wesley believed, and when Melancthon believed, and when THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 21 George Whitfield believed, and when Spurgeon believed, and when Talmage believed, and when Moody believed, you don’t know how things moved round and stirred up, as they said of Paul, “ no small stir.” Do you recollect how, over at Ephesus, he had them stirred up, burning their books on a great bonfire, and causing the mayor and police to send and stop the crowd right there ? And if St. Paul was to preach in St. Louis to-day, he would be telegraphed all over America as the greatest religious fanatic that ever made a crack in this country. I rather like that title, religious fa- natic. It is no reflection on me, but is death to the balance of you; do you see? (Applause.) It is a contrast that' brings the thing out, you see. ^ FAITH ! I BELIEVE ! I BELIEVE ! The man that says “ I believe,” and feels it in his blood and bones, that man is omnipotent. “ I believe.” The apostles talk about the “ certainty of these things,” the 66 infallible signs,” the “ one word of prophesy.” It was “ I believe” that made St. Paul cry out, . “ this one thing I do.” It was u I believe,” that made St. Paul say, “ neither count I my life dear unto me. I count all things but loss.” It was “ I believe ” that made St. Paul say, “ I lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset me.” I throw them aside. If my coat is in the way, off with it. If my hat, off with it. If my shoes, off with them. I will run my way to God, bare- headed, coatless, and shoeless, so I will make my race in safety to my God and peace. And, brother, when a man gets in earnest he believes, and when a man believes, he gets in earnest, some how or other. CHURCH INFIDELITY. When Mr. Moody came back from across the water after 22 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. the greatest revival in Europe, he was met in New York by an American delegation. They said : “ Mr. Moody, we greet you. We glorify God in behalf of these things over in Europe, but, Mr. Moody, you can’t do that over here.” Mr. Moody looked at these Christian men and said : “ If God Almighty will take the infidelity out of the heart of the church in America, we will bring all America to Christ.” And he announced a truth as broad as the depravity of America. “ If God Almighty will take the infidelity outf of the heart of the Church in America, we can bring all America to Christ.” Who cares about Bob Ingersoll’s in- fidelity, or who cares about anybody else’s infidelity ? The difference between the men is that that man in church be_ lieves everything, and won’t do anything, while Bob Inger_ soli is a sort of theoretical infidel, that gets $1,500 a night for being one, and you back here, like a fool, are one for nothing and board yourself. That’s all there is about it, ( Laughter.) Let your light so shine. That is, let your faith so appear. “I believe.” Well, I might stop here and say something on faith, and we will, perhaps, on another’ occasion. Faith is the principle on which omnipotence slumbers. By faith the world was created. By faith all things are. By faith we are saved. By faith we are efficient. Faith. “ I believe.” “ I believe.” While I have faith there is also this other element and principle of love. Love to God and love to man. If a man believes in his cause and believes he is right, the next thing is universal love ; love for God and love for man. THE QUESTION" OF CHARACTER. And we will say another thing. There are two kinds of love. There is love of that which is groveling and low and THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 23 sensual, and there is love of that which is ennobling, inspir- ing, true and beautiful. "Now, what a man loves and what he hates determines his character ^If you will tell me what you love and what you hate, I will tell you what you are and who you are. The difference between the devil, the enemy of all men, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the friend of all men, the great difference that is manifested to us as liv- ing souls, is in what each loves and what each hates. God 4 loves righteousness and hates sin. The devil hates right- eousness and loves sin. What I love and what I hate will determine what I am now and what I will be forever. Now, if I love God there is but one test. Our Savior don’t say, “ Ye shall talk faith and live in sin.” He said, as you and I know, “ If you love me, keep my command- ments.” There is nothing in the book about feeling. We are not running on feeling. The book don’t say “ whoso- ever feels,” but 66 whosoever will ;” not “ whosoever feel- eth,” but “ whosoever believeth.” Recollect that. It doesn’t say “ whosoever feeleth,” but “ whosoever doeth.” There is a great deal of nonsense in this nineteenth century right along on that point. The religion that is here referred to is “ principle,” don’t you see ?. and I never stop to ask whether I have got any feeling or not. If I have got any feeling at all this morning I don’t know where it is. I couldn’t locate it to save my life, but I have before me the undying eternal uncompromising reality of God and the right. And the man that does right when he doesn’t feel like it deserves credit more than the fellow that feels like it. Don’t you see ? THE GREATEST CONQUEROR. Right ! Love ! Oh, Love divine, diffuse thy power and presence with us. The omnipotent principle of the world 24 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. is love. When Alexander the Great wanted to conquer this world he mustered his forces and blood flowed like a river, and poor Alexander when he died was a conquered wretch. When Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to conquer this world he mustered his forces and all Europe was drenched in blood, and Napoleon died a defeated wretch on the island of St. Helena. But when Jesus Christ wanted to conquer the earth he looked at it and loved it and walked upon Calvary and laid down and died for it, and Christ has well nigh conquered this world. Napoleon said : “ Alex- ander, Charlemagne and myself founded our kingdoms on force, and they have crumbled under our feet; ” but Jesus Christ founded his kingdom on love, and to-day millions of men would die for him. Love ! One fellow said to me once, “ Brother Jones, my great trouble is I can’t love my neighbor as myself. I have tried my best and I can’t do it.” I told him, “ Well, I don’t have any trouble with that.” He says, “ How did you manage to do it ? ” I said, u I got a good square look at myself sixteen years ago, and I have thought more of every nigger I met since than I do of myself. I am getting along first rate, and if you get an honest, square and sincere look at yourself in the mirror of love, you won’t be at all mashed on yourself after that. That’s the truth about it. (Laugh- ter.) That cured me.” LOVE VS. CONSCIENCE. Love! If we love ourselves and love humanity, we’ll do something for humanity. Love. Why conscience will make a man come along by that poor wounded creature and make us pick him up and put him on our beast and take him to the inn and pay a night’s lodging for the poor wounded fellow. Conscience will make us do that, but love THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 25 will make 11s pick him up and carry him to the inn and pay his night’s lodging, and leave enough of money to pay his bill until he is well, and tell the innkeeper to write us a note, and if there is anything Jacking we’ll give it all. Conscience whips a fellow up a great deal in this life, but love beats him, and love is an inspiration to him^and love don’t say, “ How little can I get off with ? ” but, “ How much can I do ? ” Love ! Love ! Love ! Love is the wheels under a fellow on which he rolls. The difference between a locomotive and a stationary engine is, one has got wheels under it and the other has not. The difference between that engine out here in the piney woods of Georgia sawing lumber and that mighty engine that drove us here yester- day, sometimes at the rate of fifty miles an hour, is, one has wheels under it and the other has not. The man who has love, who is prompted by the love which is omnipotent, has wheels under him and he rolls grandly along. Love ! Love ! Most of us, though, are dropping back hurriedly on the old song : Of all the folks I e\ hr saw, I love myself the best. There’s a good deal in that — practically, I mean. THE VICE OF SELFISHNESS. I am sorry for any man in this world that has a great big two hundred pounds avoirdupois case of selfishness to take care of. I’d rather try to run a miracle than try to run a great, big, concentrated lump of selfishness. “ I want the best house in town; I want the best seat in church, and I want the best of everything; it is myself and my wife and my son John, and us four and no more.” (Laughter.) It is, “God has just put us in the world, and we want every- thing in it. It is nominative I, possessive mine and objective 26 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. me. I don’t know that I ever had any grammar beyond that.” I have heard many an old fellow get np in a class-meet- ing and talk, and he would confess a thousand things, but I have never heard of a man getting up in meeting any- where and confessing that he was selfish or avaricious.* Did you ? (Laughter.) I never have yet. That is a sort of a disease a fellow does not know he’s got until it kills him. (Laughter.) That’s the truth of it. Selfish! Love is per- fectly unselfish. Faith in God and in the right, and a love for humanity, and then it has developed his obedience to God. Obedience! I speak of faith. Just now there is a great deal of this sort of faith around in the world — going around with the mouth open and both hands up this way. “ O, Lord, give me something! give me something! give me something.” (Laughter.) “ Well,whatdoyou want?” “Don’t know; just want something!” (Laughter.) And just about sense — religious sense — enough to keep out of the asylum. “ Just want something ! ” Look a here! The Bible repre- sents God as my father and me as his child. I am a father. I have my loved ones at my home that look up to me and lean upon me, but, as God is my judge, if every time my children came around me they were everlastingly begging and whining for something, I’d never w^ant to see them again as long as I lived (laughter), and none of you ever went within a mile of the Almighty in your life without: “ Give me something ! ” (Renewed laughter.) A BEGGING SORT OF RELIGION. That’s mighty straight doctrine. That — and some of you know it — just knocks your cake to dough, don’t it? (Re- newed laughter.) Why, sir, if you break up that idea (turn- THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 2 7 ing to Dr. Tudor), you’ll ruin half of your number, brother, out there, for that’s all there is among them, the “ give-me- something” sort. “ Give me something.” “ What do you want ? ” “I don’t know — something.” More grace, I reckon. How a fellow feels when he wants for more grace. You are in grace up to your chin every day, and what you want is to use the grace you have already got. Well, I want to pray this prayer once : “ Lord God ! give me a clean heart and a right spirit and an'upright life. God, give me the things I need.” And when I pray that prayer once, then that is enough. And then I will tell you what sort of faith I want after that. It is the faith of the missioner ; it is the faith of consecration ; it is the faith of meditation; that is the sort. In Lexington, Ky., in the High-bridge camp meeting in 'Kentucky, after preaching three or four days, we had a talking meeting. THE KENTUCKY PASTOR’S REGRET. One morning the pastor of the Lexington church stood up in the talking meeting, and said : “ Brethren, I feel like I ought to be in sackcloth and ashes. I am ashamed of myself” — a grand man he was, too; a true man. Said he, “I will tell you, when I look hack twenty years ago or more, I see how my love for the Southern Confederacy and for the Southern cause marched me out in the ranks of Gen. Lee in Virginia, and my love for the Southern Confederacy, and my consecration and my loyalty to the Southern Confed- eracy, marched me many a day barefooted ; I slept out many a night in the snow and mud, and I had many a day without anything to eat ; I bared this breast to ten thousand bullets, and all for the Confederacy ; and I have been a minister for twenty years and I have never marched barefooted for God. I have never slept out a night for God. I have never gone 28 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. hungry a single meal ; and to-day I renew my allegiance to God, and I mean to march for him or to die for him, or to bear the load for him!” Oh, Lord Jesus Christ! give us that sort of religion ! Dr. Tudor. — Amen. Brother Jones. — This nasty sort of “ Give me some- thing ! ” I despise it. I have got a contempt for you, and God Almighty has, too, in my candid judgment. PRAYING FOR DAILY BREAD. I tell you the sort of faith I like. Here is a fellow pray- ing for bread; got a hoe in his hand hoeing around that stalk of corn. Has that fellow got any faith? Yes, sir. By faith he sees an ear of corn that long (indicating) on that stalk. (Laughter.) Pray “give me this day my daily bread ” at the end of a lioe-handle with a good sized hoe on it. (Laughter.) That is a good prayer. This way we’ve got of doing all our praying with our tongues — that is the biggest mistake you ever did make. Every Wednesday night for sixteen years there have been meetings here pray- ing, “ Lord, give me something.” How, what have you got? You’ve got a city — you have got a city that is abso- lutely steeped in guilt and iniquity, and they’ve got the churches in this city backed up in a corner like a lot of lit- tle children with a snake out on the floor, afraid to move. That is the way you are with your churches here in this town. You are afraid the devil will jump on you and clean you out. (Laughter.) While I am here in St. Louis, God Almighty helping me, I’ll give this old town an airing be- fore I leave her. (Loud laughter.) You need not doubt that. St. Louis as a city don’t care what Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians or anybody else think. Now, ain’t that so ? “ We’ll drink our beer on Sunday and dese- THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 2 9 crate the Sabbath, and run our lewd houses and stick them right up by the side of your church, and we’ll debauch and damn this town, and we dare you Christian churches or church members to open your mouth!” Ain’t that so? Well, they have got one little man here now they can’t fight. (Laughter.) You can put that down. Now, all the decent people ought to be out of town during the airing, but its going to be odoriferous. You can put that down. (Re- newed laughter.) RELIGION WITH A BACKBONE. Obedience ! A faith that works by love and that obeys the law of God Almighty. Obey God ! That is what we want. I’d rather be right and I’d rather do right than to be king. That is the way to talk it! If the Lord God frowns upon me, what are the smiles of this world, and the fawnings of this world, and the wealth of this world if God’s frown blights the whole and lights upon all earthly things ? Yanity of vanity ! and all is vexation of spirit ! But let the cannon boom and the musket rattle, and let the earth frown and the earth fight, good Lord, let thy smile rest upon me and show thy face and all is bright. Good Lord, give us a strong, sinewy > muscular religion ! This little, effeminate, weak, sentimental, sickly, singing and begging sort ! My Lord God, give us a religion with vim and muscle and back- bone and power and bravery ! A great many people think that Christianity is just a little liot-bed of effeminity — fel- lows crying “ Peace ! peace ! peace ! ” God says first pure and then peaceable ; and if you can not have peace only at* the expense of purity, you better be in a war. Going about crying “Peace ! peace ! ” when there is no peace, and hell with all its guns turned loose upon us, and our children fall, ing by the thousands and going to destruction, and we wring- 30 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. ing our hands and saying, “ Lord, send ns peace ! ” And they don’t believe in anything but u peace.” You pusil- lanimous wretch, you, you ain’t fit to live. (Laughter.) LANGUAGE FOR THE OCCASION. I use sometimes strong words, but I will tell you, you may know I am trying to reach the case. Don’t you get excited now, and think things are going to pieces. I tell you that you may save your feelings and your condignity for other occasions. I am just touching along in high places this morning. I haven’t got anywhere yet. (Laughter.) Obedience ! Obedience ! Obedience is better than sacrifice. I will tell you another thing: more and more this world is reaching to attain every day. It does not ask what church a man belongs to. It asks, “Are you honest? do you tell the truth? do you love your religion?” They don’t ask what sort of a profession he has made, but they ask now, “ Has he a good character?” I like that. That is coming down to facts. Obedience! An obedience that marches out to the front, and marches with the battle cry of “ Victory or death ! ” An obedience that dares to go, and dares to suffer, and dares to do. That is what we want. Now, let your faith and love and obedience so shine among men — so shine. Ah, me! how this world gropes in darkness to-day ! And I will tell you how the Church reminds me in its movement through the world to-day of one of these night freight trains — did you ever see one? — out on the road, the head- light gathering the rays of the lamp and pitching them all in front of the train, and they get a little light blue or red lamp on the rear car, and leave all in the rear in darkness. The Church does just about the same thing. They put a headlight to throw light ahead and leave a little colored light for sinners to travel by. Every Church is looking out THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 31 for themselves, and every light they get they throw it on their own pathway, and away back in the rear of the Chnrcli they get a little lantern, and leave the world groping in darkness. Oh, God, help ns to undo those things; and, if we have to grope in darkness, God help ns to throw what light we have back on this benighted world. Light! Light ! AN EXPRESSIVE “ SO .’ 5 Let your light so shine. Frequently, when our Savior was talking, when he was speaking, did he seem to ransack our language for an adjec- tive or a descriptive for what he wanted to say ? He found nothing of the kind to suit, and he would throw off an ad- verb like this “so . 55 When he wanted to tell us how God loved the world, he threw all this descriptive aside, and said “ God so loved the world , 55 and when he wanted to tell us to let our light shine he said “Let your light ^<9 shine 55 that those behind you may see their way to God. I saw this illustrated one dark night at a church in Geor- gia. After service we walked out and the darkness could almost be felt, so dense it was, and a gentleman directly came out of the church with one of those large reflecting lanterns, and when he turned the lantern in front of him everybody in front could see, just like it was daylight, and everybody in the rear was in darkness, and when he turned his lantern around everybody in the rear could see perfect- ly, and every one in front was groping in darkness. When he turned his lantern that way he let his light so shine that those in front could see their way, and when he turned his lantern this way he let his light so shine that those in the rear could see their way. And God says to the Church, “ Gather all the rays of the world and reflect it back on this 32 SAM JONES* SERMONS. benighted world and show them the way to God . 55 That is what we want. PLACES WHERE LIGHTS WILL NOT BURN Let your light so shine * * *. No man lighteth a candle and put- teth it under a bushel, but on a candlestick. There are some places where physical light won’t reflect at all. I recollect once my father had two Irishmen to dig a well, and they got it about fifty or sixty feet deep, and he paid them upon a Saturday, and, like most of the Pad- dies then — the well-digging Paddies — they went on a spree, and they were on a spree away into the week, and when they came back they asked my mother for a candle, and I said, “’Well, Paddy is not sober enough yet, he wants a candle to dig the well with . 55 He* went up to the well and he got a rope and tied the candle to the end of the rope, and he let it down into the well, and it got down deeper and deeper, and the light flickered and it went out, and Paddy said, “ Mike, it is dangerous to go down there, there is gas in the well , 55 and they got some pine tops and tied them together and let them up and down, and the light burned freely to the bottom, and he said, “ It’s all right, now . 55 I tell you to keep your lamps trimmed. There are some places in this world where your light won’t burn, and I’ll tell you the best thing in the world is to get your preacher and your Bible, and put them down ahead of you, and see how they will look down there. You try your light in a ball-room, for instance. Go into a ball-room with your Christian light. It will go out. It won’t burn there. See that Methodist dodging into a bar-room with his light. I don’t care how bright it was burning when you went in ; it is out when you come out. Red liquor and Christianity THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 33 won’t stay in the same hide at the same time. (Laughter.) Go into a theater, and come back, and look at your light. That is it. A QUESTION OF SENSE AND RESPONSIBILITY. Oh, my! When I was pastor, whenever I saw anything that was putting the light out in my church, or damaging the spirituality of my church, I turned all the guns of heaven loose, and if Dr. Tudor has dancing, theater-going, godless members, it is his own fault, and God will hold him responsible for it. I would not have that sort of cattle in my church forty-eight hours. (Laughter.) That is a Scrip- tural term, cattle is ; don’t forget that. God says some of you ain’t as good as cattle. God says : “ The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib.” But you won’t consider. You ain’t got sense enough to keep away from a bar-room or a theater. God tells you you ought to swap places with the ox (laughter) and eat a little hay. Let your light so shine. I tell you, brother, sister, the next time you start to the ball-room, you put your preacher in there, and get him a partner, and see how he will look in there dancing. Put the Lord Jesus Christ by you in a theater, and see how he looks at certain things said in that theater ; and there are Methodists in this house, and members in all the churches, that patronize those places, and if they were to go into your parlor the next day, and say the things they heard there the night before, you would kick them over your front gate — wouldn’t you? (Laughter.) Somehow or another the fool Methodist thinks he ain’t doing any harm if he is paying for it. If he pays seventy-five cents to go in, there is no harm, but if a fellow was to come to his house and say that for nothing, he would kickhim out. (Laughter.) 3 34 SAM JONES* SERMONS. A MORTGAGED NOSE. Let your light so shine before men. And there are women in St. Louis that will go and hear things in the theater whose tendencies are the most vulgar of the vulgar, and she will be tickled all over, and she will come to the church, and she will have her poor little nerves all shocked to pieces at something Sam Jones says, and she will turn up her nose at me, and I can always tell when the devil has got a mortgage on a woman’s nose. It is always turning up. (Loud laughter and applause.) And he is going to foreclose it some of these days, too, sister, and he will get the gal when he gets the nose. (Renewed laughter.) I am glad to see that there is some response out of you all. I can tolerate anything but a dead church. You all can laugh, and that show^s you are not dead, to say the least. I want to get your hide loosened up. Sometimes the curry- comb is worth more than the corn in a hide-bound church, to loo'sen them up, and to let them go. (Laughter.) Dr. Tudor. — Amen. Brother Jones. — Brother Tudor says, “ Amen.” He knows what he is talking about. (Renewed laughter.) Take an old hide-bound ox out in Texas in March, and you can catch hold of his hide upon his back, and you can pull, and it will make him hop like a monkey, and he will not grow until you loosen him up. We need loosening up. I am glad to see you got some response in you. I like folks that have got some laugh in them. There is nothing to be done with a dead crowd. AN ACTIVE SPIRIT ! Oh, my ! how we lack that in this city ! I’ll tell you. Pull hard, one heart with another, catching fire. See those THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 35 jets along the streets — those lamps. The lamp lighter goes .from one of them to another, and then to another, and on and on, until at last ray meets ray and light meets light and the whole city is lighted up. Brother, let us get our hearts on fire and let it leap heart to heart and home to home, until the whole city is afire with the love of the spir- it of God. We said this light is an active principle ; it will put us to work. A few hours ago this world was asleep ; it was dark. Oh, how the world sleeps when it is dark. Darkness is the emblem of inactivity, sleepiness and death ; light is the active principle. Now, a few hours ago the oxen were lying down peaceably and asleep, the birds perched on the limbs of the trees and all humanity asleep. Now God wants to wake up this world and put it in motion. What will he do ? Go over there on the hillside and strike that old ox on the head ? And will he come over here and shake the boughs to wake up those birds ? And will he go to my front door and knock to wake me up ? No, sir ! When God wants to wake this world up, he just lets the sun peep over the hills and now we see the birds singing, and the oxen feeding and humanity going on in a driving roar and rush. And when God shall turn the light of his spirit loose upon us in this town, you will see activity and all things moving up. It’s darkness and death that surrounds us. That is the trouble. A DEVELOPING PRINCIPLE, bet your light so shine,. An active principle to put us to work, and it is not only an active principle, but it is a developing principle. Oh, my! when light and labor bear in upon the right together, how there is development, development, growth, growth ! And I will tell you another thing : It is grow or die. 36 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. There is no alternative but that. It is grow or die, and the only way I can grow is to work. It is work or die ! How many Christian people in this community, if you were to get them to write out the history of their lives, of all they have done for Christ in ten years, members of your church, perhaps, would be ashamed to write it, and in disgust would drop down on their knees. “ What have I done ? ” Work — the developing principle. A great many in this world say, “Well, what can I do? What can I do? 55 Well, brothers, some time ago at Chattanooga, I was going out on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and I walked around the great engine that was going to pull us out in a* few minutes, and as I did so I saw the engineer jump off his engine with one of those long-necked oil cans in his hand to oil the machinery, first one part and then another. I saw him oil the driving wheel, the piston rod, the rock-around and the steam chest. I saw him going from one piece of ma- chinery to the other, and I thought this way : “ W ell, if I was any part of that grand engine, I’d like to be the driv- ing wheel ; there is the secret of the great speed. If I could not be the driving wheel, I’d like to be the truck and roll ahead of all the rest ; and if I could not be that, I’d like to be the steam chest, where the power is located,” and I noticed every part of that machinery got oil out of the same can, whether it be the big piece or little ; and I want to tell you to-day out of God’s great reservoir of grace, wdiether you be a big worker or a little worker, you get oil out of the same can, and I want the spirit of consecration to pos- sess your church, Brother Tudor. Dr. Tudor — Amen ! THE NECESSITY FOR FUEL. Brother Jones. — In Georgia we got a little Methodist THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT. 37 minister. He ain’t any bigger than I am. There is only one trouble with him, that he is parsimonious ; he is very stingy. With that exception he is a grand man. He is worth $20,000, and we can’t get but $1,500 a year out of him for God and religion, but with the exception of that one thing of stinginess, he is a grand man. He is worth $20,000, and he won’t give but $1,500 every year for the cause of God. You have got one Methodist in St. Louis — you may have a thousand — but you have got one Metho- dist in St. Louis that is an honor to God and a blessing to this city. I say you may have a thousand, but I say you have got one. I heard of him before I got here. I heard of him afar off. Well, we had a talking meeting in Trinity Church — I started on an engine, the different parts of the engine, the great engineering of the church, its various machinery — and one fellow got up. Said he, “ Brethren, I’d like to be the boiler of the great engine, ' where the power is generated.” Another said, “ I’d like to be the cow catcher, the fender, and keep the way clear.” An- other said he would like to be the headlight and throw his rays ahead, and another said he would like to be the whistle and sound the praise of God all over , the country, and another said he would like to be the cab to protect the engineer. And so on they went, and directly this little Methodist got up. Said he, “Brethren, I am perfectly willing to be the old, black coal they pitch into the furnace to burn up and carry us on to glory.” If we had some of that sort that are willing to be the old, black coal which shall burn out and generate heat. We decrease, but God increases. Oh, God! if necessary to pull this train to Heaven, let me be the coal and let me be consumed to save the city, whether we are consumed or not. ( Amen.) 33 SAM JONES’ SERMONS VERY MUCH IN EARNEST. Brethren, I have been just as serious in this service as you would permit me. You got about what you came for, and you will always get that. Going to church is like go- ing shopping. A sister goes into this magnificent dry goods store ; there is $200,000 worth of goods in it, but she buys her paper of pins and goes out. That’s all she came for — just a paper of pins. And you know it is a good deal that w~ay about going to church : we get what we come for. You all kuow that. I have said just what you have expected me to say — that is all. That is all I aimed to do — to give you what you came for. I al- ways throw a few bones without any meat on, and in as large a crowd as this there are always some dogs that want a few bones. I throw them a few bones on purpose for them to gnaw and growl at. They will growl, you know, and when you hear any one growl let him alone, yon know it is a dog (laughter), and just let him growl. That is my doctrine. And if you see one fellow running and hollering, you know that is a hit dog. Let him alone, for if he is not hit, what is he hollering for ? That is the point with me, and we just go on our way. Some of you would not preach like I do ; you have got your ways and methods, but I tell you I am wfilling to swap fishing tackle with any fellow whose string of fish is bigger than mine, but I want to see the string of fish before I swap tackle with him. (Laughter.) One preacher told me he got down on his knees one evening and prayed to Heaven, to God Almighty, to straighten out Brother Joues and to change him in a few things, and that he would be a good preacher if that could be done. He prayed until about sundown and got off his THE CHRIS I IAN LIGHT. 39 knees, and the Lord seemed to say to him, “ Well, I heard yon praying for Jones, and if I was to take all those things away from him he would be no more account than you are.” ( Loud laughter.) He said it liked to scare him to death, and he has never prayed on that line since. TRADING FISHING TACKLE. And when any of you all have a bigger string of fish be- hind your fishing tackle, I will trade with any fellow, but until you find more fish I will not trade. You come in and help me and God will bless the work and we’ll all rejoice together and bring our fish home together. May the Lord encourage you to-day to do great things. Something tells me we will take in thousands of souls during these meet- ings. You may say, “Well, it don’t look like there can be anything done.” Well, brother, that old ram’s horn was a peculiar thing to tear down a wall with, wasn’t it ? But, sir, it did it. And that is what we can hope to do. We’ll do it. Let us take these things and let us not think what part and lot we have got in these, and talk about others. If you are against me, talk the more. I’d as soon you would throw mud at me as to praise me. I don’t want any one to do that. Just say as much against me as for me, and if you hear any one down town bark, let him bark. So come back this afternoon. At 2:30 Brother Small will preach, and to-night, the Lord willing, I will preach again, and three times straight along every day — at 10:30, 2:30 and 7:30. I am very much in earnest. MUST HAVE CO-OPERATION. I have no time to throw away. If you want me and are willing to work, I am your man, God heljiing me ; but to- morrow morning, if you are not here at 10:30 o’clock, I will not be here to-morrow night. There is a train goes 40 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. away, yon know, in the evening just before the meeting. If you ain’t here to-morrow morning at 10:30 o’clock, and you meet anybody to-morrow evening, and they ask you was you here, and you say no, and they ask you why, don’t you tell ’em no lie. You tell ’em because you didn’t want to come. Because I can take a thousand one hundred dollar bills every morning and fill this church up and give every fellow a hundred dollars that will come. That will fill up every seat here, and every street for a mile around, if they’ll get a hundred dollars. If you come for one hundred dollars you ought to come for the salvation of souls. I am in ear- nest. Trust in God, give him all the glory ; want to see a gracious meeting here, believe me, we will. The sooner we take hold the better. The time is short, and may God Almighty inspire us to great faith and great works. We will receive the benediction. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 41 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. We invite your prayerful attention to these words from the second chapter of St. Paul’s epistle to Titus, and the 11th and 12th verses. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world. REDEEMED BY THE DIVINE BLOOD. “We are not redeemed,” said the apostle, “ by corruptible things, such as gold and silver, but by the precious blood of the Son of God.” When that precious blood came gushing from his side, the recording angel dipped his pen in that blood and in Heaven’s chancery wrote on mercy’s page : “ Peace on earth and good will to men.” The grace of God that bringeth salvation, not the grace of God that makes me feel that I am a sinner ; not the grace of God that saves me from sin, but the grace of God that bringeth “ salvation” in all of its incomprehensible sense, hath unto all men ap- peared. I am so glad that I can put my eyes on this book, and lay my hand on my heart and say, I believe that Jesus died for me personally ; that he died for my precious wife ; that he died for each one of my children. He died, not for me only, but for you and your wife and children, and your children’s children to all generations. Oh, I am so glad this work is reaching a right conclusion ; that God is not mad with anybody ; that he loves the bad man as well as the best man. I am so glad the pulpit has got where it can look up to God, who is the author of pulpits, and say, “ Jesus Christ tasted death for every man.” Oh, what a truth ! God not only wills the salvation of all man- 42 SAM JONES' SERMONS. kind, but lie lias provided for the salvation of each in- dividual. I believe if it were possible to find one immortal soul for whom Jesus did not die, that Jesus would leave Heaven, come back and suffer again on Calvary for that one immortal soul. No man was ever doomed to death and Hell that did not have a good chance to get to Heaven, and about all any man can claim is one good chance to get to Heaven. A refusal to accept that chance ought to bring eternal dam- nation. A great many men think that about all religion is for is to prepare them in]some mysterious way for a happy death and a home by and by in Heaven ; and really we have wasted about nine tenths of our time thinking of a home over yonder in the promised land. I have quit thinking about a heaven over yonder. I want it here in Missouri. It is like preaching everlastingly for heavenly recogni- tion. I tell them that I want earthly recognition. I want to be recognized here. When I get to Heaven and have a crown on my head, and a harp in my hand, and am a heavenly millionaire, you need not recognize me. I do not want it then. (Laughter.) I want earthly recogni. tion ; I want heaven here ; I want to shun hell in St. Louis, although there is a good deal of it to the square inch here. (Renewed laughter.) Let us quit this everlasting harping about heaven and hell hereafter. Let us talk about heaven and hell down here in our midst, for I declare that no man will ever go to Lleaven until by some means he manufac- tures him a little heaven to go to Heaven in ; and no man will ever go to Hell until he generates enough brimstone to go with. (Laughter.) THE TRANSFORMATION. Some talk about angels carrying souls to Heaven. When a soul goes to Heaven it outstrips the speed of angels’ THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 43 wings ; but there are some of you who would never get to Heaven unless some angel band should take you there. (Laughter.) To get to Heaven you have got to turn or back up on the golden gates. There is no doubt about that. There is too much heart religion in this world. It is gen- erally locked in the heart and never seen upon the surface. Religion is as much a thing of the head, of the foot, of the tongue and of the brain as it is of the heart. If I could only have religion in one place I would have it in my right hand, so that I could go out and do something for Christ. There is nothing in heart religion, and I have told our col- ored brethren down South that they have run this heart re- ligion until many of them have run themselves into a hen- roost. (Laughter.) There is grace enough in this universe for every man of us to have every square inch of him full of grace. I have a contempt for heart religion. There are people who are afraid to say anything about their re- ligion. They are afraid of being ranked as Pharisees. I have seen a great many different characters, but I never saw a Pharisee. I reckon that if Dr. Tudor had one in his congregation he would make him president of the board of trustees. A Pharisee would give one tenth of all he had to God ; he would fast once a w r eek and perform other sacri- fices. There is not one of you who need be uneasy or afraid of being set down as a Pharisee. (Laughter.) There is no use talking about grace taking us to Heaven as we are There is many a fellow if he could get to Heaven as he is who would not be there long until there would be confusion. A MORTGAGE ON HEAVEN. Take a money monger, one of those 20-per-cent fellows ; if he were to be let into Hea ven he would set up immedi- 44 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. ately on a corner lot and have a mortgage on half of Heaven. (Laughter.) I am glad God Almighty will not let such men into Heaven. (Renewed laughter.) Take one of those old demijohns (laughter) and carry him to Heaven as he is. When he would awake next morning the first thing he would want would be a drink (laughter), and if there was a low place in the fence he would jnmp over it, repair to the nearest bar-room, and be back again before breakfast. Heaven is a prepared place for the prepared. Jesus said: “I go and prepare a place for you.” My only concern is, shall I be prepared to live in such a home as hej _ shall make for me. It is said that the great trouble with nineteenth century religion is that the truth is not preached. There has not been a sermon preached during- the past fifty years that has not contained enough truth to save every man, woman and child in Christendom. , What is the trouble then? No one has any room for truth. Every fellow is chock-full of Iris own opinions. One says, “It is my opin- ion there is no harm in a social game at cards, if you do not bet.” Another will say, “ It is my opinion there is no harm in going to the theater.” Another will say, u It is my opinion I can live out of the church and be just as good as I can be in the church.” I assert that no man has a right to an opinion on a moral question. The only way to tell whether a man is crooked or straight is to put the straight-edge to him. It is no use standing up like a fool and guessing whether he is crooked or straight. (Laughter.) Here is the straight-edge (pointing to the Bible.) I don’t say a man has not a right to his opinions on doctrinal questions, but the constant iteration of “ It is my opinion,” by pro- fessing Christians, is crushing the life out of the church and damning the world. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 45 THE WHISKY DRINKERS. I can sort of put up with a fellow who drinks whisky if he hangs his head down like a dog, but when he holds his head up and says he likes to drink it, I have a contempt for him. I can put up with a Methodist who goes to the theater if he wears a hang-dog look ; but if he gets up and argues for it, I would not wipe my feet on him. I can sort of put up with a member of the church when he plays cards, but when he advocates card-playing I have a contempt for him. I have as much contempt for a member of a church that does these things as I have for a Georgia chain-gang negro, and that is pretty tough. A man once asked me how long it had been since I was at a theater. I told him I had not been at the theater since I had quit being a vagabond. But I am glad we have theaters, because they draw the line. A man in my own town once said to me: “If you will con- vince me it is wrong to play cards, I will never touch them again.’ 5 I replied : “ There is one thing you are already convinced of; you are of no account in your church.” “Yes,” he said, “ I know that.” “ Then,” I returned, “ if you are of no account in your church I have no time to fool away with you,” and I walked off and left him. When a man is of no account in his church, it is of no use trying to convince him of anything. Such men should examine themselves and shun the sins that render them of no account. It is not the lying, thieving, and drunken members of the church that do the most harm, but it is the tide of worldliness that is sweeping over the people and paralyzing their Christian life and ruin- ing their children, about whom a bulwark of sin is being erected which the Gospel can not overreach. 46 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. CONTEMPT FOR THE COLONELS. I have the profonndest contempt for those Colonels and Majors and Judges who grace our curbstones and sa- loons. They have nothing to commend them to God but their money and their means. If there is anybody I want to see go to Heaven it is poor white folks and niggers. The Colonels and those big fellows who have had such a good time here can sorter afford to go to Hell. We can’t. When the Colonel says, “ It’s my opinion,” he claims that his opinions are original with him. They are not. He got them from Hell, and they are going back to Hell if they take the old Colonel with them. If there is anything I hate, and hate with a bitter and uncompromising hatred, it is whisky. It blights the world, demoralizes society, damns souls, and peoples Hell with immortal beings. We talk about pitching into revival work here, and at best we shall but bring 2,500 or 3,000 souls to God, while there are 1,800 saloons here damning the city week after week. We need some old-fashioned preaching. The only safe latitude for Christians to travel in is family prayer, the reading of the Scriptures and undying devotion to right. In the work I have undertaken here, I want your co-operation. Some of you may leave and say, “ I can’t indorse that man.” I don’t want you to indorse me ; I don’t think it would do me any good to be indorsed by a one-horse member of a church. (Laughter.) But I want every clerical and lay brother in town to come and help us. The daughter of a minister once said to me, “ My father does not believe in revivals.” “Your father and the devil are together in that,” I replied. (Laughter.) I do not know how they stood on other things. (Renewed laughter.) I once said to a brother who attended one of my meetings that his church was but the Lord’s THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 47 crocheting society. He went away insulted. I also told him that if the Lord did not change him somehow he would not be in Heaven three days before he would have all the angels rigged out in lace. He came back a few nights afterward, and standing upon the platform, he said : “Broth- er J ones was right, and I am wrong. I have received a blessing. Call it what you will, getting religion or being converted, I have got it, I have got it.” There are a good many listening to me who would be a sight on wheels, but who are not now worth killing. Be prepared and keep right. 48 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. Last night we selected this text in the second chapter of St. Paul to Titns. For the grace of God, that bringeth salvation, hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. I announced last night we wonld take np the discussion of that text again to-night. I think we left off at this point about the grace of God teaching us, and how it is necessary that we should be taught. The honor of Christ and the salvation of our own souls depend largely upon our holding and practising proper views of the Scripture. Ignorance is a sort of heterogeneous compound that God nor man can do much with. The fact is, we must know something be- fore we are capacitated to do something, and all intelligent action is based on intelligent thought, and there can be no intelligent thought unless, perhaps, we know some things. The man who really knows one thing well is on the road to know a great many things, and the trouble, perhaps, with a large mass of humanity is they have never known one thing well. And the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men teaching us — instructing us, qualifying us. Teaching us what ? That denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. NEGATIVE GOODNESS. In plain English, teaching us, Ci cease to do evil ; learn to do well.” Conversion is a very common term in the church and in the pulpit. Sometimes we use it in a very vague sense. Conversion, scripturally, means simply two things : THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. 49 1. “I have quit the wrong.’ 5 2. “ I have taken hold of the right. 55 No man is scripturally converted until he throws down the wrong and walks off from the wrong, and walks up to the right and espouses the cause of the right. Re- ligion is a two-fold principle, or rather it is a principle that enables man to discern the right and to do the right, to dis- cern the wrong and to make him hate the wrong. There are two elements in every pious life : 1. Negative good- ness. 2. Positive righteousness. Negative goodness is not religion. If negative goodness was religion, then one of these lamp-posts out here would be the best Christian in town; it never cursed, nor swore, nor drank a drop since it was made ; it never did anything wrong. If negative goodness is religion, then a stock, or stone, or mountain, would be the best specimen of Christian this world has. Negative goodness is, perhaps, one of the halves of religion ; but genuine religion, Christly religion, means not only that a man is negatively good, but that he is positively righteous. There is no power in a negative position, or in being nega- tive. Christ Jesus saw this when he told his preachers to go forth and affirm and preach the gospel, not go to denying the denials of infidelity. I never uttered a sentence in my life to prove that the Bible was true. I never spent five minutes in my life trying to prove there was a hell. I never spent fifteen seconds in the pulpit in my life trying to prove there is a God. Nobody but a fool needs such argument. A man told me once, “ I don’t believe there is a God. I don’t believe I am anything but mortal.” Said I, “ If I was you I would get me a little more hair and a tail and be a sure enough dog.” I believe I would. (Laughter.) NO POWER IN NEGATION. There is, as I said, no power in a negative force, and none 4 50 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. in a negative position of any sort. We are not sent forth to deny anything that anybody says, but we are sent forth to affirm something. An aggressive Christianity is always affirmative. I am sorry for the preacher that has backslidden far enough to try to prove in his sermon that there is a God. I am sorry for the preacher that has got so low down in his theology that he is trying to establish the fact that there is a hell sure enough. I know of men trying to establish the fact that there is no hell. A gentle- man said to me the other day that, the fact was nearly es- tablished. I said to him, “ When did you start your explor- ing party down there, and when will they return to report ? ” He said he hadn’t started anybody and he wasn’t looking for them to return. Said I, “ How are you going to prove anything, then ? ” And I want to tell you this much : The assertions of the word of God on all these questions stand unshaken to-day, and a little colored child of three years old in this city knows just as much about hell as any living scientist. I suppose some of the dead ones know more about it. (Laughter.) There’s many a fellow that has writ- ten hell out of his theology here, but he won’t be in Hell fifteen seconds till he will jump and say, “ My Lord ! Wlfat a mistake I made in my theology. There is one, sure enough.” (Laughter.) Bob Ingersoll w r as speaking on one occasion — I have got a good deal of respect for Bob Inger- soll — a great deal more respect than I have for a great many members of the church in this town, a great deal. (Laughter.) When Bob says he don’t believe the Bible and don’t pay any attention to its precepts, they say they believe it, but do just like Bob, you see. I can’t stand that. (Laughter.) And it isn’t theoretical infidelity that is curs- ing this country ; it is practical infidelity ; that’s the sort. THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. Si AN INGERSOLL STORY. Well, Ingersoll was lecturing — I believe it was in Mil- waukee — and in liis lecture he came to this assertion, and while he lectured there were standing up in the corner of the platform three or four drunken men, standing there talking in an undertone. That crowd felt like they ought to take the amen corners on Bob ; and all I want to know about any fellow is who takes the amen corners on him ; and when you find Bob preaching you will find the amen corners filled with old red nosed drunkards and other vagabonds of the town; they have rushed up and taken the amen corners on him. And while Bob was lecturing, when he reached the assertion, “ There is no hell, and I can prove it to any reasonable man,” he got the attention at that word, of course. They were interested at this point (laughter), and one of them straightened himself up, and staggered up to Bob and put his hand on his shoulder, and said, “ Can you, Bob ? ” He said, “Yes, I can.” “ Well,” the fellow says, “do it, Bob (laughter) ; and make it mighty strong, for,” he says, “I tell you that nine tenths of us poor fellows in Milwaukee are depending on how you make that thing.” (Great laughter.) THE VALUE OF THE BIBLE. So we say we never need try to prove anything that the Bible asserts. We are to preach the word to the people and the Bible will take care of itself. The Bible was the guide of my mother. It was the stay of my father’s life; it was a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path, and he bequeathed it to me as his richest gift to his wayward boy; and I say to you to-night : take all other things from me and my home, but leave me my Bibls. UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAiGN 52 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. The precious book I’d rather have Than all the golden gems That e’er in monarchs’ coffers shone Or on their diadems. And were the seas one chrysolite, This earth a golden ball, And gems were all the stars of night, This book were worth them all. Ah, no, the soul ne’er found relief In glittering hoards of wealth ; Gems dazzle not the eye of grief; Gold can not purchase health. But here’s a blessed balm For every human woe, And they that seek that book in tears, Their tears shall cease to flow. Bless God for the Bible, which is the guide of my life and the inspiration of my soul. THE FORCE OF POSITIVISM. We said a moment ago that its positive and negative features — these two combined — give it force and power — give Christian life force and power. There is no power in electricity until you bring the two forces, positive and negative, together. You see that negative electricity gathering about the trunk of this old oak tree ? That tree has withstood a thousand storms, and now we see this negative electricity climbing up its body and settling in its foliage; and now the positive electricity passes over it in the cloud, and negative strikes positive, and the two forces come together in the top of this old oak tree, and it comes with a crash and splits that oak tree from its topmost twig to the last bottom of its roots. There’s power. There’s omnipotence. And so in the life of every good man who is negatively good and positively righteous. Look at George Whitfield with his whole nature sur- THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. 53 charged with negative goodness and his life full of positive righteousness. We see him going out to the moorfields of London at 3 and 4 o’clock in the morning with 10,000 lan- terns blazing all around him. George Whitfield preaches the gospel, and before daylight and sun-up he has a thou- sand penitents and a thousand converts and does more before breakfast in the morning than all the pulpits in London did the year round. That looks like business. (Applause.) LAZY GOODY-GOODY. Negative goodness ! The Lord knows I have a contempt for the good-goody members of the Church. (Laughter and applause.) Old Brother Goody-Goody and Old Sister Goody-Goody (laughter) just goody-goody and so good they are good for nothing. (Laughter.) Haven’t you seen ’em? I believe in doing good. I like goodness. I despise every wicked act that a man can do. But I tell you this : I have had members, as a pastor, who would work and do their level best, and every three or four months they would get drunk in spite of everything I could do. When they were sober, they went up to their eyes in religion and in work and righteousness, and I tell you I hate this thing you call drunkenness, and no man hates it more than I do, but I had rather have a member of the Church who would get drunk •every three or four months, but would work when he is sober and do his level best, than one of these sober fellows that ain’t any account anyhow, that might just as well be drunk or just as well be dead. God pity these lazy, shift- less kind of fellows. All they want in God’s world is some- where to sit down and somewhere to spit. (Laughter.) Spitting room is a big thing with lazy men. (Laughter.) Now recollect, if anybody says they don’t believe in laughing in church, that you are in a music hall to-night. 54 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. You can j’ust cut your patchin’ on that line. There ain’t any harm in laughing here. Teaching that we must quit the wrong — That denying ungodliness and wordly lusts we must live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world — • teaching me this fact, and the first lesson Christ ever taught man here was this : “ You are a sinner ; you are a wrong- doer; you ought to cease to do evil; you ought to forsake your sins. 5 ’ CROSSING THE RIVER OF RESOLUTION. And I will say right here at this point, I could never lay any claim to the salvation of Jesus Christ until I bundled all my sins up in one common bundle and threw them all down and walked over the river of Resolution, and then turned round and set fire to the bridge and stood and watched till the last expiring spark dropped into the water ; and then I turned my back on sin and said “I am in now for the conversion or nothing,” and I hadn’t got fifteen steps from the bank of that river till I was in the arms of God, a saved man (applause), and I say to you to-night — you men of the Church who say, u 1 can’t live without sin,” that no man ever found God and no man was ever converted until he quit his sins. That’s all there is about it. When I stand up and preach against sin and sinners, the Church hollers, Lay on MacDuff.’ Give it to him. He ought to have it.” But when I preach at the Church and say, “You men who profess to be Christians, you are living in sin,” they say, “ Oh, he’s one of these sanctificationists, and he’s putting on airs.” (Laughter.) You want me to give it to these old sinners, but let you alone. Ah, me! brother! If God Almighty expects these sin- ners to quit sin, what does he expect of you who profess to THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. 55 ]ove him, who profess to be Christians? That’s the way to talk it. (Applause.) A BLAST AT PROGRESSIVE EUCHRE. Cease to do evil and learn to do well. I want to say here in my place to-night that I profess to know a few things along this line, and propose to say them to that member of the Church that dances and attends theaters and plays pro- gressive euchie — and that’s the best named game I ever heard — progressive euchre! Progressive euchre double- quick to Hell right along. (Laughter.) And I say another thing. There is no progressive euchre player in this house that ought not to be indicted for violating the laws of Mis- souri and be put in one of the jails of this county. (Ap- plause.) How do you like that? It is just gambling scien- tifically, magnificently, gloriously, socially, and so forth. That’s what it is. And I’ll tell you, in our State we can in- dict a man and put him in the penitentiary for playing progressive euchre with his neighbors, any time, and I w r ant to see the day come when if Christians haven’t got faith enough in the Lord Jesus Christ and their profession to bind* them to decency and right that the law will help us to make our members decent. I do. I do, sure. (Ap- plause.) EUCHRE PLAYERS STILL UNSAVED. And the man who is running these things, I’ll tell you the truth, brethren, that man never was converted; that man never has repented ; that man is still in the bonds of iniquity and the gall of bitterness. You ask me why? Well, I got religion fourteen years ago last August — I was right sure there — and if it did not knock that card-playing, theater-going system out of me right there! And I never 5 6 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. got a symptom of it since ; and whenever the day comes in my religions experience when I want to play cards, and when I want to drink whisky, and when I want to attend theaters, I want to drop down on my knees and tell the Lord, “My religion is played out, sure. I never felt this symptom since I was converted, and now, Lord, like most Methodists, my religion has left me and give it back to me again.” That’s the way I talk (laughter), and all I can say of you Presbyterians and Christians and Baptists that are not on that line is, you never had any, because you can’t lose yours, you know (laughter). When our members go to the devil we say “they have lost their religion,” and when your members go to the devil you say “they never had any.” Well, it don’t make any difference which way it is, the devil has got them sure. (Laughter.) Teaching us that we must cease to clo evil and learn to do well. This is the Christian truth that teaches me that I must deny ungodliness and worldly lust, and I must live soberly as to myself, righteously toward my neighbor, godly toward Him unto whom I owe so much. How, here are three positive attitudes of the Christian. He is a sober-minded man in his relations tow T ard all the world around him. I like one of these sober-minded men that takes a particular view of everything, and goes for the long run all the time, and cares nothing for counting the present results, but is looking to the great long run. I like one of these sober-minded men. He is the same every day, and the same under all circumstances and the same everywhere; he is just as good in Hew York as he is in St. Louis. CAUSE FOR DIVORCE. There is many a fellow that is a good Christian in St. Louis, but if he were to wear an indicator when he went to THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. •57 New York, wlien he got back his wife would quit him, in my candid judgment. (Loud laughter.) He is just as sober and pious here in church and in this community as he can be, but let him go on a fishing trip, and he’ll carry a quart of liquor for every day he’s going to be out. I like a relig- ion that keeps me as good off of my knees as I am on my knees; just as good on the outside as I am on the inside ; just as good in New York as I am at home; just as good anywhere and everywhere and forever, as my promises and my vows demand 1 should be. I like that sort of Chris- tianity — a sober-minded sort that regulates all my life. I like that. This dead-level sort, this straightforward sort; I like that sort of a Christian. Sober-mindedness. That’s the regulating force of every good man’s life, that makes him step along in an even, smooth way toward the good world. Some people think Heaven is away off yonder,, and some think Hell is away down yonder, but I want to tell you that Heaven is on a dead-level with every good man’s heart, and I want to tell you the way to Heaven is a dead-level. Christ dag down the mountains, and filled up the valleys, and the way to Heaven is a dead-level, and the way to Hell is a dead-level, and there is only one road in the moral universe, and one end of that road is Hell, and the other end of the road is Heaven, and it don’t matter who you are, but which way are you going? (Laughter.) Don’t you see? Soberly, right- eously, a sober-minded man. THE REGULATING FORCE OF LIFE. You look at that stationary engine out yonder at the saw- mill. You see little governors playing around over the steam-chest, and you see there that saw as it runs into that large log — that sixty-two-incli circular saw runs right into 58 SAM JONES' SERMONS. the log, and the little governors let down, and additional steam is thrown against the piston-head, and I see that saw wade right along through the log, and run out at the other end, and the little governors lift up, and let off the steam, and the saw runs at the same revolution to the minute, whether it is in or out. There is the Christian man, like Job. Oh, my, he was a sober-minded man. In prosperity, and when adversity came, and the last dollar was swept away from him, Job run in and out that log, and he was running the same revolutions to the minute when he Tun into infirmity and disease and pain, and as he run right through and came out, running the same revolution to the minute, and he said “ I will trust him though he slay me,” and when they placed the charge against his character that he had sinned and done wrong, he went right along through that, and came out on the other side, and the Lord God said to him : “ Job, take my arm, and walk with me, and I will make your latter days more prosperous than your former days.” I like a sober-minded man — a man who will do the same thing all the time ; not one of those men who will do some thing during the revival meeting, and who don’t recollect that he did anything out of the revival, and one day he will shake your hands and another day he will hardly know you when he meets you on the street. 1 don’t like one of those persimmon-headed sort of fellows: I want a fellow who knows you when he meets you, everywhere, and will do the same thing everywhere, and under all circumstances. THE DEMAND FOR DOWNRIGHT HONESTY. Sober-minded! A Christian man ought to be sober- minded, and rest on this one promise — all things are given for good to them that love God — sober-minded as to our- *elves and righteous toward our neighbors. THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. 59 I will tell you if there is anything the religion demands of a man, it is that he be downright honest. Honesty ! As somebody said, “An honest [man is the noblest work of God,” and that is the grandest utterance outside the lid of the Bible. “ An honest man is the noblest work of God.” And when I say an honest man, I don’t mean a man simply that pays, his debts — some of us ain’t honest enough to do that. But I have known men that would walk across town to pay a nickel that they owed, and I never saw a man that would do that, that I would not hide my pocket book from at night. One of those fellows that are so scrupulous he is fixing things to cheat somebody. (Laughter.) I am not talking about that class. I’ll tell you what this world needs right now. It needs a larger course of downright honesty; that’s it. I will tell 3 7 ou what, the Church of God will never take this world until we get honest. There are too many men in the Church boarding with their wives — there are that — agents for their wives. I want to die the day before my wife ap- points me her agent. (Laughter.) Do you hear that? (Laughter.) A man in the Church of God and a prominent character, and that man living in a $30,000 house, and riding around in a $1,200 turnout, and the poor widow woman whose money he has is walking these streets with scarcely bread to eat. (Sensation.) And if there is a Hell at all, that man will go there as certain as God is just. (Great ap- plause.) THE BUSINESS VALUE OF RELIGION. Honesty! We want in this countrymen in the Church of God who will do what they say they will do. That’s it. Why, sir, a man’s Methodism ain’t worth anything to him 6o SAM JONES’ SERMONS, in this country, and a man’s Baptism and liis Presbyterian- ism ain’t worth anything to him. You go down to a store to-morrow and want a thousand dollars’ worth of goods on credit, and the fellow says, “ Can you give me any se- curity?” “No ; I am a Methodist.” “ O, Lord! You cant’t run that thing on me here.” (Great laughter.) And let a, Baptist go down there and say, “ I’m a Baptist, and I want credit.” “ Law, me ! If you will come in here and let me show yon how these Baptists have gouged me, you would not play yourself as a Baptist.” (Laughter.) And so with every denomination. And I tell you here to-night, the Church of God will never do the work he wants her to do until she is honest — honest toward God and honest to- ward man. 1 want to see the day come when all the churches in the world will have the character in commer- cial life that the old Hardshell Church has in Georgia. Down in Athens, Ga., an old Hardshell walked in one day to a store, and said to the merchant : “ I want a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of goods this year on credit.” The merchant looked at his old hat and. jean pants, and he con- cluded that was not the sort of a man to trust, and he told him he would not give him the goods. The fellow turned and walked out, and the merchant asked a clerk in the store : “ Who is that man ? ” “ That’s Mr. So-and-So ; he belongs to the Hardshell Church up here.” The merchant went out after | him and said : “ Friend, come back here. Are you a Hardshell ? ” He said, “ Yes.” “Well,” said the merchant, “you can have all you want; you can have all I have here in this store on credit for as long time as you need.” (Applause.) And down in Georgia the Hardsliells will turn a member out of church for taking the homestead exemp- tion or going into bankruptcy just as quick as they would for stealing — they will that. (Laughter and applause.) THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. 6l PAYING ONE HUNDRED CENTS ON THE DOLLAR. Honesty ! I like that. We have collecting laws all over this country, and we have ruined our people; we have made our people dishonest by our laws — that is the truth about it. Our people are made dishonest by our laws. Our law, our Congress, our Legislature, fixes it so that a man can, by a turn of technicalities in law, just wipe out all his debts, and he can compromise with his creditors. Out in Waco, Tex., last year, there was a merchant there thrown into bankruptcy, and he compromised his debts at a hundred cents in the dollar — just think about that — and paid it, every bit. He compromised his debts at a hundred cents in the dollar ! He was a fool, wasn’t he ? He was a fool. They say in one heathen country they make every holiday a day for a general hand shaking among all enemies, and every fellow pays every dollar he owes in the world. That’s a grand holiday ain’t it ? They are heathens, though, ain’t they ? (Laughter.) They must be heathens if they do that way. (Laughter.) Make friends with all my ene- mies, and pay every dollar I owe every holiday ! Nobody but a heathen would do that, would they ? (Laughter.) Righteously do the right thing ; do the right thing. And I want to say about it, that those bankrupt and homestead laws have been the curse of this country in all ages of it. I want to see the day come — and I beg your pardon for the expression — I want, to see the day come when you can sell a man’s shirt off of his back to pay his debts. I’d rather die than to be in debt, and have things that other people ought to have. That’s the way I look at it. 62 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. THE SPEAKER’S EXPERIENCE. You say, “ Yes, you are talking mighty big.” Yes, and I have talked little, too, I want you to understand that. The devil bankrupted me for both worlds, and when God converted my soul and I was called into the ministry, I was hundreds of dollars in debt, and I know how a man feels; I know how it cows a man; and I know how I have gone up with $2.50 at a time to pay a debt and my wife had one dress and I had one suit, and we were living at starvation rates, and my wife doing her own ironing and her own nursing, and I splitting the wood and working and saving every nickel I could to pay my debts, and in spite of that I have heard of fellows saying : “ If that fellow Jones would pay his debts I could have more confidence in him,” and if they had put their ears to this side (placing his hand on his head) they could hear the blood drip ! drip ! I paid every cent, thank God ! a hundred cents on the dollar, and I was just as good a man after I paid as I was before. (Great applause.) And thank God that a poor man can be an honest man ! Thank God that is true. (Great applause.) god’s appreciation of honesty. I’ll tell you the sort I find in my Bible— ^where Obadiah borrowed $500 from Ahab and died before the money was due. After his death Ahab sued the widow for the debt, and levied on her and her two children for the money. They could levy on children in those days, and they were to be sold in this case to pay the debt. The mother was in distress, and she hunted up — I had almost said a lawyer, but she never went within a mile of one, God bless you. (Laugh- ter.) She hunted up the best old prophet of God on the face of the earth. She stated her case to him and said : THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. 63 “ My husband died owing this money and they have levied on my two children to pay this debt. What must I do ? 55 The old prophet looked at her and said: “ What have you in your house?” The poor woman replied, trembling: “ Nothing but a pot of oil, and that is to embalm our bodies with.” The prophet never said a word about the home- stead, but he said : “You go and sell that oil and pay that debt.” She went home and borrowed vessels and drew enough oil out of the pot to pay the old debt, and she had more oil left afterwards than when she commenced to draw it. That was God Almighty standing by an honest woman, don’t you see ? I have seen it repeated again and again, and I tell you that God Almighty will take care of honest men, if he has to put the angels on half rations for twelve months. (Laughter.) I was once appointed to certain work in a certain county in a Georgia circuit. The year before the whole country was blighted with drouth. The people had not made a bale of cotton to twenty acres, when they ought to have made a bale to every two acres. Corn was not a paying crop, and merchants were pressing their claims. I commenced preaching righteousness. I said, “ I know your soil has been parched by the drouth, I know your crops are fail- ures; I know" that you are poor, but ” I continued, “ listen at me. If the sheriff comes on you and takes your house and your stock, and your all, let him take them, and then walk out with your w T ife and children, bareheaded and barefooted, so that you can say, ‘ we are homeless and breadless, but my in- tegrity is as unstained as the character of God.’ ” ( Applause.) Oh, for an unstained character ! That is what we want in this country. An honest man. I tell you there are too many men in this country who have widows’ and orphans’ legacies in their pockets, and I am sorry to say, too many 6 4 SAM JONES' SERMONS. of that sort have broken into the churches of this country, and every dollar of that money that you keep in your pocket as a preacher, and in your treasury as a church, the devil will make you pay it back (laughter) with compound inter- est. He well knows that that is his money, and he does not loan his money without interest, and big interest at that BUSINESS INTEGRITY. Righteously. Righteous men. I like righteous men. Tom Moore, the poet, was righteous in this sense. They asked him on his dying pillow, “ Are there any of your manuscripts that you have changed or altered ? ” He said “ No ; I never wrote a line in my life that I would now wipe out with my little finger.” You are a merchant. Can you say on your dying pillow, “ I never performed a deed I w'ould not wipe out with my little finger ?” Samuel, the prophet, was a righteous man, and when he walked out to his burial place, all Israel gathered around him, and the clear voice of the old prophet rang out and he asked these questions: “ Whom have I cheated?” “Whom have I de- frauded?” “ Of whom have I received a bribe of money to blind my eyes?” And all Israel echoed back, “No one.” Oh, that was a grand victory. But brethren, the man who does not recognize his obli- gations to God is but half a man at best. I have my rela- tions toward my family, and my relations toward my coun- try, and my relations toward my God. I will meet the demands of my children and my home. I will meet the demands of my country. I will meet the demands of the God that made me and them. I am good for all worlds. A godly man is one that does everything with reference to the great eye of God that is looking down upon him; a man that is godly in his life and character, and that does right to- THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. 65 ward tlie God that made him. Where do we find examples of godly men ? St. Paul, the author of this text, was a godly man. He lived for God, and counted all things as lost that he might please God. In his dying moments he sat in his dark dungeon and wrote in his last letter to Timothy : The time of my departure is at hand. Oh, what a thought ! St. Paul meant to say to him : “ I shall have a cold supper to-night and a cold breakfast in the morning ; I shall sleep on a hard bed to-night, but I shall take dinner in Heaven to-morrow with God and the an- gels.” He talked about his departure as a school boy talks of leaving school for home, and when his head was severed from his body God stooped down, picked up that bloody head and placed a crown of everlasting life upon it. He was a godly man and God will take care of that sort of man, living or dying. A NOBLE ENDING. Just such a man as this died in our State some months ago, and when his large family of Christian boys and girls stood around him, he struggled for breath in the last ex- tremities of life. Just as his moments were drawing to a close he seemed restless and wanted to speak. His chil- dren’s attention was attracted by his looks and they said, “ Father, is there any request you wish to make? If so tell , us what it is.” He caught his breath and said, “ Bring — ” but breaking down he could not utter another word. His children gathered close around him and said, “ Oh father, do not die without telling us what you want.” Again he said, “ Bring — ” and could not utter another word. The children bent over him and said, “Father, do not die with- out telling us what you want.” Presently his system re- laxed in death, and his lips moved freely as he said : S 66 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown him Lord of all. Then the soul swept out of his body and he never breathed another breath. God help us to live righteously? soberly and godly in this world, and to look forward with blessed hope to the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. At times within the past ten years I have thought of go- ing hack to the practice of law y and of accumulating a for- tune, that my family might be provided for, and of preach- ing the gospel in after life; but with the blessed hope of God before me I continued right on. My eyes were on something better, grander and nobler. When kind friends in Nashville said : “ Here is a $10,000 home and thousands in bonds if you will make your home in our midst, 55 I re- plied: “No, in our own quiet little cottage my wife and children and myself' love God and are striving to get to Heaven. Excuse me, I love you just as much as if I ac- cepted it. 55 Then my wife said to me, “Husband, I am prouder of you for that than for any act in your history. 55 HIGHER AIMS. And I want to say to this congregation that I am getting higher and higher. I sympathize a good deal with the ea- glet caged up yonder. Now a kind friend, pitying its droop- ing condition, opens the cage door and lets it out. I see it leave its cage and turn its eye to the sun and to the moun- tain-tops. Its ruffled feathers begin to smooth down and it raises its wings and shakes them for a moment. I see it fly up into the air and poise itself on its wings. It looks back toward the cage and utters a scream, as much as to say, “Farewell cage; farewell imprisonment and weary hours! 55 I see it fly higher and higher, until at last it poises on its wings just in sight and I hear it scream again. It seems to THE VIRTUE OF HONESTY. 67 say, “ Farewell eartli and imprisonment and cage and dreary days . 55 Higher and higher it goes, poises itself, flies off and alights on the mountain top, free as air. Brethren, the soul of man, that has been ruffled by ten thousand cares, some of these days will look toward that blessed hope of God, plume its wings and fly upward. And the higher we go, earth shall hear our voices, growung the fainter, saying, “ Farewell cares, imprisonment and earth!” Higher and higher we shall go until at last we fly off in a bee-line for the other world. We shall go up until there is nothing in the way. That is what a bee-line means. The bee, after passing from flower to flower and filling its little hon^y cell, begins to circle up and up and up, until it gets above the highest tree top. Then it strikes a bee-line for its home. Brethren, let us get above worldly care and sin and tempta- tion, and let us strike a bee-line for that home beyond where sin and suffering are felt no more. May God bless you all, and may you ponder over these words in the spirit in which they have been uttered. If you do not like anything that has been said, and if you come and apologize, I will forgive you, for I never bear malice to anybody in this world. (Laughter.) 68 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. FIGHTING THE DEVIL. Now while Paul waited for them at Athens his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. — Acts xvii, 16. The preacher explained that by u them 55 was meant Silas and Timothy, co-workers with Paul, who were to follow and accompany him on his missionary tour, and said : I believe Saul of Tarsus was the greatest man in this world’s history. When I measure his head I look and ad- mire. When I measure his heart I am at a loss to know which is the greater, his head or his heart. It takes both head and heart to make a true man. If there was a leading characteristic in the life of this great man it was his ster- ling integrity, his downright honesty. There was never but one trouble in the mind of this great man, and that was touching the divinity of Christ. It took the biggest guns of Heaven to arouse and convince him, but when once convinced he was loyal forever. I believe I am ready to say here in my place that St. Paul being an honest man, God put him straight once, and he never gave God a moment’s trouble after that until God said : “It is enough; come up higher.” St. Paul was such a man as I would imitate. I admire his character, true, noble, courageous, honest. And now this man, waiting for Ills companions at Athens, sees the whole city given to idolatry. The charge that God brought against his ancient people was this : “ My people will not consider.” The etymolog- ical definition of that work is u to look at a thing until you see it.” Here the speaker illustrated the words “ glance” and “ consider” by reference to the study of a landscape picture. A glance would take in the main features, such as the FIGHTING THE DEVIL. 69 mountain scenery, the stream and the hamlet. A consid- eration or careful examination would show the foliage of the mountain trees, the road leading to the mansion, the cattle grazing on the hill slopes, and so on. There was quite a difference between glancing at an object and consid- ering it. St. Paul had considered the state of affairs in Athens and his spirit was stirred within him when he saw how the whole city was given to idolatry. ONE OF TWO THINGS. Now, said Mr. Jones, I want to say: One of two things is true of St. Louis to-night. Either the eyes of Christian people are closed to the fact, or else the facts are falsehoods ; one or the other. You can take whichever horn of the dilemma you please. I can take the daily papers of St. Louis and read your local columns, and see, without getting at the Bible, that St. Louis is wrong ; that there is some- thing radically wrong about this city; there are too many debauched characters, too many suicides, too many murders, too many that are drifting daily to destruction and ruin. The fact is, a man don’t need a Bible to see this world is all wrong; all you need to do is just to read your morning and afternoon papers, and then walk this street with your eyes open, and if you do that it will not be one week from to- day until you look on with horror that is indescribable. Now, let me ask each of you: Did you ever look at your heart until you saw it? I grant you that you have glanced at it a thousand times, but did you ever kneel down and pray for light and look and look and look until you saw^ your heart? My Bible teaches me that: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. My Bible teaches me : Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it come the issues of life and death. 70 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. My Bible teaches me : Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. DIFFERENT KINDS OF HEARTS. I once saw a pictorial representation of the human heart. It represented the sinner’s heart ; full of all kinds of wild beasts, reptiles and unclean birds — a hideous sight to look upon. Then there was the heart under conviction of sin, with the heads of all these animals turned outward, as if they were getting ready to leave. Then I saw the heart converted, cleansed, and it was represented with a shining light and a cross. I saw also the backslider’s heart, with the heads of all the beasts and reptiles as if they had turned backward, and I saw the * apostate’s heart — a Methodist heart — as it was filled to overflowing with all manner of horrid things, and the last state of that man was worse than the first. Oh, the heart! the heart! This world reminds me, in some of its phases, of the man down in the spring branch trying to clear the water, so he could get a clear drink. He was doing all he could to filter and clear the water when some friend called out to him : “ Stranger, come up a little higher and run that hog out of that spring, and it will clear itself.” Ho trouble then. And I declare to you to-night, the hardest job man ever undertook in this world is to lift up your life with an unclean heart. There is no such thing as a clean life outside of a clean heart. I know we have what we call moral men, but I don’t believe you can separate morals and Christianity. In fact, the morals of this world are the paraphernalia of Christianity. The man who is moral in the sense that he will pay his debts and tell the truth, and that sort of things may be a villain at heart. Our Savior looked at the most FIGHTING THE DEVIL. 7 1 moral men this world ever saw, and said: u You white- washed rascals, you ! ” That is our version. His version was : “ Ye whited sepulchers ! 55 I had rather be called the former. TO NON-PROFESSORS. And I want to say to you men that don’t profess to be Christians, I don’t bring a railing charge against you. In the life of Jesus Christ not a single harsh word ever escaped His lips toward a sinner. When Jesus would talk with a sin- ner, He would fetch up the parable of the lost sheep, where the man left the ninety and nine safe in the fold and fol- lowed the poor, wandering sheep, and when he found it he didn’t take a club and beat it back home, but picked up the poor, tired, hungry sheep and laid it on his shoulder and brought it back to the fold. But I tell you one thing. The Lord J esus himself never lost a chance to pour hot shot and grape and canister into the Scribes and Pharisees, and they are the gentlemen I am after, begging your pardon. Now, if the sinners about this town want to go to theaters, and want to dance and want to play cards and want to curse and want to live licentious lives, I say, “ Go it. Go it boys ; ” but if you members of the church want to do it, I will brand you as hypocrites until you renounce your faith in Christ and have your name taken off the church books. I’ve got a right to say a few things along there, and neither this world, nor the flesh, nor the devil, will interpose any ob- jection. Don’t anybody say I interposed an objection to any man who don’t profess to be a Christian, or placed any obstacle in the way of his doing just as he pleases. We will attend to your case later, but now I want to look in the faces of men who have made their vows and their promises to God, and who have sworn eternal allegiance to Jesus 72 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. Christ, and their lives are a shame to the Gospel and a dis- grace to the character they profess. That’s it. (Apydause.) A STORY OF MOODY. Now, let us look at our hearts. I believe this incident, related of Mr. Moody, will illustrate tlmpoint I am on. On one occasion, wdien he had invited penitents to the altar, there came forward a great many, and he walked back two or three pews to where two Christian ladies were sitting, and he said, “My sisters, will you walk forward and talk to those penitents?” They looked up at him and said, “No, sir, Mr. Moody; we are praying for you.” “Praying for me?” he said. “Am I not trying to live right and get to Heaven?” “Yes, Mr. Moody; but we are praying that you may have a clean heart.” And he said conviction en- tered his spirit in a moment, and he dismissed the services later and went home and fell down on his knees and prayed, “Lord God, show me my heart. Let me see it as it is.” And he said, “ When the light of Heaven poured in upon my heart I saw it was full of Moody, and full of selfishness, and full of worldly pride; and then I said, ‘Lord God, help me to “ ‘Cast every idol out That dares to rival thee.’” “ And,” said he, “ the Lord came and washed out all un- righteousness from my heart, and from that day until now I have never preached a sermon that didn’t win souls to Christ.” And I declare to you, if Jesus had in this town an army of pure blood-washed hearts we could win St. Louis to Christ. And never, never, never will we accom- plish the work and bring the world to Christ until we, who profess Christ, arouse ourselves and wake up and shake the devil’s fleas off ourselves and get to be decent. FIGHTING THE DEVIL. 73 HYPOCRITES AND HUMBUGS. I can stand anything Letter than I can a hypocrite. I always did have a hatred for shams and humbugs and cheats, and of all the humbugs that ever cursed the universe, I reckon the religious humbug is the humbuggest. (Laughter.) You remember how the stu- dents played a joke once on the professor — at Prince- ton, I believe it was. He was one of these old bug- ologists, and I reckon he had specimens of all the bugs in the world in his frames and boxes. And the mischievous boys got the legs of one bug and the body of another and the head and wings of others and put them' together like nature had formed them, and then they laid it on the old professor’s table, and walked in and ask him what kind of a bug iha't was, and he said, u Gentlemen that is a humbug.” (Laughter.) And I tell you when a fellow gets a little Methodism in him, and a little of theaters, and a little card playing, and a little of most everything, and is made up out of a hundred different sort of things, then he is a first-class humbug in every sense of the word. (Laughter.) He is just good anywhere. Oh, my heart ! With the heart right, with the fountain clear, the stream will be clear. With a good tree the fruit will be good. And I declare to you to-night that the hard- est work a man ever tried to do is to be a Christian without religion ; to be a good man with a bad heart. Why there are just scores sitting in front of me to-night that if it were literally true that we had wild beasts and serpents and other venomous things in bodily form in our hearts, as they are typically there, I would hate to be close round some of you, for fear I might get bit before I could get out of the way. (Laughter.) Oh, God, give us clear hearts and clear hands. 4 74 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. CONCERNING TONGUES. And then I will say, to be practical all along the line, did yon ever look at your tongue until you saw it? Oh, these tongues of ours ! These tongues of ours ! We Method- ists pour the water on, and the Presbyterians sprinkle it on and the Baptists put us clean under, but I don’t care whether you sprinkle, or pour, or immerse, the tongue comes out as dry as powder. Did you ever see a baptized tongue? (Laughter.) Say, did you? (Laughter.) Did you ever see a tongue that belongs to the Church? You will generally find the tongue among man’s reserved rights. (Laughter.) There come in some reservations, and always where there is a reservation the tongue is retained. The tongue! The tongue! The tongue! P ambus, one of the middle-age saints, went to his neighbor with a Bible in his hand and told him u I want you to read me a verse of Scrip- ture every day. I can’t read, and I want you to read to me.” So the neighbor opened the Bible and read these words : I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue. Phinbus took the book out of his hand and walked back home, and about a week after that the neighbor met him, and he said: “ Pambus, I thought you were to come back and let me read you a passage of Scripture every day? ” and Pambus said, “ Do you recollect that verse you read to me the other day? ” “ No,” said the neighbor. “Well,” said Pambus, “ I will quote it: ‘ I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue.’ “ And,” he said, “ I never intend to learn another pas- sage of Scripture until I learn to live that one.” Oh, me ! If every man, woman and child in this house to-night would go away from here determined to live that passage of Scripture ! # FIGHTING THE DEVIL. 75 I said, I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue. I will keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile. Oh, me ! Shakspeare told a great truth when he said : He that steals my purse steals trash, But he that filcheth from me my good name Takes that which not enricheth him, But makes me poor indeed. VIOLATORS OF CHARACTER. These violators of character — I will venture the asser- tion there are many, many, many here to-night — if every word you said about people in this house was posted up there in legible words, here to-night, you would immediately leave this house and never be seen in public again. (Laugh- ter.) u ¥e ain’t going anywhere where they put up every- thing we say for folks to look at.” Now, I look at my tongue until I see it. There is many a man that in other things may do well, that will at last lie down in Hell for- ever, and say : “ I am conscious I am tongue-damned. I would have gone to Heaven if I hadn’t got a tongue.” My tongue ! And I say to you* to-night the best thing we can do with our tongues is to speak well and to speak kindly of all men. I dare assert here in my place to-night, when you take me from this sacred stand that I occupy to-night, I defy you to put your finger on a word of mine against the character or reputation of anybody. But I am not talking for myself up here. Understand that. Once in Jerusalem a great crowd — it was 1,800 years and more ago, as the legend goes, or the allegory — a great crowd was gathered in Jerusalem, and they were gathered around a dead dog, and they stood and looked, and one of them said : “ That is the ugliest dog I ever saw.” Another said, u Oh, he is not only the ugliest dog I ever saw, but I don’t believe his old hide is worth taking off of him.” Another said, “ Just ;6 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. look how crooked liis legs are.” And so they criticised the poor dog. And directly one spoke up and said, “Ain’t those the prettiest, pearly white teeth you ever looked at?” And they walked off and said, “ That must have been Jesus of Nazareth that could have found something good to say about a dead dog.” Oh, me ! I like those people that always like to see something kind in people in their ways and w T alks of life. WATCHING one’s FOOTSTEPS. And then, I ask you again, did you ever look at your feet until you see them ? There is a good deal in that. (Laugh- ter.) Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Oh, Lord God ! I would follow in the footsteps of Him who led the way to Heaven. There is no circumspect Chris- tian who does not see to it that his feet are kept in the nar- row way that leads from earth to Heaven. A Methodist, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Catholic in a ball-room ! Their feet, that they have pledged should follow in the footsteps of Christ, are there cutting the pigeon-wing to music! (Laughter.) Now what do you think of that ? And I hear this expression: They say, “Well,* our church don’t object to it.” Now I would say a very strong thing here — and I hope you will take it in the very spirit in which I say it, for I never said a kinder thing or a harder thing than that — you never, you never shall hear a truer thing. Whenever a Presbyterian, or a Methodist, or a Bap- tist, or a Christian, or a Congregationalist, or a Catholic says that their church don’t object to dancing and theaters, and all such things as that, they could not tell a bigger lie if they wmuld try in a hundred years ! Thank God, there is not a church named after Christ on earth that has not thun- dered out after these things with all the power they have got. FIGHTING THE DEVIL. 77 “Our church don’t object! ” Well, now, the Episcopal Church being a church in authority — how they did thunder against these worldly amusements. That little church you belong to may not. That rotten little thing ! I would not stay in it long enough to get my hat if it didn’t. (Laughter.) A PLUCKY METHODIST LADY. I was sitting in a train some time ago and the train rolled up to the station, and just up on the platform, near by, were three ladies. One of the ladies said to the other : “ Are you going to the ball to-night ? ” The other lady said, “ I ain’t going.” “ But,” she said, “ I forgot; you are a Methodist, and you don’t go to such places. I would not be a Methodist. I want to enjoy myself.” The other said, “ Yes, I am a Methodist, and, thank God! I don’t want to go to such places.” “ Oh,” said the other one, “ I would not be a Methodist,” and the train rolled off, and I felt like jumping on the top of that train myself and hollering, “ Hurrah for Methodism ! ” (Laughter.) And whenever she goes into copartnership with ball rooms and with all of the worldly amusements that embarrass the Christian and paralyze his power — whenever the Methodist Church goes into co- partnership with these things, I will sever my connection with her forever. And I love her and honor her to-dav because she has stood like a bulwark against these things, and denounced them from first to last. One of the honored preachers of this town, a man whose good opinion I value highly, one of the noblest, truest ministers of this town, said to me : “ I declare to you, our churches are little more than a graveyard. We have been killed and almost buried by this tide of worldliness that has swept over our homes year after year.” And that is the truth. And I can read a ten-page letter that I got from a 78 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. citizen of St. Louis to-day, and turn every face in this house as pale as death. That mall wrote like he knew what he was talking about. There is many a mother at 12 o’clock at night in this town that can sing with the .blood trickling in her heart, Oh, where is my wandering boy to-night? He was once as pure as the driven snow. REMOVING THE CARCASSES. And oh, why, why, why w r ould I take this carcass, and that carcass, and the other carcass that are so offensive ? Why would I bring them out before this congregation? Nothing, nothing, nothing'would make me do it but to get you to take those carcasses that are despoiling the very odors of your city, and bury them out of sight forever. That is it. You all have spent two or three nights looking at me. God help you to look at yourselves awhile. (Laughter and applause.) And you will think I am a beauty before you get through. (Laughter and applause.) I look at myself from head to foot — my hands, my heart, my feet, my tongue. I look at my ways and walks and character in this community. Did you ever look at yourself as a member of the church ? Did you ever wake up some morning and shut your eyes and lay there and say, “ Well, suppose every member of the church in town was just like me, what sort of a church would we have in this town ? Suppose every member of the church in town prayed as little as I pray, what sort of a church would we have ? Suppose every member of the church in town paid as little as I pay, how long before the whole thing would be sold out by the sheriff ? 55 Oh, my brother ! it is well enough, now and then, for a follow to get a square, honest look at himself. What sort of a Methodist are you? There is a man that has promised to renounce the world, the flesh and the devil, and the vain FIGHTING THE DEVIL. 79 pomp and the glory of this world, and lie lias promised on oath, before God and man, not to follow or be led by them. What is your life ? There is that Presbyterian, consecrated to God by the most solemn ceremony that heaven ever listened at. Now, what is your character? There is the Episcopalian; with the imposing hands of the clergy laid upon his head, and with a ceremony as solemn as eternity, he was dedicated in the church to God last night, and to- night he is in the biggest ball in town, dancing his way to Hell. c (Sensation.) SALVATION DURING LENT. And no longer than this very year, in one of the cities of the South, one gentleman told me — said he : “ I saw the Episcopal clergyman lay his hand on the heads of a class of twenty one night, and,” he said, “ the next night eighteen out of that twenty were at a magnificent ball.” (Laughter.) Now, you say : “ I wouldn’t have done that ; I would have waited a week.” Well, if a fellow is going to do it at all, better get right at it. Don’t you think that’s so ? (Laugh- ter.) How long ought a fellow to wait after he joins the church before he goes to his devilment ? Now, that’s it. (Laughter.) I wish I could get all the Methodists and Baptists and Presbyterians in this city, and all other churches, to live just like they promised to live. I wish I could get all the Episcopalians in town to be as good out of Lent as they are in Lent. That would be good, wouldn’t it ? And I never could see why a fellow ought not to be as good one time as another. Did you ? I never could. And I’m going to be just as good the year round as any Episcopalian in this town is during Lent. I reckon they all hope to die in Lent. If a heap of them die out of Lent, the devil will get them 8o SAM JONES’ SERMONS. in my judgment. (Laughter.) In a great many places they dance Lent in, and they dance it out. Like the Irish- man talking about holidays in America — said he : “ Instead of hanging our heads and sorrowing over the crucifixion of our Savior, we Americans fire it in and fire it out. (Laugh- ter.) FIGHTING THE DEVIL. Now, I don’t pick out any denominations, and say any- thing about one denomination that I would not say, about another. There is no denominationalism in this. I have no purpose and no desire in my heart to say one thing about one denomination that I would not say against another. That is true. I am just talking true things, and any night you come here if you don’t like the w r ay this is rattled off, you can rack out of here just the minute you please. (Laughter and applause.) For I propose, God being my helper, to speak of the truth as I see it, and I don’t care what man or devil or cities or earth or hell may say, I am going to preach, while I do preach, what I believe to be the truth. (Applause.) And I w T ill tell you, Christian people, if you think the devil is going to surrender any ground in this town until every inch is covered with blood, you do not know the devil as well as I do. I will tell you that. (Laughter.) I have been fighting His Majesty several years, and I declare to you that he is always ready for a fight. He has pos- sessed nearly two thirds of this city for nearly forty years, and if you think he is going to make a voluntary surrender of his territory, you do not know him. He is going to fight and fight, and every child he has got is going to help him; you can put that down. And I tell you there is another thing ; there is a heap of members of the church FIGHTING THE DEVIL. 8l going to help him, too. They will that. Some places the devil goes to he never has anything to do himself. He puts his hands in his pockets and goes round and gets mem bers of the church to run his devilment for him. (Laugh- ter.) They do his work cheaper for him than any other class. He don’t have to pay them, and they board them- selves. In some towns the leading ball-room dude is a member of the church — the fellow that gets them all up and runs the thing. (Laughter.) PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. I look at myself as a member of the church. Oh me, brother ! when you see yourself as a member of the church, as a professor of religion, it will do you good. I will ask you again, did you ever look at yourself as a father? Oh, me! how close you get to a man’s heart when you talk to him of his family. Brother and sister, did you ever have your innocent child sit on your lap, put its little arms round your neck and imprint the kiss of innocence on your cheek? Have you ever looked on your lovely children lying in their bed and said : “Of all children God ever gave, my children have the purest and best of fathers.” You can go home to- night and wake up your little Willie. Get him quite awake, and ask him “Who is the best man in St. Louis?” He will answer, “Why, you, papa.” Ask him, “who would you rather be most like?” and he will reply, “why, you, papa.” Ask him who is the best man in the world and he will say, “why, you, papa.” He ain’t got no sense. (Loud laughter.) And that is why we curse, and damn and ruin our children. They can see no harm in us and just as we do they will fol- low and imitate us. A single man may drink, as a single man he may swear, as a single man he may lead a godless life, but as a married man you had better call a halt and ask 6 82 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. where you are leading your children to day by day. You may sit in the chairs of this hall night after night; you may simply have your curiosity excited; you may simply come here to laugh; but when you gather your children in your arms and see that your bad example is leading them to death and hell, there is no joke about that — no laugh about that ! God pity me [and pity you in our relations toward those that lean upon us; and if there is any fact in my his- tory I bless God for in my heart to-night, it is the fact that not a sweet child of mine ever looked in my face when I was not a Christian, trying to serve God and set it a good example. Did you ever look at yourself as a mother? Of all beings that earth claims its blessings from, it looks as though a mother ought to be the best. Mother, what is your life before your children? Consider yourself. Did you ever look at your children till you saw them? Wife, did you ever look at your husband till you saw him? Husband, did you ever look at your wife until you saw her? If there is anybody in the world I would have get to Heaven, it is my wife; and there is a husband who never talked ten minutes to his wife on religion; and there is a wife who never opened her mouth to her husband about the way of life. Oh, me ! when we think of a home that has been Christless, what a sad thing ! SEEING ST. LOUIS. And then we ask you again, did you ever look at St. Louis until you saw it? Did you ever take it by streets and blocks? Did you ever count the bar-rooms in this town? Did you ever count the beer gardens in this town? Did you ever count the number of men that went in and out of the bar-rooms and beer gardens ? I bring this question square FIGHTING THE DEVIL. 83 before you. Did yon ever count the number of soiled doves that curse this city and curse themselves ? Oh, my God, when we look at these pictures we have to shut our eyes and drop down upon our knees. We say, “ God deliver us and God speed us.” Did you ever count the billiard tables in this town? Did you ever count the gambling hells in this town? Oh, me! No wonder this one writes and that one wuites, u Jones, God bless you ! turn loose your guns and do your best to wake up the Christian people and show them how this town by streets and blocks is drifting to Hell every day.” Now, I am going to stick to truth while I am here, and I say to every man and to every influence in this town unfriendly to Christ and unfriendly to the Bible to fight back. I do not look for anything else. I want to say right now that I like to see things moving up, and if you can say anything worse of me than I can of you, lamm in, and I will beat you to the tank in that line, maybe. (Laughter.) Pick every flaw you can in every sermon, and if I can not pick more flaws in your life than you do in my sermons I will yield the feather to you. I say to you now we propose to get your eyes open so that you can see yourselves. That is the first sight you ought to look at. Then look at St. Paul. When he went to the city of Athens so wholly given up to idolatry it stirred his heart within him. I have heard Christian people say that they had no feeling, no enthu- siasm, no religious fervor, but never since I joined Christ’s church have I been devoid of religious fervor and enthusi- asm. The man who goes about like a corpse, with no feel- ing, no enthusiasm, that man is either dead to all intents and purposes, or he has closed his eyes to what is going on about him. When that great man visited the city of Athens, so wholly given up to idolatry, it stirred his heart 8 4 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. within him. And he went over to Mars Hill, pointed to the inscription “ To the Unknown God ” and preached that grand sermon generated in his sonl as he walked through the streets of the city and saw that it was wholly given np to idolatry ; and I tell yon to-night when we see ourselves and our city and our surroundings as they are, there is hope for us. SEEING THE CROSS. There is just one thing more I want yon to do — that is, to see the cross. It is the hope of the world. It is the Balm of Gilead. It has the power to save. It is the re- demption of the race. Oh, my brother, fourteen years ago and a few days I, a poor, wretched, ruined, lost sinner, walked up to see my father die. Oh, how I loved that father, and how I broke his heart. I have wished a thousand times that I had my father back just one hour that I might lean my head on his bosom and hear him speak the words of kindness and advice he has spoken to me in the past. As I stood by his dying couch he took my hand in his bony hand, and a heavenly smile rested on his face just before he passed out of this world. He did not die ; he did not die. His faculties were as bright and his hope as buoyant in the very agonies of death as they ever had been. As I took his bony hand he said : “ My poor, wayward God- less boy ! You have almost broken my heart, and you have given me so much trouble ! Won’t you tell your dying father, now, that you will meet him in the good world ? ” I stood there for a moment convulsed from head to foot. I said, “ Yes, father, I will meet you in the good world.” I turned awa}^ from that dying couch, and every step I have made from that time to this has been to the good world. And I mean, with the grace of God, to keep my promise. FIGHTING THE DEVIL. 85 I left that bed a wretched sinner, and looked to God. I looked up there and I saw one hanging on the tree In agonies of blood. He fixed his languid eyes on me, As near his cross I stood. Sure, never, to my latest breath Can I forget that look; He seemed to charge me with his death, Though not a word he spoke. My conscience felt and owned the guilt And plunged me in despair; I saw my sins his blood had spilled And helped to nail him there. A second look he gave, which said: “ I freely all forgive, My blood is shed to ransom thee, I die that you may live.” Blessed Christ, live forever to save dying men. 86 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. We invite your attention to-niglit to the 9th verse of the 6th chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. This exhortation may be wisely and prayerfully consid- ered by us now. Moral forces necessarily move slowly. This city has been wicked for forty years, and if you think it can be brought to God in a day you know nothing of moral forces and how they operate. This exhortation comes in with a good deal of force upon us here to-night : Let us not weary in well-doing, for in due season — There’s the promise — — for in due season we shall reap it if we faint not. Well, now this very verse, like some verse of almost every chapter in the Bible, is a key to the whole chapter. This chapter before us to-night is a great palace of Scrip- ture truth and this text is a key. I take this text and I walk up to the front door of this great palace of truth and I unlock the front door and walk in, and the first thing my eye falls upon is this: Brethren if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, re- store such an one in the spirit of meekness. SELFISHNESS. Then I find from the lesson of to-night that the first well- doing of every Christian man is to ignore himself, and that of every good man to live for others. If there is anything incompatible with Christianity it is selfishness. If there is anything that Christianity fights and would have you and I put out of the way, it is selfishness. And Hell itself is nothing but pure, unadulterated, concentrated selfishness. There is BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. 87 not an intolerable element in Hell itself that has not in it e very element of selfishness. No man is in a position to do for others until he can get himself out of the way. The great- est man I ever saw was the most unselfish man. The small- est man I ever saw was the most selfish. There is a little preacher upon a small* circuit in Georgia, when I walk up into his presence he grows and expands and develops, and I commence to wLiittle and whittle down untiljL feel like a mole hill by a mountain, and do you know why that man seems so great and I seem so small ? It is because when I look into his face I look into the face of the most unselfish man my eyes ever looked upon. Why, he don’t care anything for himself. His last thought at night is: “How can I benefit somebody to-morrow ? ” and his first thought in the morning, “ Where may I go and what may I do to benefit some one to-day ? ” And I speak the honest truth to-night when I say : That man don’t care any more for himself than he cares for a dog. I like that sort of man, and a man is never in position to do for others until he gets himself down and gets his feet on himself, and says to himself, “ Now you lie there. If you ever get up or open your mouth again, I’ll mash it. I never intend to hear from you any more.” (Laughter.) This world is run on selfish principles. “How much en- joyment may I get out of this, and how much profit out of that, and how much will I lose by the other.” Selfishness always defeats itself — never carries its point. You h t a man live for himself, and lay up money for himself, and pro- vide for himself, and let all the world go. “ Let all the world go, but I am going to layup for myself.” Why such a man as that defeats his very end. In our State there was a man spent his life laying up for his old age. Lie says, “I’m never going to want. I’m going to lay up for my old 88 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. age.” He laid up $200,000, and to illustrate liis state of mind— one of liis neighbors was over at his house one day, and they were talking about one thing and another, and di- rectly the neighbor said, “ Well, how are you off for meat? ” The old rich fellow said, u Well, I’ve got a smoke house full now and hogs enough to make ’me meat this fall, and pigs enough to make it full afterwards, but what in the world I am to do after that I can’t tell ! ” (Laughter.) That old fellow was starving to death with three year’s rations on hand. (Laughter.) UN-SELFISHNESS. Selfishness ! Live for self, love for self, work for self, and let all the world go. Now that sort of spirit is at enmity with Christianity, and I assure you that Christianity is at enmity with a spirit like that. Our Lord taught us a great lesson in unselfishness. Do you know that around all the broad acres ‘of this world Jesus of Nazareth never staked him off a single acre, and told the world, u That’s mine.” Do you know that amid all the palaces of earth Jesus looked out and said: “ The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but I have no where to lay my head”? Do you know that amid all the coin on earth, Jesus, when pressed for his taxes, sent his disciples to a fish’s mouth to get money to pay them? We see that un- selfish one as he arises in the morning, and after a simple breakfast at the home of Mary and Martha, he walks out upon the streets of the city, and over here he is giving sight to a blind man, and over there he is healing the sick, and over there he is cleansing a leper, and in the afternoon he meets a widow bearing her son to the tomb to bury him, and he takes the son by the hand and lifts him back into his mother’s loving arms, and amid the shouts of praise BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. 89 from the mother’s lips he presses his way until he reaches the farthest suburbs of the city, and then he stops by the roadside and sits down and leans his head upon his own aching arm, and he says : “This is the first time I have thought of myself since I got up this morning. I have just been thinking about others ; how I could benefit others ; how I could do for others ; I have been hunting the blind ; I have been seeking the sick ; I have been com- forting the disconsolate.” Oh, Christ ! Thy life was writ- ten in a single sentence : “ He went about doing good.” And the man who is most like Christ is the man that spends most of the hours of his life just like Christ did, going about doing good. And after all, my brethren, religion can not be com- passed by services like this. After all there is something more in religion than revival services, and dedicated churches and paid ministers and weekly prayer meetings. After all, you can not compass Christianity in the mere formalities of your church and the songs and sermons of revival meetings. And Christianity blesses the world, and will bring the world to God just in proportion as mankind will crucify themselves and live for others. How the first lesson of this text tells us : Brethren, if a man be taken in a fault, ye which are spiritual go and restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself also, lest thou be tempted. DIFFERENT KINDS OF MEMBERS. I used to think there was a great deal of difference, after all, in our churches and in the membership of our churches. I have thought, after all, we have got our first-class mem- bers and our second-class members and our tenth-rate mem- bers, and all that sort of thing. But, brethren, the great trouble is, we can hardly find a whole man among us. 9 o SAM JONES’ SERMONS. We have got pieces enough to make a thousand, but they won’t fit. We file and saw and chip and plug, and yet here we are to-day without a whole man in the city of St. Louis. How, we say: 66 There are a great many different sorts of members in the church.” I grant you that. There is one brother. He says: “I declare, if you don’t turn out these dancing members, I’m going to quit the church. I won’t live in a church with dancing members.” You see he don’t dance. (Laughter.) But I tell you what he will do every day — loan his money at twenty per cent, interest; and God says that the man who will do that ain’t fit for the church, and will never go to Heaven. Here’s another brother. He’s got no money to loan, and he despises dancing, but you can tote him right into Hell with a demijohn; he does love liquor so. (Laughter.) Here’s another member of the church. He don’t drink and don’t lend money at usury, and don’t dance, but he will skin you nine times out of ten when you go to trade with him, and I want to say this: You will never know how much real, genuine scriptural hell fire there is in a good trade till you get to Hell. (Sen- sation.) And I tell you another thing: We can sorter put up with a fellow that sins like we sin, but when he does something we won’t do, we are ashamed of him right straight. I declare I never see a man doing anything wrong that I don’t sorter get off to myself, and bury my face in my hands, and say: “ Look-a-liere ! You may not sin like that man, but are you not doing something just as bad in the sight of God? ” I say we can put up with a man as long as he sins like we do, but when he does something we won’t do, then we’ll fall out with him right there, and say : “ That man won’t do.” (Laughter.) BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. 9 1 THE VIRUS OF BACKSLIDING. Now, I like this position. If there is in your church an incorrigible backslider, then every man in it has backslid- den. You say: “ How do you know that?” Well, sir, the spirit that will make you neglect a backslidden brother, I don’t care what else you do, or what else you don’t do, that spirit will make you backslide in spite of all you can do. For if Christianity is anything, it is brotherly kindness in all its living, active force; and if I have no more of the spirit of Christ than to let a brother stray off and off and off and finally be lost, then I have none at all of the spirit of Christ. Now, here we are; the churches in this town looking to see a gracious revival and thousands of souls turned to God. They would like to see millions of people brought to Christ. Well, brother, it is one thing to bring a soul to Christ, and it is another thing to look after him after he gets there. Take an instance like this, happening in Rome, Ga. The pastor of the leading church in that city told me the incident. He said that a young man, per- haps twenty-two or twenty-three years old, was dying with consumption, and just the day before he died the young man said this. Said he: “ Brother L , you are my pastor. 1 belong to your church. I joined your church three years ago, and I have tried to live right and do my duty ; but,” said he, “Brother L , not a single member of your church ever opened his mouth to me on the subject of re- ligion. Not one came to me to speak a word of comfort or a word of cheer to me or a word of encouragement. And say to your church as you preach at my funeral, that with 360 odd members, they have never been any help to me. And tell them, when I am dead and gone, never to do to any poor boy as they have done to me — -just leave him to himself, and 92 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. tell liim to rough, it.” And I tell you to-day, from all the Christian churches in this country, men and women have strayed off, and made their way to Hell that you never opened your mouth to on the subject of religion. INTRODUCTIONS IN HEAVEN. Oh, what a sad thought in human history! The brother- hood in Christ Jesus, the fatherhood of God, the brother- hood of the whole race. I declare to you to-day, there is nothing that I wouldn’t do for my brother; there is nothing that I wouldn’t sacrifice for my -sister; there is no place at the table too good for my brother; there is no room in my house too good for my sister. And I say to you all to-night that the brotherly kindness and the brotherly love that ought to be manifested one toward another have well nigh died out from the face of the earth. Instead of helping each other and joining hands and marching like a band of brothers all through the world, there are members of differ- ent churches that don’t know a dozen members of the same church they belong to. I have told them sometimes that I expect if they were to get to Heaven — if they were fortunate enough to get there (laughter) — the angels would be kept busy several years introducing them to one another. (Great laughter.) Members of the same church, living for tenor twenty years in the same church, going to Heaven from the same church, if such a thing were possible, and then to have to be introduced in Heaven, on the streets of glory, by the angels, to one another. Why, that won’t do ! ( Laughter.) If a Mason were to come here to St. Louis, and he needed assistance and needed help, and he was a Methodist as well as a Mason, which would he go to, the Methodist Church or the Masonic fraternity, for help ? If a man were an Odd BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. 93 Fellow and a Baptist, to which class would he go to get means to follow his journey? Would he go to the Odd Fellows or go to the Baptists? Ah, brother, the Irishman told a great truth when he said, “ If there was a little more of the milk of human kindness in this world, what a grand world would we have.” (Applause,) I tell you I had fre- quently rather go to a wholesale liquor dealer to get help than go to some members of the church. These members of the church “brother” a fellow for about six months, and then think he belongs to them, and that is just about the way the thing goes. (Laughter.) A CHRISTIAN LAWYER. And we can never accomplish what we ought to as a church unless this spirit of self-sacrifice, and of brotherly kindness and love shall take possession of us. Here the speaker told of a lawyer, some fifty years of age, who joined the church of which he was pastor, in one of the wicked- est counties in Georgia. Said Mr. Jones: And that man has never backslidden an inch in his life since he joined the church. An old brother at a camp- meeting once turned to me and said: “Jones, haven’t you been a wonderful backslider in your day?” Said I: “I don’t know, why?” “Well,” he says, “you seem to know more backsliders than I ever saw in my life.” (Laughter.) “Well,” said I, “brother, I ought to begin to know some- thing about them. I have never associated with any other sort since I joined the church.” (Great laughter.) A fel- low will learn something once in a while if he will keep eyes and ears open. Now, why was it this lawyer brother never backslid an inch? Do you want to know why? He literally spent his life in looking after backsliders. Shortly after he joined the church he commenced working with 94 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. the brethren. If he saw two members of the church quar- reling on the street, no matter what church they belonged to, he went out and put his hand on each’s shoulder and said: “You are my brother. You are brethren to one an- other. You mustn’t quarrel or fuss. If this is a question of financial difference, 1 will pay the money out of my own pocket before I will see brothers fussing.” And if a mem- ber of the church went into a grocery to get a drink he ran right in after him — not to take a drink with him, like some of you do (laughter), but to bring him out of there. (Ap- plause.) And he walked into the grocery, and said he: “My brother, don’t drink that, because Christian people ought not to drink. I used to drink when I was a child of the devil, but we can’t drink whisky and be religious. My brother walk out of here.” And he would carry the brother out of there. A PRACTICAL TEMPERANCE REFORMER. And if a member of the church got so drunk on the street that he could not walk home, he would say to another man, “Here is my brother drunk on the street; will you help to carry him down to the house with me? And he would carry that poor drunken fellow down to his house and say to his wife — the Major called his wife Sister Martha and Mary — and she w r as the best Martha I most ever saw, and she w r as the best Mary I think I ever saw. She was good on both sides. She would sit at the Savior’s feet and when she came to housekeeping everything about her home would shine — and he would say, “Sister Martha and Mary, here is one of our brothers slipped up; he’s done a little wrong; fix a bed; let us put our brother to bed.” And he would be put to bed and the Major would sit by his side and say to his wife, “Fix a nice cup of coffee for BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. 95 our brother to drink when he wakes, and I’ll pick out a few verses of Scripture to read to him, and I think he won’t get drunk any more.” And when he would wake up the Major would say to him, “Now drink some of Sister Martha and Mary’s coffee.” And then he would show her the wash-stand and towel and invite her to wash the dirt off his face, and when he was straightened up he w r ould kneel down by her and pray; “God help my brother. He has made a little slip, being tempted, but I don’t think he’ll do it any more.” And he never had to take a man to his house but once. The first dose of that treatment generally fetched them. A sister may say, “Ah, me! I would have no drunken dog in my bed ! ” That is because you are a good Sister Martha, but you are a failure as a Mary. (Applause.) Don’t you see ? THE QUESTION" OF SELF-SACRIFICE. * The Lord Jesus Christ lay out on that mountain top, bleak and dark and dreary, for forty days and forty nights, and suffered for you ; the Lord J esus Christ wept and prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, with a bloody sweat bursting from his body, and expired on Ca l , ary for you, and there you are, claiming to have the spirit of Christ, and you would not soil one of your snow-white counterpanes to save a soul from Hell! Do you call that religion? Ah, me! We’ve got to be different if we ever do anything. We go to church and sing. Christ gave his life for me, And then we’ll break out on the next line — What have we done for him ? Just like we had done everything. And then we’ll take up the next verse — Christ suffered much for me, g6 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. And tlien we’ll break out on the next line — What have I suffered for him ? And there seems to be an exultation of soul as we strike that second line. Brother, sister, look at the life and character of Jesus Christ. Take the life and character of Paul! Take the life and character of those men who rotted to death in dungeons, and who died at the stake, and who were imprisoned and striped and abused for you and me, and then let us look how our hands have grown soft and white, and our own personal interest has absorbed all our energies and all our efforts. WHERE THE RUB COMES IN. I’ll tell you where the rub is. There is a member of the church, and here is a poor drunkard ; he walks up and gives his heart to God and joins the church, and that member of the church sits back there and shakes his head, “Oh, my soul ! I wish that fellow hadn’t joined our church ; ” and then, about three months after that, the poor fellow has tried to be faithful, but under temptation fell, and then the brother meets the preacher, and he tells him: “I knew you ought not to take that man into our church ; I knew when he joined he would be disgracing our church.” And I will tell you another thing: That poor fellow lying there in the gutter is a gentleman and a scholar and a Christian be- side of that old Pharisee who stands by the side of him and says, “Just look at that! Just look at that!” (Applause.) I will tell you, we got too much just such Phariseeism in this city as that. My God! help us to see that Jesus Christ died for the poorest and meanest wretch that ever walked on the face of the earth, and we can do nothing that can glorify Christ more than to put our arms around a poor, ruined wretch and bring him to God. And I praise my BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. 97 Savior, now and forever, that He is able and willing, and seems more willing, to save the lowest, meanest man on earth, than any other character that lives. That man may be so mean that the common people on the street kick him out of their way ; the bar-rooms have kicked him out at the door; his very wife has fled from him ; but Christ says to all of us, when our father and mother forsake us then He will take us up. Oh, Christ! let the race of man be as good to each other as Thou art good to us! A KENTUCKY STORY. In the Fifth and Walnut Church at Louisville, Ky., two years ago, one night during a revival meeting, fifteen men came up and took the front seats, and those fifteen men on that front pew were the very imps of the devil. I never looked, and no man ever looked, at such men in the Church of God. How, how about those fifteen men? The pastor of that church — one of the sweetest-spirited, most Christly men I ever saw — he went to each one and took his name and said to him, “ You remain here after this service.” There sat the son of old Col. Harney, the editor of the Louisville Democrat , that had been drunk on the streets of Louisville for twenty years ; and here was another, the veriest reprobate that ever walked the face of the earth ; and here was another, and there was another; and there the fifteen men sat, the very imps of the devil, at the very gates of Hell, and that preacher took their names and asked them to remain. He took his board of stewards and said, after services: “Now, let us take these fifteen men to the bath- room, and let us take them to the clothing house and let us put clothes on them and have them made respectable and win them to Christ.” And I was at that Louisville church just fifteen months after that. Now, how about the fifteen? 7 9 8 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. One of them had died — had gone home to Heaven, one of them had backslid, and thirteen of the most earnest workers at the Fifth and Walnut Church came off that front bench that I have been talking to you about, and the son of Col. Harney, of the Louisville Democrat , a book-keeper for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and that same man would jump up in the meeting, now and then, and say: “ Glory to God! I get up to say that God has saved the lowest sin- ner that lived in Louisville.” God help us to go out among the wharf rats and the de- graded of this town and bring them to Christ. Poor fel- lows ! how sorry we ought to be for them. They are kicked and cuffed about by humanity, and they toil every day for the meat they eat at night, and with the poor, cold house, and the shivering w r ife, and the ragged children. God help us to do what we can for those poor, degraded men ! And when we see such a spirit as that among you all, then you may look for God to touch this city with a power that will move it from center to circumference. HELP, NOT CRITICISM. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual go and restore him. It is not your business to criticise or say : “ Just look how that man has degraded the church and disgraced Christian- ity,” but it is your business to go out to him, and rescue him, and bring him back to God. There are many members of the church strayed off to-night and are wandering away from God that would have been good, active members of the church if you had been a brother, indeed, to them. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual go and restore him. Why? If you don’t you will backslide yourself. The spirit that makes you neglect your brother will make you backslide inevitably. Bishop Marvin, BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. 99 the noble man that died in your midst, related an incident how the faithful class leaders cared for a poor drunken man and straightened him up, and brought him to God, and took him into the church, and labored with him, and labored for him, and had him praying night and morning in his family, and how that man moved out farther west, and how that man lived right there for several months, and how his wife wrote back to the noble class leaders and said to them: “ My husband died happy last night and said , 4 Write it back to my faithful class leaders there is another sinner saved by Christ . 5 55 Brethren, let us look to our Christianity. Does it send us out to those that need us? Is it bringing others to Christ through us? Are we spending and being spent year after year in the great work of seeing that souls are marching home to God ? BEARING OTHERS 5 BURDENS. Then I take this key and open it into another apartment of this chapter, and I read this : Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. I see in the Church of God that all of its duties rest upon a few in all the churches. If you want any praying done, call on Brother A; if you want any paying done, call on Brother B, and all that sort of thing. And I want to tell you to-night, we can never make the church what it ought to be until every man shall bear one another’s burdens. We must do our part in all the phases of church work. I will tell how the thing stands now. You go about through the community and you will find the whole of the church up in the w r agon — the whole thing-; some of them up there laughing, some dancing, some cursing, some shout- ing, some praying — the whole thing up in the wagon, and 100 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. the poor little preacher out in the shafts trying to pull the thing to glory, and every little while some fellow up in the wagon will ,say, “Tap him up a bit! Move him up a little, hoys ! ” and feeding him on wheat straw all the year round. No horse ever made 2:40 on wheat straw. (Laughter.) SHARING THE WORK. Bear ye one another’s burdens. Listen ! If I were to go fishing to-morrow with four men, and we were to bn y 25 cents worth of ]ard to fry our fish, and we had to get wood to fry them, and prepare them to fry, if I didn't pay my five cents of that quarter, and I didn’t get my part of the wood, and do my part of the clean- ing of the fish, I would not consider myself a gentleman, much less a Christian. If 1 was a member of any church in this town, and I didn’t do my part of the paying and my part of the praying and my part of the everything that was done, I wouldn’t consider myself a gentleman, much less a Christian. The shirks and sharks in the church ! And the shirk don’t run long until he turns to the shark. He will shirk every day, and like the old shark he’ll eat everything within a mile of him. (Laughter.) There’s a good deal of that sort going on in the world. And I will tell you where all the growling comes in. These fellows that don’t pay any and don’t pray any, they are the growlers, and there ought to be an addition to every church in this country and call it “ The Growler,” and run them in there. (Laughter.) If there is anything in the world I have got a contempt for it is to see two or three fellows sitting back in a Pullman sleeper with a dead-head ticket in their pockets quarreling with the conductor about how he is pulling the train. (Laughter.) Bear ye one another’s burdens. BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. IOI Bear part in the great work of bringing the world to God. THE VIRTUE OF DOING. Then I take this same key and open into another apart- ment and read this : For if a man think himself something when he is (or when he does) nothing, he deceiveth himself. What a man does is the test of what a man is. If what a man does is not a test of what a man is, then what a man pays is the test of what a man is. 1 can sorter put up with a fellow in the church that won't do anything, but who’ll pay well. There ain’t a railroad in heaven or earth that don’t charge extra for a sleeper, and you ought to pay it. (Laughter.) That’s the truth about it. I believe in doing the thing yourself or hiring somebody else to do it. I will either pray every time they call on me at church, or I will have a fellow there paid by the month to do my praying — one or the other. (Laughter.) And that’s the only honest way to get out of it, sir. (Laughter.) You’ve got a good many elements of the hog in you if you don’t run it that way. I declare to you this shirking spirit — want all, all, all that can come to you and yet never give back anything — is too prevalent in the church to-day. And a man gets out of his religion just in proportion as he puts into it. I used to be pastor; and I’ll tell you another thing, I never had a member of my church in my life that would not pray in public and pray in his family, that was any account — never did. They may be all right — I reckon they are — here in St. Louis, but I am talking of away down in Georgia. (Laughter.) That’s the way to put it. THEATER-GOING CHRISTIANS. How many theater-going Christians pray in public and 102 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. pray in their families ? I want every Christian man here to-night who prays in his family night and morning, who goes to prayer-meeting every Wednesday night and prays when they call on him, who visits the sick and reads the Bible to them and prays for them and who goes to the theater — I want you to stand up. I want to see how many there are here. (Nearly every one in the house looked around to see if any one stood up.) Oh, you need not be looking around ! (Laughter and great applause.) I just want to see one Christian who is doing his duty and run- ning to ball-rooms, theaters, circuses, cards and such like. Now I hardly ever mention circuses. They are too low down for me. (Laughter.) Down South all trashy niggers and low-down white folks go to circuses. My typical idea of a circus crowd is a sot, a one-eyed nigger and a dog. (Laughter.) I think that is a pretty good circus crowd, and if I was a sot, or a one-eyed darky or a dog I would go to a circus, but I never will go to one until I get to be one of those things. (Laughter.) What a man does is the test of what he is, and when he does these things he does not do those things. When he does these things that are right he won’t do the other things. Now listen to me, my friend. If I am doing my duty toward God I am not running into these other things. You ask me how I know, and I tell you I have tried it. I know how it goes. I know from personal, practical ex- perience that a man who prays in his family, and who prays in public, and who lives rightly before the community, does not go to such places. A GOOD WORD FOR “ RIP.” And you say, Jones, what are you always fighting the theater for ? ' Why, don’t you think Joe Jefferson is a BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. IO3 worthy and good man ? Certainly I do, and if yon will kill all the other tribe but Joe I will never say another word against theaters. (Laughter and applause.) Now, what do you say? You say, “ Let us reform the theater. 55 That would be like a lot of girls who, in a certain town, married all the drunken boys to reform them, and now there are more little old “ whipper-will 55 widows around that town than you ever saw. (Laughter.) That is u sorter 55 like a fellow pitching in and drinking up a barrel of whisky to keep the whisky from doing any harm. (Laughter.) What a man does is the test of what he is. If he runs on that line, there is the test. If he runs on this line, there is the test ; and if a man thinks he must be doing something when he is doing nothing, he deceivetli himself. What an engine does is a test of what an engine is. When the presi- dent of the Wabash road writes to Mr. Rogers, at his loco- motive-works, and says : “ I want an engine that will pull twenty cars up a grade of so many feet to the mile, 55 Mr. Rogers sends an engine. They couple twenty cars to it and start it up the grade, but it stands stock still, and the president of the railroad telegraphs to Mr. Rogers : u Come after your engine ; I don’t want it. 55 Mr. Rogers comes. They walk up to the engine and he says : “ Look at that cab ; it 5 s the nicest cab ever sent out of the shop. Look at that bright piston rod how it glistens in the sunshine. Look at those magnificent driving wheels. 55 The president re- plies, “ I never said anything to you about cabs or piston rods or driving wheels. I want an engine that will take these cars up that grade. 55 Another engine is built and it is ready for the trial. 'They fire her up until the gauge indi- cates 160 pounds pressure to the square inch. The engineer opens the throttle. The engine starts up hill moving the cars with it, and when it turns the grade it seems to say, 104 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. “ I could have pulled up ten more cars if you had put them on the train.” The president says, “ that is what we want.” God does not want you because you live in a four-story house. He does not want you because you have the finest turnout in town. He does not want you because you are president of the leading bank. But God wants you for what you can do. Sister, God does not want you for how you can dress your children or how you can bang your hair. (Laughter.) God wants you for what you can do. There is many a Pauline Christian around in this country. They exclaim : “ Paul says it is a shame for woman to speak in public.” Paul also said : “ It is a shame for woman to cut her hair off.” How do you get along there? You are Pauline where you want to be and un-Pauline where you w T ant to be. (Laughter.) Lord, have mercy on us ! What a man does is test of what he is. What a woman does is a test of what she is. God does not want to know what you have, how you look or where you live, but God wants to know how much you can do in the kingdom of Christ. CATS AS A TEST FOR HOLINESS. I turn again to this chapter and read : Every man shall bear his own burden. There are some things you can not delegate to another. 1 have a contempt for those folks who, when I go to their house, want me to conduct family prayers for them, and who never have any at any other time. Somehow there is always something that will let the secret out. If a fellow is not in the habit of praying with his family you can always find it out without asking the question. An old preacher once went to a place like that. They asked him to read a chapter of the Bible and pray with them. After he had read the chapter of the Scriptures they all knelt down, and BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. 105 as they did so all the cats jumped out of the window. (Laughter.) They had never seen anything like that before, and they did not know what was happening. (Renewed laughter.) I expect there is many a professing Christian in this house to-night at whose home prayer is so great a stranger that if you were to pray with them the cats would jump out of the window. (Laughter.) It is something unusual with them. I really believe some of us are like the man I once heard Dr. Young tell of. He awoke one morn- ing and said to himself : “ I have been a member of the church for lifteen years, and I have never been religious a single day. 5 ’ Afterward he lay there thinking and finally said, “ I am going to put this day over as a Christian man. I am going to do my best this day to be religious.” He got up out of his bed and kneeling down beside it said, u Oh Lord, help me to be a Christian this day. Help me this day to live aright.” Then he rose from his knees, and be- fore the breakfast bell rang he called his wife and family into the family room and said, “ Take your seats. I’m go- ing to read a chapter with you all. I have never lived re- ligious one day in my life, but by God’s grace I am going to put one day over religiously.” Then he read a chapter of the Bible and offered up prayer. After breakfast he bade his wufe and children good-by pleasantly. He was kind to all his clerks during the day, and gentle in all his transac- tions. He came back to dinner, and when he sat down he said grace — a “ blessing,” as we say — at his table. I like that, too. A man that will sit down to his table before his children and eat, without returning thanks to the Good Provider of all things, that fellow is eleven-tenths hog. (Laughter.) All the human in him is turned to hog, and he is at best eleven-tenths hog. He sat down to his table and asked a blessing, and after dinner he said, “ Wife, will you 106 • SAM JONES’ SERMONS. please fix tip this half-broiled chicken here; make some nice toast, and will you arrange it nicely on a waiter for Brother Johnson, living down here. He has been paralyzed two years. He is a member of our church, and I have not been to see him. I have not paid any attention to him, but if you fix up these things nicely on a waiter I will take them down to him.” The waiter was fixed up, and he took it down to the sick brother. Then he said : “ If you have a Bible I will read to you,” and he read : “ The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” Then he knelt down and prayed heaven’s blessing on the poor sick fellow. That night he held family prayer in his own home, and after they had gone to bed, his sons Bill and Tom, who slept in the next room with the door open between, began talking. Tom hunched Bill in the side and said : “ Bill, the old man’s going to die and Bill said : “ How do you know, Tom ?” “ Why,” said Tom, “ don’t you see he is getting pious ? He will die before the week’s out, I am satisfied.” (Laughter.) CONCLUDING REMARKS. Let me tell you, there is many a Christian in this town whose children, if he were to go home and resolve to be religious for one day, would punch one another in the short ribs and say, “ the old man is going to die.” (Laughter.) For every man shall bear his own burden. I never see that passage that I do not think of the time that a certain preacher took it as his text. He said, “ Every tub must stand on its own bottom ; ” and an Irishman in the congregation said, “ Faith, and if it has no bottom ? ” “ Then it is no tub,” replied the preacher. This “ no tub ” business is running through the church largely. On and on we might go into this chapter, but we have kept you, over an hour. And now let us go away and think about the part we are to take in this great work. “ How BE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING. IOJ am I to prepare myself, and what shall I do, in order that God may carry on and bless this work.” And now brethren, Christian brethren of all churches, if yon have it in yonr hearts will you stand squarely on your feet and say, 66 God helping me, I intend to live an unselfish Christian. I intend to try to be a good man and to help others to be good.” Will everybody of every church that feels that way stand up? (The audience rose en masse.) Well, thank God for such a house as that, and may God inspire you to lead a better life. And may the blessing of Almighty God abide with you for ever and ever. Amen. xo8 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. ETEE Y-D AY RELIGION. We invite your attention to the text, to be fonnd in the third chapter and ninth verse of the first epistle general of St. John. Whosoever is born of God cloth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth * jn him; and he can not sin, because he is born of God. You say, “ Strange text for a Thanksgiving sermon.” Well, let’s wait awhile'knd see what thist^xt has to do with this occasion and with the future of our lives. I might stop here and say : This one verse of Scripture gave me more pain and trouble for seven or eight years of my re- ligious life than perhaps any other and all other passages of the word of God. This text to me once was a two-edged sword, and I never approached it that I didn’t feel its sharp blades cutting asunder the very joint and marrow and soul and spirit. To a great many, the reading of this text is nothing more than the applying of the sound, but to others and to me, while this text was once a two-edged sword, now it is the sweetest bread Heaven ever gave me. I announce at this point that I don’t propose to preach on sanctification. I don’t expect to touch any controversial point, any contro- verted dogmas and views. I am going to preach on old- fashioned righteousness and the life of the really converted man. I’m going to preach on every-day religion. I shall not get up as high as sanctification, though I believe in it with all my heart, and I believe that without holiness no man shall see the Lord, and if you ask me why I believe that, I tell you just because the Bible says so, and I don’t want any better reason for anything than that “ God says.” EVERY-DAY RELIGION. IO9 A SCRIPTURAL CLIMAX. Now, this text is the climax of that preceding, and we can only reach this great climatical point as we may come np through the context. And may God help me to preach this text to-day. I would rather partially fail on this text than succeed on many other texts on the word of God. A clear exegesis, a scriptural understanding of this text to-day, must benefit every man here, and every woman here, whether you profess to be Christians or not. And now I turn to the context, beginning with the first verse, and I read this : 1. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God : therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not. 2. Beloved, now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear. And so on. The first announcement of the text is the princely charac- ter of the Christian man. Now are we the sons of God. What a blessed realization this is to poor, weak human- ity. And, thank God ! The sentiment of the song is but the truth of God’s words when we sing : I’m a child of the King, My father is rich in houses and lands. Every Christian man must realize, first, I am a son of the Lord God Almighty. He is my father. I am his child It is worth a great deal to a man, brother, to know and be. conscious of the fact that he belongs to a noble family. It is worth a great deal to any ma n to know that the blood which courses through his veins is as pure and good as ever flowed through human veins. It is worth a good deal to a boy to know that his father was a princely good man. It is worth a great deal to a boy to look back with the con- I IO SAM JONES’ SERMONS. sciousness, “ My mother was one of the purest women that ever lived.” In fact, many a hoy has drifted to the very verge of destruction in his waywardness and dissipation, and in some thoughtful moment a kind friend has ap- proached him and laid his hand on his shoulder and said : My friend! Young man ! Why will you dissipate and why will you go so far in sin ? My precious young man, your mother was one of the most princely women I ever knew. Your father was a noble Christian man” And the boy has walked off alone and buried his face in his hands and wept like a child as he said : “ My mother was one of the fpurest women earth ever knew. My father was a noble, princely man. And to-day I reform my life and serve my mother’s God and follow my father’s Christ.” THE MISSISSIPPI AGNOSTIC. I once knew a man in the State of Mississippi ; he was an elegant man, some fifty years old, an elegant, cultured gentleman. He was what we call an agnostic, or infidel. After the meeting had progressed several days he stood up one morning in the vast congregation and he said : “ My fellow-citizens: I have roamed over all the range of science and literature. I have never found rest to my soul, and to- day my mind turns back to the purest, sweetest mother a boy ever had. My mind goes back to my precious father and the family altar and the sacred conversations at home, and I stand up to-day to confess my sins and give my life to Christ.” Ah me ! if we realize who we are, then that will help us to be what we ought to be. A certain one of the crowned heads of an Eastern country turned his son over to a tutor to train and educate. He was an unruly boy, some twelve years of age, and the great EVERY-DAY RELIGION. Ill question of the tutor was : “ How will I manage this boy ? I can not use a rod on the king’s son. How am I to manage him?” And, finally, he adopted this plan: He made a bow of ribbon and bound it on the lapel of the boy’s coat. The boy turned to the tutor and said : “ What does that mean ? ” The tutor said : “ That is the sign of your royal character. That is the sign that you are the son of a king. That is the emblem of your royal character.” And ever after that when the boy misbehaved the teacher pointed his finger to the badge, and the boy subsided in a moment and begged pardon for his rudeness. And St. Paul says : “ I carry about with me the marks of the Lord J esus Christ, and when the good spirit of Christ drops his finger on the mark I stop all that is evil and weep my life away for having grieved God’s love. THE PRINCELY CHARACTER OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. Here Mr. Jones referred to the visit of Prince Edward of England to this country, to the wish expressed that while here he vrould behave liimseif as became his rank, and to the general verdict of ’ approval of his conduct while in America, and said: How, I may not and can not announce that I am the son of Queen Victoria of England, but, blessed be God ! I am the son of Lord God Almighty, and I am heir apparent to all things. And when I walk out before the world, and make the declaration, the world greets me, and replies : “ How we expect something of you. We want you to talk like a prince, to give like a prince, to act as a prince, to go where princes ought to go, and stay away from where princes ought not to go. We want you to behave as a worthy member of the family to w T hich you belong,” and, brethren, the highest aim of a Christian’s heart is to worthily magnify I 12 SAM JONES' SERMONS. the name of the family to which he belongs, and oh, how it ought to he the chief desire of all Christian hearts never to bring reproach or shame upon the name of the family of God. One of the purest of men, your noble bishop, who died in your midst, in one of his sermons, said this : “ Shortly after I joined the church, : 55 he said, “I was riding along, when this thought impressed me : 4 1 am now a member of the Church of Christ, and I have it in my power to bring reproach and shame upon the name and cause of Christ. 5 5? Said he, “ When that thought possessed me, it over- whelmed me. Oh, what a fearful power delegated to mor- tal man ! Power to bring reproach and shame upon the cause of Christ. And, 55 said he, “ the prayer that I lifted up from my heart, was, 4 God help me to die rather than bring a stain upon the family of God and the name of Christ. 5 55 When you walk out before the world with this announce- ment made : “I am the child of the king. I am heir apparent to all things, 55 the world doffs its hat, and says to you : “We expect you to live like one, 55 and I am very glad this world will not compromise Christian people down to the point where they will willingly let us do like they do. I am glad that no wicked man every sees a professing Christian doing anything wrong that he doesn’t point the Un- ger of scorn at him, and say : “ Just look at that professing Christian. He dishonors his God, and disgraces himself. 55 I say I am glad the world thinks more of Christ, and thinks more of Christianity, than to let us Christian people misrepresent the gospel, and misrepresent Christ, without throwing it in our teeth, and telling us to our face : “ We believe you are hypocrites. 55 I am glad of that. EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 113 A MERCIFUL DIVINE FATHER. And then after a profession like this it behooves ns to be grateful for the redeeming mercy and condescending grace that would adopt us into the heavenly family. It behooves us then to lead a pure life and stainless character before God and men. Now are we the sons of God — It isn’t by and by. It isn ’t when I am bidding earth and friends goodby, and pluming myself for flight to glory and God, but it is down in the world of temptation and trial. Every morning, noon and night, I may fall on my knees and say, “ My Father, which art in Heaven.” I can explain my existence on no other hypothesis than thatj God is my father. I was getting on a railroad train some months ago in my State, and a gentleman boarded the train at one of the stations, and after shaking hands and talking a moment I asked him the news. “ Well,” he said, “ nothing special I believe, ex- cept I came very near being killed last night.” Said I, u how was that? ” Said he, “ the agent at the depot in our town was lying on the platform of the depot, drunk. He had been drunk several days. I went up to him to help him into the depot, and when I did so he jerked out his pistol and shot at me twice, and came very near hitting me.” “ Well,” said I, “ do you mean to say that the agent at the depot in your town had been drunk for several days?” Why, said I, “ the officers of this road are very strict with their employes. How is it this man. maintains his position if he drinks that way ? ” Said the gentleman, “ I can’t tell you, sir, only this man, this agent, is brother-in-law to the president of the road.” Well, when he said that, I saw it all in a moment, and then I said to myself : “ How is it God 8 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. 114 puts up with me as he does ?” “How is it God has borne with me as he has ? 55 And I found the answer is this : Not because God was my brother-in-law, but because God was my father ; and isn’t it astonishing how God will bear with his children? A LESSON - FROM THE NURSE GIRL. I learned a great lesson in my relations toward God in a little incident that happened at my own home. We had in our employ a colored servant girl nursing for us. She was rather a careless, indifferent servant. I was sitting in the room one morning just after breakfast and this girl walked in and my wife said : “ Sally, you can go to your home this morning, and tell your mother to come over after awhile and I will pay your wages to her. I don’t want you any longer, Sally, you may go.” I looked up from my book and the girl stood there, full face toward my wife, and the tears commenced running down her cheek, and directly she turned to my wife and she says : “ Mrs. Jones, please ma’am, don’t turn me off. I know I’m the poorest servant you ever had, but I don’t want to be turned off. Please ma’am, keep me.” I commenced to beg for the poor girl, and said: “Wife, bear with her a little while longer.” And then I thought to myself: “If the Lord Jesus w^ere to come down this morning and discharge me and tell me, 4 1 don’t want you any longer,’ I would fall down at his feet and say : ‘ Blessed Savior, don’t turn me off. I know I am the poorest servant you ever had, but, blessed Christ, keep me in thy life employ.’ ” Oh, blessed Christ ! So good to us ! So merciful to us ! Ah, brother : When all thy mercies, oh, my Lord, My rising soul surveys, Transported by the view, I’m lost In wonder, love and praise. EVERY-DAY RELIGION. IIS Oh, after love like this, Let rocks and hills their silence break, And all harmonious human tongues Their Savior’s praises speak. Herein is love ; not that we loved Him, but that He loved us and gave His own Son to die for us. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son — that every child of Heaven might he adopted into the heavenly family and become an heir of immortal life. Ah, sister, look up to-day, and see your father’s face as it shines in beauty and love and mercy, and say : “ Abba ! father ! my Lord and my God ! ” And’then realizing your princely character ever after this, Let your life and lips express The holy Gospel you profess. PURITY OF CHARACTER. And then I turn to the second feature of the text, and I read it this way : 2. How are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3. And he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as Christ is pure. The Christian character is pure. There is a great deal said about life purity and heart purity in the Word of God. The Christian is pure in his life and pure in his character- The Book says : Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. A guileless man! A guileless woman! A guileless hus- band ! A guileless wife ! A guileless child ! A purity like the character of the little ermine, that beautiful, fastid- ious little animal, with its hair and skm almost as white as the driven snow, and the only way to capture it with its cunning, is to mark its course from its home, and then 1 16 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. sprinkle mud and dirt along its pathway, and wlien the little ermine reaches in its pathway to where the muddy water and dirt are placed, it will lie down and subject itself to capture and death before it will smirch or soil one of its snow-white hairs. And so the true Christian has reached his highest aims when he reaches a point where he will lie down and subject himself to torture and death before he will smirch his character as a Christian man. That’s the Christian character — princely in nature and pure in charac- ter. • THREE DELIVERANCES. Brethren, sooner or later we must meet this point, that God’s people are a peculiar people and God’s people are a pure people. Sooner or later we must meet this in our con- victions, in our intelligent thought; and I say to you all to-day that there is no theological book in any theological library in the country, Protestant in its character, that puts salvation this side of these three principles. Salvation, says all Protestant theology, is deliverance from the guilt of sin; deliverance from the love of sin, and deliverance from the dominion of sin. And I declare to you to-day that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is either adequate to reach the depths of human depravity, or we misunderstand that Gos- pel. I am ready to take this position and defy earth and hell equally upon it. Jesus is able to do for me and you all that we need to have done, and if that is true, then God knows I need to be delivered from sin, its dominion, its love and its guilt. Now, when I am delivered from the guilt of sin, I have got to that point in the Christian life reached by Bunyan’s pilgrim when he walks to the cross, and the bur- den rolls from his conscience, and he stands upright before EVERY-DAY RELIGION. ii 7 God. But, brother, that is not sufficient. The mere par- doning power that would leave me as I was doesn’t amount to much. I not only want to be pardoned for my past sins, but I want to be cleansed from all unrighteousness. In every thought renewed, And full of life divine, Perfect and right and pure and good, Lord keep me ever thine. If I had but one prayer between this and eternity, I would pour out my soul in this one petition : “ God, give me a pure heart and pure life — the purity of Christian character.” THE LOATHING OF SIN. I don’t consider any man safe here or hereafter until he is delivered from the love of those things that are wrong. There is no attitude toward God that is acceptable to Him except the attitude that turns with loathing away from sin. Let me illustrate what I mean : Here’s a mother sitting quietly within her room. Her only child, little Willie, just four years old, the pride of her heart and the joy ^of her life, sees mamma’s little pearl-liandled pen-knife lying on the table. That little knife is the present of a friend, and mother values it highly. Little Willie, unknown to mother, picks up the little knife and runs out of the room, and in an hour mother wonders where he is, and directly the nurse comes in hurriedly and says : “ Little Willie is lying all bloody in the front flower yard,” and mother rushes out there, and there is little Willie just gasping and breathing his last. He stubbed his little foot and fell and the blade pierced the jugular vein. The mother grabs the little bloody angel in her arms and runs into the room and just as she lays him on the little bed he breathes his last, and the mother kisses her child and says: “ Sweet Willie, just speak one more time.” 1 18 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. Next day, mother carries little Willie to the grave and buries him and comes back to her home with broken heart,, and as she sits down and turns back the dark veil, the nurse comes out of the front yard and says : “ Madam, here’s the little knife. Here’s your little pearl-handled knife.” The mother looks at the knife and its blade all covered with the blood of her sweet child, and she shrinks back in horror and says, “ Take that knife out of my presence. I never want to see it again. It has the blood of my precious child upon it.” And when a Christian man or woman, under the light of God’s Holy Spirit, can see that every sin in all the moral universe of God has been covered with the blood of the Son of God, then he shrinks back in horror and says : “ Oh ! take it out of my presence. It is covered with the precious blood of my bleeding Savior.” Oh, brother, you will never know what piety is until you see all impurity bathed in the blood of the Son of God. Oh, let us hate sin and abhor it, and turn away from it and despise it utterly. IMPERVIOUSNESS TO SIN. And now for a few moments : He that is born of God doth not commit sin, for His seed remaineth in him and he can not sin because he is born of God. We have had firstly, the princely character of the Chris- tian, and, secondly, his purity of character, and now we come to the climax of the text, the imperviousness of the Christian character to sin. Now, if I were to say right here that an honest man can not steal, everybody would say, “ That is true.” If I were to say a sober man can not get drunk, they would say, “ That’s a fact.” If I were to say a chaste man can not be vulgar, they would say, “ That is true.” Well, now, brother, if a truthful man as a truthful man can not tell a EVERY-DAY RELIGION. I 19 lie, and an honest man as an honest man can not steal, and a sober man as a sober man can not get drunk, if logic is worth anything and common sense and religion will mix up together at all, then I say, is there anything unreasonable in the proposition that: He that is horn of God doth not commit sin. Don’t you see ? He that is born of God doth not commit sin, because His seed remaineth in him. Now, there’s the gist of the whole matter. There’s the pivotal point in the whole text : Because His seed remaineth in him. It is a moral “can’t;” not a physical “can’t.” Now sup- pose some man had said to me this morning when I got up, “ Brother Tudor came here last night and stole your watch and clothes, and has run away.” I would look the man in the face and say, “ Brother Tudor can not steal my watch and clothes.” I don’t mean that he could not have walked out on the street and gone into my room and car- ried off these things as a physical act, but I say, “It is against his principle and against his interest and against his conviction and against his desires and purposes and everything, and I just know he didn’t do it.” There’s a man with the love and respect of everybody in St. Louis, and with no interest at all for stealing anything from me, and I just know he couldn’t do it ; and if every man in the city of St. Louis was like him, we could quit shutting our front doors at night and throw all our keys away, and just close up our sheriff’s institution and every jail and calaboose in this city. Ain’t that so? It is like a train when you see it going thundering along the 'track to- ward Kansas City ; you know it isn’t going to St. Louis be- cause all its momentum is the other way. week, but the poor fellow lives on in the way of all the country, one of these knowing fellows. THE LORD LIKES THEM. The Lord likes one of these fellows who says, “ I don’t know much.” A man who drops down on his knees every morning when he first wakes up and says, “ Lord God, go with me this day. I am poor and weak and miserable, and ignorant and blind. Oh, Lord ! I would not risk my- self out of this room and out of my yard to-day unless you- go with me. Take my hand, precious Father, and ]ea% me, because I know not the way.” The Lord likes one of these HOW TO LEAD A CHRISTIAN LIFE. l6l men that feels in his heart, “ I haven’t got sense enough to go to my front gate and back unless the God of Heaven will go with me.” That is my sort. Besides this giving all diligence, add unto your faith, virtue. I like this rule of addition. I like it. I want more and more, and still there is more to follow. I want to be larger to-day, and better to-day, and grander to-day than yesterday. And the biggest reason in the world why. I’d rather live ten years longer in this life than to die to-morrow — the biggest reason after all is the fact that in the next ten years, if God lets me live, I intend to eliminate much that is evil about me, and I intend to grow and develop into a grander Christian man than I claim to be to-night. My highest wish for a longer period of life is that before the day of crystallization, God may eliminate from me all that is evil, and develop me into all that is good. THE SEVEN GRACES. Add unto your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowl- edge, temperance; and to temperance, patience — enough to keep a man pious. You will find that evil here is broad and deep as you look out. Add unto your faith, virtue. You take these seven graces before us to-night. Now, six thousand years ago God said “ Let there be light, and there was light,” but this world enjoyed its rays for thousands of years before any philosopher analyzed it and told us what pure, white light was. After awhile the philosopher stepped to the front and he told us that pure, white, physical light was the symmetrical blending of the seven primary colors we find in the rainbow — red and white and orange and green, etc. That the seventh is pure, white, physical light. Jesus Christ said to liis church: Ye are the light of the world. SAM JONES’ SERMONS. 162 They did not understand Him. But Peter studied the question and stepped forth as the great philosopher in spiritual things and tells us that pure, white, spiritual light is the symmetrical blending of the seven primary Christian graces — faith and courage and knowledge and temperance and brotherly kindness and charity. The seven graces will shed forth a light that will indeed light the whole world. ARCHITECTS FOR ETERNITY. (y ISTow, brother, let us change the figure a moment and look at it in this way: We are building for eternity. Every man ought to look well to the foundation. Jesus Christ is the great foundation upon which we rest all our hope and all our experience and all for time and eternity. Christ is the great bedrock, and faith in him as we build this spiritual temple, faith in Christ, is the first rock put down. And we build this temple without the sound of a hammer. We build this temple out of divine material and according to divine direction, and the first rock I put down — the bedrock — is faith : Without faith it is impossible to please God. He that believeth shall be saved. I may say that my heart rests upon this old book; I may say that I believe this book; I may say that I inherited a faith from my father and mother in this blessed book; I may say there is not a single utterance of God that I doubt in my heart to-night. Call me a dupe and call me a fool, but tell them, when you tell them I am a dupe and a fool, tell them I am a happy dupe and I am a joyful fool. Faith in my Bible ? I believe this book ; I believe this book, and this book has blessed thousands of men before I w r as born, and the best men on whom I lean every day, they whisper back in my ear, u That blessed book is a lamp to my feet and a light unto my path.” This blessed book, that HOW TO LEAD A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 163 never misled a human step and never misdirected a human life; this book, with its moral so pure and with its Christ so ennobling and elevating to the race — I believe, I believe! RELIGIOUS BELIEF. I believe in God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord ; I be- lieve in the Holy Ghost; in the Church of God. I believe — I believe there is power in God and virtue in the blood of Christ, and truth in the Holy Ghost; and, brethren, if I didn’t believe that book, and believe God was its author, and God was with me, I’d close this book and close my mouth and leave this town on the first train that left for my home. I believe my Bible; and when the Christian people of this town believe this book we are going to take this book and conquer the whole city. I believe, I believe in God, as He is the father of all men, preserver of all life, inspirer of all that is good. I believe in God, and now to this faith in God and faith in the right, wdiat is the next rock we lay down ? See how this will fit : Add unto your faith, virtue. Virtus — courage. How, don’t you see that if a man be- lieves he is right, the very next thing he wants is a courage that dares to do right and dares to be true ? I want to say at this point that I am not talking about physical courage. I am afraid that Christian people are sometimes physical cowards. I do not want a man to be a physical coward, but above all things deliver me from a moral coward. I want to tell you that I have searched this book from Genesis to Revelations and I find that God never did choose a man to do a great work for him but that that man was game from head to foot. God despises a coward. 104 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. MORAL COURAGE. Moral courage ! Physical courage is not much. Physical courage will march me right up into the blazing mouth of a cannon without shaking a muscle in my body, but that is not much. I have known generals and colonels and majors and captains and privates in this last war that never had a muscle quiver in front of a cannon. Yet these same men after coming home from the war would quake and wince and whine in the presence of public opinion. Afraid of that ! Afraid of that ! And I will tell you another thing a fellow needs courage. There are a great many things in this world that stand look- ing a fellow in the face and shake their fist at him, and if he ain’t got the grit he will run, no doubt about it. And I say to-night every man that walks out before this world and would make it purer and better, that man shall, like his Lord, have his Gethsemane, and his Pilate’s bar, and his Judas Iscariot and his Simon Peter and his cross. I tell you another thing. I would rather face every cannon in America to-night as far as I am personally con- cerned, than to face the opinion of the elite society of St. Louis. The hollow, miserable, heartless, godless old wretch that society is. (Laughter and applause.) Why,' you can get on the street cars of this town, so 1 have been told, that are filled with theater-going, dancing, godless members of the church and Sam Jones is their text from the time you step on until you step off. (Laughter.) Some say he is a brute. (Renewed laughter.) Some say he is as ignorant as a Southern plantation darkey. Some say he is a vicious man. Some say one thing, and some another thing, and they shell the woods for a fellow. It is like the barking of a “ fise ” dog after a fast train — you can hear the little fellow bark, but you can not see him. HOW TO LEAD A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 1 65 . Right is right, and stand to it, and when the last storm of passion has swept over, God is with you. That is more than can he against you, and that is all that you need. (Ap- plause.) You attack the ball-rooms in this town and every dancing, worldly member of the church, and sinner, too, turns his guns right loose upon you. PERSONAL TO SAM JONES. And I will tell you another thing. I want to say this to encourage you — good Christian brethren that need just a little more backbone (laughter) — when they tell you Jones is low-bred, don’t you believe them, for it is a lie ! (Ap- plause.) When they tell you that Jones is ignorant, you tell them that won’t do ; that J ones will go into a class with any of them to-morrow, and let a professor examine them on any subject. (Applause.) What do you say to that? (Re- newed applause.) And when they tell you that Jones came from bad stock, you tell them that a purer, nobler woman God never made than my mother, and that a better, purer man God never let live than my precious father. (Applause.) I am from as good stock as God ever made. (Tremendous applause.) I want to tell you right now that I never was in society. (Laughter and applause.) I reckon that one reason for this is that I have been poor all my life, and they would have objected to me on that account. They would never have let me in, anyhow. They would have known that I would have told on them, and they don’t want any tales told out of school. I have found that out. But I did not mean to say anything about society now. We shall take that up later. We will shake it, till it is ready to be turned loose when we get through with it. (Applause.) SAM JONES’ SERMONS. 1 66 There are things in your city day after day and night after night that are enough to make a thousand mothers and fathers in this town call a halt, and say: “ You had better stop right here. This thing has gone far enough.’ 5 (Ap- plause.) I tell you, mothers and fathers, if you will open your eyes and look around you a little you will call “ Halt ! halt! halt! I will shoot you down if you take another step.” And I know when a man begins to talk about these things, I know how little MissFinnicky and old brother Finnicky and the whole devil’s crowd will sit upon him. I have been around before. (Applause.) PREACHING LIKE HIS MASTER. Courage ! Courage ! Jesus Christ, the great exemplar in Christianity, he preached his own gospel, and when he did, do you recollect that on one occasion a vast multitude turned their backs on him and walked off in disgust, and Jesus turned to his disciples and said: “ Will ye also go away?” And Simon Peter said : “Lord to whom shall we go ? For thou has the words of eternal life.” I do not be- lieve I ever preached the gospel as plainly as my Master preached it, for I have never had a congregation to “ rush out ” on me, and if ever I preach to a St. Louis^congregation and see the people jump up and run out of the house, I will jump up too]and “ holler,” “Glory to God ! I am preaching like my Master now.” (Applause.) But that would not be any joke on me. Everywhere I have ever worked, God bless you, they would say you people in St. Louis were so mean you would not hear Sam Jones. They would brag on me and cuss you. That is about the way the thing would go. Courage that dares to be right and dares to be true. If a thing is wrong, fight it ! fight it ! If it is right, stand up HOW TO LEAD A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 167 for it, if every man on earth is against yon. Stand and fight and fight and fight, and when you go down and think you are alone, I tell you that when the din and smoke of the battle has blown away and you open your eyes you will find God and the angels and good men standing around you. (Applause.) Courage, brother ! Now what does this mean ? One time Peter’s courage failed him, and of all the times in the world it was the time that Peter’s courage ought to have held good. Yonder his Lord, defenseless and alone, given over to his enemies, stood before the cruel crowd, and they spat upon him and buffeted him and platted a crown of thorns and pressed it on his temple until the blood ran down his cheeks. And Peter stood there looking at it, no doubt, until his very blood boiled. And there was the Son of God and the Son of Man without a friend in the world he came to redeem. There Peter stood out in the distance, and when the fatal moment came the people approached him and said : “ You are one of his disciples,” and Peter answered : “ No, I am not one of his disciples.” And then again they ap- proached him and said : “You are one of his disciples.” He said: “ No, I am not one of his disciples.” And again, a little girl approached him and said : “ You are one of his disciples,” and Peter cursed and swore with an oath and said : “ I do not know him.” f WHAT A GRAND OCCASION. Brother, I do not object to the way God’s word is writ- ten, but I have wished a thousand times that when my Mas- ter stood there, without a friend in the world, and they approached Peter, I have wished that Peter had rushed up by the Son of God and said : “ I am one of his disciples and I will die by his side.” If he had done that I believe that sam Jones’ sermons. i 68 God would have rushed every angel in heaven down to Peter’s side and not have suffered a hair of his head to be touched. And we have forsaken our Master when he did not have a friend in the world ! Courage! Courage ! I tell you, this sickly sentimentalism that we have that God’s people are a peaceful, quiet and get-out-the-devil’s-way sort of people is a mistake. Down in my State I have been preaching prohibition, and in Georgia I have gone into those counties where prohibition was being fought the hardest and said : “ Brethren of the church, take a stand and hold it. Do not let a barkeeper that has not got more than three gallons of whisky, and that bought on credit, come out on the square on election day with an old rusty pistol in his hand that hasn’t been loaded since the war, and curse two or three times and talk loud and run every member of the church out of town. God have mercy on you pusillanimous wretches,” said I. “ Hold your ground and tell them that if they can die for their infernal traffic you can die for those precious children.” (Applause.) And I said: “ Go on and God’s approval will rest with you.” THE POWER OE COURAGE. , There was a day when one of God’s armies was battling with the enemies of God. Joshua, the commander, was fighting w T ith all the ransomed powers at his back, and the enemy w r as being beaten down in front of the ranks of God’s hosts. But Joshua looked up and saw that the sun was go- ing dowm, and he looked up and said: “ Oh, God, if you will give me two or three hours more sunshine I’ll put this army to flight and w T ill win a victory that shall make thine armies famous forever.” And God turned and told the sun to go back on the dial, and “ don’t you move an inch until HOW TO LEAD A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 169 Joshua routs this army root and branch and sweeps it almost from the face of the earth.” And I tell you God will make the sun stand still in the heavens and the moon not move in the Valley of Ajalon, if God’s people ever have the courage to stand up and dare to be right and dare to be true (Applause.) Well, what if you do get killed in the right? It is just a nigh cut to Heaven if you are all right. Don’t you see? Getting scared and running from Heaven! What do you think of that? Well, I never made much of a practice of being afraid of folks before I had religion, and, thank God, I am not now afraid of the universe if I am in the right- Sometimes I am afraid I ain’t exactly right, but if God says “ Go it,” I know I am not afraid. Courage that dares to do right. Add to your faith the courage of your convictions. I have told them all over the country, these cotton-string backbone fellows in the Church of God, with a little old slack-twisted cotton string run up the back, and two or three ribs knit to it on one side, who call themselves Christians, you know. God bless you, I want to be about 95 per cent backbone. ( Applause.) That makes good proportion for a man that proposes to do any- thing. (Applause.) Afraid ! afraid ! afraid ! Afraid of nothing but the wrong. I will do the right and trust in God. I will stand up for the right and do the right. And to courage acid knowledge ; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience. CONCLUDING WORDS. I wish I had time to run over all these words, but my hour is out and I will just close with this last thought: And to godliness, brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness, char- ity- 170 SAM JONES 5 SERMONS. Now as the first rock we lay down faith in God. The next rock is courage that dares to execute what we know is right. The next rock is knowledge. You want to know how to do it. The next is temperance. You want a regu- lating force, and the next is patience, toward God and all mankind. The next is godliness ; the next brotherly kind- ness, and then charity, the keystone we drop into the arch and the building is finished, and God stoops down and puts one hand under it and the other on the top and trans- plants that mansion to the beautiful streets of the city of God. And there is my “ house not made with hands, eter- nal in the heavens.” God help us to build on that platform, and build upon that line, and by and by we shall be transplanted in our eternal home. The fact is, that when you begin right and go on right, your house is not really moved. God just runs the streets of the new Jerusalem right along in front of where you build, and your house is forever on the streets of the city of God, and it is there to stay forever and ever. God bless you all. And now I want every man in this house, earnest brother hear me, every man that would build on this pattern as a Christian man, whether you are in the church or not, will you conscientiously stand up with me and say, “ Sir, I tell you in response to the truth you have preached, I want to build on that pattern, and, God helping me, I will do it.” Now, every person here that feels that way, stand up. Let us see how many men would build on that platform. ( All in the hall rose and Mr. Jones dismissed them with the benediction.) THE CHEERFUL CHRISTIAN. I7I THE CHEERFUL CHRISTIAN. The 4th verse of the 37tli Psalm — - Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart. The Lord loves the cheerful singer, the cheerful prayer, and all who take a cheerful spirit in their work. I can’t conceive where this notion that every one who works for the Lord must be sad, originated. It must be some relic of heathenism or paganism. It is a blessing to any church to have a bright, joyous, cheerful congregation. Hike to see my children happy, and when I see them sad and hang their heads I know that there is something wrong. Sup- pose you had a servant at home wdio always wore a discon- tented look, and whenever you told her to do anything, she did it very reluctantly. Do you think you would keep her long? Well, I guess not. You would ask your husband to discharge her before her week was up. You would much rather do your own work. The Lord watches us how we go about his work. If we go along sadly and discon- tentedly and are very reluctant in executing his labors, he will call the angel and say: “ Just erase his name from the list of my servants. I will do the work myself.” Some of us profess to be servants of the Lord, but work for the devil, and come around at the end of the week and want the Lord to pay for our services. I like the servant who goes about his work with a smile and says: “I am glad I have this to do.” When I hear a preacher talking way down in his throat in that sad and solemn voice, I want to get my hat and get out as soon as I can. If Congress should say Sam Jones could never preach another sermon 172 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. in this country, I would take the first steamer for some other place. I like to preach. THE FEAR OF DEATH AS A MORAL STIMULUS. I asked a sister this morning that if she had the choice of removing any one thing, what it would be, and she an- swered, “Death.” If death were to be removed, religion would amount to nothing. If every one in St. Louis knew that they were not going to die for the next hundred years, I would have to close up shop. The people would say, “Good-by, Jones, religion and Hell. We’ve got a snap on this thing for the next ninety-five years, and we’ve got no use for you.” Then, just before the hundred years had ex- pired and they knew they were going to die, they would come around again and want to get religion. Death is the only thing that makes religion. Serious meetings are not recognized by God, and they are beneath the devil’s con- tempt. Do you know what the matter is? Why, nine- tenths of the members were off playing euchre or some other game. Mr. Jones asked Rev. W. V. Tudor, who occupied a seat on the platform, about how many of his congregation played cards. Mr. Tudor replied that he didn’t know of any. “Well,” said the revivalist, “then you’ve got the best church in the world. Now, all who are present that don’t play cards please stand up.” About one fourth of the con- gregation arose. “ There’s proof for you,” continued Mr. Jones, turning to Mr. Tudor. “Well,” responded the latter, “there are none of the members of my church among them.” Mr. Jones then spoke of the harm caused by card playing, germans and other social gatherings. EXHORTING. 173 EXHORTING. AN INTRODUCTORY TALK. Mr. Jones, after announcing a service for men only, said : I want to ask every good woman in the house to pray de- voutly to-night and in the morning, and especially watch your clock, and when the minute hand stands at 12 and the hour hand at 3, will you go to some secret place and pray the blessing of God upon this men’s service ? I am very much encouraged, indeed, in the work of this meeting before us. I receive letters from many places, saying : “Our prayers are being poured out to God for St. Louis and for the success of your work there.” I verily believe, brethren, there are not less than 500,000 Christian people to-day praying to God to bless St. Louis. And how can these services be otherwise than a blessing to your city? Let us unite our hands and our hearts in this work. I hope next week the harvest will begin — the harvest of souls. BEATING THE GOATS. I have had nothing to say to the irreligious out of church this week, and I have frequently thought of the old brother who asked the preacher to preach from a certain text. “ Well,” said the preacher, “what text is it?” “ Well,” he said, “ it is that text where the Savior asked Simon Peter, did he love him, and Simon said, ‘ Yes, Lord,’ and the Savior said, ‘ Well, then, beat my sheep.’ ” “ No,” said the preacher, ‘ feed my sheep.’ ” “ Oh,” said the old brother, “ 1 thought you misread that place. I thought you read it this way: ‘Beat my sheep.’” Now, I want it distinctly understood I have not misread that passage of Scrip- 174 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. ture. My rule is to feed tlie sheep and heat the goats, and if you have been struck at all it’s because you are a goat. You can put that down. (Laughter.) I haven’t struck a sheep since I have been here. I don’t strike them, hut feed the sheep — strike the goats — and it’s owing to what you are whether you have been hit or not, and I hope after this that we shall all be sheep in the pastures of the Lord, and that we will go to the work in true love and sympathy. The sermon which followed was by Brother Sam. W. Small, of Atlanta, upon the sins of modern idolatry, such as blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking, lying and drinking — a good, square sermon, with plenty of classical al- lusions. At the close, Mr. Jones rose to his feet and said: This service, brethren, is rather an unusual service in the city — Saturday night service — and we wind up the business of this week. And we’ll wind up life after a while. What will we be then? Oh, to be a grand, a pure, a noble man, is the assurance, and the only assurance, that we’ll be happy and pure and noble forever. I am very anxious indeed to see us not only right ourselves, but I am so anxious to see the sinners of this towm saved. When all the church mem- bers get right — if such a consummation could be brought about — then we have only prepared ourselves to do the w r ork God wants us to do. I will tell you how I feel about it. I have been feeling a good deal since 1 have been here. I have pulled, and pulled, and pulled at different times in different places in my life; and here I have pulled and pulled. Sometimes it looked like all the world w r as a load and I was pulling. And, brethren, I have reached the point now where you ought to pull some and you ought to push some. I will tell you what is true. If God Almighty had blessed me with the money that some of you have — and you may not have a great deal — if God Almighty had blessed me with such a home as some of you have, and with so many blessings as He has EXHORTING. 175 blessed you, Fd put in the next week for Him as no Chris- tian in this town ever put in a week for God. TOO FOND OF NICKELS. We’ll never do anything with this town, with this city, when the Christian world looks like you can just take nickels and scatter them along, one every ten feet, and tote them right into Hell with them. We’ll never do anything with this world, never! Three thousand people out at night, five hundred out in daytime. What’s the difference? No nickels at night to be gathered up around as they are in the daytime. U I believe I’ll gather nickels and let souls go to Hell ” — that’s about the schedule they run. (Sensation.) I will tell you another thing. You need not say I am a fool — and all that sort of thing. I’ve got a wife and I’ve got children to support, just like you have, and I love my wife and children, just as you do ; but I tell you one thing, here is one man that is going to do his duty every day to God and the right, and if me and my wife and children starve to death we’ll make out like we died with typhoid fever (laughter) ; we’ll not say one word about it in any way, shape or form. (Laughter.) But I want to see one man starve that is doing his duty. And we’ll never take this town for Christ, and you down town at your business every hour of the day, and when night comes pin on the pinions of an old owl, and flap out and come to meeting. (Laughter.) We won’t do it. YES, THEY WOULD BE. I will tell you. God Almighty sent this very work along here in St. Louis .to prepare some of you members of the church for your coffins, and to prepare many a sinner in this town for eternity. And if an angel were to alight on 176 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. this stand this moment and say, “Ten Methodists in this town will he in their coffins next Saturday night.” Ah, me! — without mentioning any names — I’ll tell you every soul that is in this house to-night would be here every time this bell rings. You are going to die next Saturday night, I don’t know whether it is me or somebody else, there’s ten of us, and may be fifty of you, will be in your coffins next Saturday night. We have no time to throw away in this work. One third of my time is gone now. I have no time or disposition to come here and camp with you all through the winter — three or four or six months. I expect to be away from here, and before the first day of February I expect to see thousands of souls converted in another city. I expect to ; verily I do. I have no time to fool away with you all. If you want me and you say so, I am your man, under God ; but if you don’t, I want you to say so. I will take the first train that leaves this town Monday morning. You ain’t in earnest. You don’t mean anything. I can buy out your interest in this meeting for a quarter (laugh- ter), and I expect a great many of you haven’t made a quar- ter each day while we were here serving and praying and working the best way we could. A DEARTH OF GOOD WOMEN. I believe it’s the first meeting I ever run in my life when there were more men out at any service than women; and I tell you when it gets so good women in a city are scarce, things are getting mighty bad, they are, sure’s you’re born. There ain’t any doubt about that. (Laughter.) I’ve seen a few towns where good men were scarce, but I believe you’ve got less earnest Christian women in this town than any town I have ever known of its size. What do you think about that ? EXHORTING. 1 77 Now, there is no use in quibbling over the matter at all, brethren. If St. Joseph can rush up under a tent four times a day and turn everything loose — and God has blessed that town as I scarcely know God has ever blessed a town in the United States of America of its size — almost literally redeemed St. Joseph, Mo., how came that? The people got interested and took stock ; don’t you see ? That w r as all. Now, how may we obtain just such a blessing? By getting interested and taking stock. ST. LOUIS AS A TOMB FOR EVANGELISTS. I will tell you how I feel about it. I can afford to fail. Christ could afford to fail in some places, for in some places^ he didn’t do many wonderful works. What paper is it — the Catholic paper in your city — that that article was in to- day that you spoke of about burying ? Bro. Small. — Yes; the Western Watchman. Bro. Jones. — The Western Watchman says: “ Jones has come here to be buried.” It says: “We buried Moody here, and he has never done anything since ; and we buried Harrison here, and he has never done anything since.” I believe that is about the sense of the article. “And Jones has come to St. Louis to be buried.” Yes ; I will be the livest man that was ever buried in this community. (Ap- plause.) You’ll never bury Jones — I’ll say that to you. ( Laughter.) My faith in God and faith in the right and faith in the cross of Christ will be as strong when I leave this city if not a single soul is blessed as it shall be if 100,000 are blessed. My faith in God Almighty don’t depend upon what the Christian people in St. Louis will or will not do. I have no notion of going into my grave till I die (laughter) and then I will go in as gracefully and as dignified as a man ever did (laughter) but I will never be graceful or dignified 12 I78 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. until I do die. (Laughter.) That is just the way I feel about it. Well, now, I don’t like to call up the memories of the war, not at all ; and if there is any section in all America that the war question brings up sad memories it is here in Missouri. I would not lift the mantle and veil of charity from a single scar that was left by the war. Not that. A RATTLE STORY. But let me tell you a little war incident. I do not care which side you were on. You admire a brave man, to whichever side he belonged. I do. I love a brave man to-day, whether he wore the blue or wore the gray. I like a brave man, for me or against me. I despise a coward in blue or gray. When Johnston turned over his army to Hood in Atlanta — Joe Johnston, that carried his army on back and back, retreating before Sherman until he reached Atlanta — and there Johnston turned over his army to Hood. Hood was a gallant and brave man. He had already lost one of his limbs, one of his legs, in battle, and when he took charge of Johnston’s army, he came round back into Ten- nessee with it, and, you recollect, fought the Woody battle of Frankhn, perhaps one of the most Woody battles of the war. When that batBe was waging hot and thick, Gen. Hood’s tent was on a prominence, and from that \ romi- nence Gen. Hood in waiving up and down in front of his tent, could see the battfe. He couM see lines and he could hear the booming of the cannon and the rattle of the musketry. And as he walked up and down in front of the tent, halting with his artificial leg, every time he turned his eyes down toward the lines he saw that there was a fort out in the locust grove that was literally hewing down his ranksby the hundred. Every time he walked up and down in front EX HOISTING. 179 of his tent, limping as lie walked, and every time he turned liis face toward the lines, he saw that fort in the locust grove was literally hewing down his ranks. And he watched the tight for more than an hour, perhaps, and then he called his adjutant-general to him. That officer rode up on his bloody horse and Gen. Hood said: “ Adjutant, go and presen t my compliments to Gen. Cheatham, and tell him I ask at his hands that fort in the locust grove.” The adjutant general loped off with all the speed of his horse. In a few minutes he returned and said : “ Gen. Hood, Gen. Cheatham is missing. They think lie has been killed. He has not been seen in two hours.” Gen. Hood drooped his head and marched up and down in front of his tent, and every time he turned his face to the lines that fort in the \ - cust grove was literally hewing his ranks to the ground. And directly he called his adjutant-general again and he said : “ Adjutant-general, go and present my compliments to Gen Claiborne, and tell him I ask at his hands the fort in the Iccust grove.” Tlie adjutant general loped off down the lines and in a few moments came back and said: Gen. Hoed, Gen. Claiborne is dead on the battle field.” CALLING ON COCK KELL. Gen. Hood droored his head and the tears ran down his cheeks as he marched up and down in front of liis tent. He looked through the tears as they glistened in liis eyes and saw that the fort in the locust grove was hewing down his ranks to the ground. And directly he called his adjutant-general again and he said: “ Adjutant-general, go and present my love ” — he is softening down now, no longer compliments — “ Adjutant-general, go and \ resent my love to Gen. Cockrell and tell him 1 ask at his hands that fort in the locust gro\e.” The adjutant-geneial lo] ed off down the line and i8o SAM JONES’ SERMONS. up to Gen. Cockrell — I believe be is, perhaps, from your city or State — one of the youngest generals in the Southern army. The adjutant-general rode up to him and said : “Gen. Cockrell, Gen. Hood sends you his love, and says he asks at your hands that fort in the locust grove. 55 Gen. Cockrell straightened himself up in his saddle and said : 66 First Missouri Brigade, attention ! 55 and he dropped his fingers on that fort. They charged upon the fort with in- trepid courage and captured it, and Gen. Cockrell called his adjutant-general and said : “ Adjutant-general, go and present my love to Gen. Hood, and tell him that I also present him the fort in the locust grove. 55 And I want to tell you Christian people here to-night, whether that incident be true or not, it illustrates what I desire to say to you. I am here as the adjutant-general of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I say to you Christian people, as I point over this wicked city, that the Lord Jesus Christ presents his love to you Christian people, and he wants at your hands every fort of sin in this community, and in less than thirty days I hope you all with one accord will say : “ Lord Jesus, we present our love to Thee, and we also pre- sent the city redeemed by Thy grace. 55 (Loud applause and cries oi “ Amen. 55 ) THE EXHORTATION". I want every Christian man that is ready to march out into line, not to fight his fellow man, but to bring his neigh- bors and friends to God and do what he can for the race. This coming week I will do my best, and I want every Christian in this house of every denomination who feels like saying: “ God is my helper; I will go into the fight and pray and work and do my best; 55 I want every such an one to stand up; and I hope you will all stand up immediately and EXHORTING. 1 8 1 say : “ That is my honest conviction. I want to go into the fight. I want to do my best.” All in the church rose to their feet. Well, thank God for this Saturday night meeting. God bless this service to the good of every Christian here. Now, we say to you all, we want the battle to begin now; we want the battle to be pushed on now, and to-morrow morning, at 10:30 o’clock, I am to preach here; at 3 o’clock sharp to men only, in the Music Hall, and Lord God help me to take u that fort in the locust grove ” to-morrow after- noon. If you good women will pray as you ought, you will hear of such a meeting as St. Louis never had before. God, give us power, and I want to tell you nothing but the power of God can ever reach this city. (A voice : “ That’s true.”) Nothing but the power of God. God Almighty does not ask any more odds in St. Louis if you take hold right than he does in the smallest town in the State. He is an omnipotent God, and can do all he undertakes. Now we are going to sing “ Hold the fort for I am coming.” I want everybody to join in that song, and afterward we will pronounce the benediction. u Hold the fort ” having been sung with much spirit, the services were closed with the benediction. WHAT FATHER PHELAN SAID. The paragraph in a Catholic paper to which Sam Jones paid his respects in his address, is from the Western Watch- man , , of November 28th, and is as follows: Sam Jones, the unparsable revivalist, tells us he means to give this old town a shaking up. This old town has been the bete no\r of all the evangelists. They may abuse her to their heart’s content, but she re- fuses to be u shaken.” ' St. Louis has been the mausoleum of all the evangelical mountebanks who have ventured within her gates. Ham- mond came and died. Moody and San key came and went, and were lS2 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. heard of no more. Harrison sniffed at her atmosphere, and his youthful stomach is not in working order yet. Yarley came and went back to his butcher stall. Now Sam Jones braves her basilisk eye. He, too, might as well prepare to go out of the revival business. The reason is Protest- antism is dead in this town: and Catholics have no use for religious bur- lesque. WE NEED CONSECRATION. 183 WE NEED CONSECRATION. Second Corinthians, seventh chapter, second verse. “Receive us: we have wronged no man; we have corrupted no man; we have defrauded no man.” u Ve have wronged no man with our tongue; we have corrupted no man by our example; we have defrauded no man in our business transactions.” The cry of the ungodly world, when you preach the pure truth, is, “ puritanism, transcendentalism,” etc. There is nothing more dangerous to Christianity than to hear that cry. My idea of Christ and Christianity determines what my life is as a Christian. Some one has said that we should so live that every word of our mouth and every act of our life would become a maxim for universal rule ; that is, we ought never do anything which the world by adopting would not be made better and happier and purer. Christ Jesus is our pre-eminent exampler, one which, if followed, will make us enjoy a heaven on earth. That is, we would make a new earth which would be A NEW HEAVEN. This morning’s lesson helps us out of a great many of our difficulties and problems. In the text St. Paul was asking admission into the kingdom and communion of saints. “On what grounds,” they said, do you demand so great a priv- ilege ? ” Then came the answer : “ Because we have wronged no man ; we have corrupted no man ; we have defrauded no man.” If I were asked what is the great trouble in Christendom to-day, I would say, America has too many churches — not 184 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. too many buildings, understand you, or too many organiza- tions. But I will illustrate: Bro. Tudor, here, as pastor of Centenary Church, is pastor, not of one church but of two. It is hard enough to be pastor of one church, but when it comes to fulfilling that relation to two churches the labor becomes onerous. What I mean is, that while on the church roll there are the names of all, there is another and inner church where are to be found only those who are true spiritual Christians and in alliance with the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Ho man is safe until he is within the walls of that inside church. There are members here in Bro. Tudor’s church who, while they have made the same vows, are as different as night and day. While some are spiritually minded, there are others who, while nice, genteel and pleas- ant people, never thought of longing for a better life. They are satisfied as they are. Oh, let all in your church be of one mind, one heart, of one accord. They will all talk alike, think alike, do alike, and pray alike. But the question now is, not how we have lived hereto- fore, but how we may enter the inner circle. Can you answer, as did St. Paul, “ I have wronged no man with my tongue? ” What a great thing it is to be able to say that. The hardest thing to obtain is A CONSECRATED TONGUE, but a perfect Christian man bridleth his tongue. There is not a wild beast that we can not tame. We can tame the lion, although we see the venom of death in his eye ; or the serpent, with the poison of death blowing from his mouth ; but tli ere is a little member in our mouth that we can not tame. “ Let the words of my mouth and the medita- tions of my heart be acceptable unto Thee.” A wicked, un- controllable, godless tongue can never get in the inner cir- 4 WE NEED CONSECRATION. 1 85 cle of Jesus Christ. I have gone into a community and looked on that pale face and could hear the blood drip, drip in the heart, and I asked her what was the cause of this? Who did it? And the answer was an inhuman, cruel tongue. In one short breath you can speak a word that will stab a character forever! Husband, how often have you wronged your wife with your tongue;? Wife, how often have you stabbed your husband by a hasty word ? Mother, how often has your child winced and shrunk away from you under the merciless power of your tongue ? The prettiest, whitest tombstone I ever saw, and the prettiest epitaph I ever read was when I visited an old friend in Georgia. He said he had lost the best wife a man ever had, and he led me out to the little white tombstone. There were only a few words on it — the date of her birth and her death — and then, un- derneath, this one line, “ She made home pleasant.” Of all the places in the world, home should be the most pleasant; but this can never be without bridled tongues. The wife, as she bends over that pale, waxen face, cries out in the agony of her heart, “ Husband, precious, forgive those un- kind words.” The husband, as he stands by the coffin and looks upon the last remains of his wife, cries out, “ Good Father, forgive every unkind word I uttered.” My inno- cent little child runs into my study, where I sit WORRIED AND W T ORN with writing. It is little five-year-old Bob, or perhaps four- year-old Laura, and he gathers my arm and scatters the ink. Then I turn around and say, “ Oh, you little brat ! ” or “You mischievous little wretch, get out of here!” He straightens up with a look of surprise, turns around and walks out of the room. I try to go ahead with my work, but I don’t write five lines. I say, “ He didn't think. I SAM JONES’ SERMONS. I 86 will hunt him up and beg his pardon.” I go out on the back porch and there I hnd little Bob crying as if his heart would break. I take him up in my arms and say, “ Forgive me, my little pet ; I didn't think.” And the little one sobs out, “ Mamma told me not to bother you, hut I forgot. I ask you to forgive me.” Oh ! if you want to he received into the inner kingdom you must have a converted tongue. The second condition is that you have corrupted no man ; corruj ted him by example. Every man is an example for every other man ; every woman is a pattern for every other woman. This question of example is a momentous one. I have frequently heard people say a child lias crossed the line of accountability. There is no line of accountability. There are lines of accountability, but not one line. A child of ten years knows that it is wrong to lie, but not that it is wrong to covet. You and I are crossing these lines year by year. There were many things that I would not have been held accountable for doing when I was converted, but that I would be accountable for now. Year after year, and day after day, I expiect to improve. A man who never crosses these lines is well satisfied with his life. The man who improves day by day says, “ God forgive my ignorance.” There are thousands of peopde in this city who never cross these lines and go rushing down to destruction. But the trouble is the dams are all washed out. Oh, let every man that loves Jesus Christ pile one on top of another until we can resist the powers of evil that are sweeping over the land. Some of us would be honey-combed, may be, so that the water would go through. But what God likes is A SOLID, CONCRETE CHRISTIAN that will break water wherever you throw him up. Here in this city Christian people ride about in the parks on Sun- WE NEED CONSECRATION. ! 8 7 day afternoon, thus encouraging the beer garden. I know of a minister in a great city below here, and on the same river, who got up in the pulpit one day and took the posi- tion that “ Sabbath was for man, and not man for the Sab- bath.” lie countenanced base-ball, theaters and park riding on Sunday, and the saloon-keepers of the city procured his sermon, published it and spread it broadcast over the land. Josh Billings said we had “ precepts enough to run four such worlds as this ; what we need is some good examples.” Never allow your neighbor to do a thing that is radically wrong because lie lias seen you do a something that is sorter wrong. Oh, I hope that Centenary Church will set such an exam- ple to the other congregations in St. Louis as will put to blush every church in the city. The last condition is : Have you defrauded any man in business transactions? Your tongue may be harmonious, your example correct, but to both you inu^t add honest deal- ing. Can you say, a I have never pocketed a dollar or in- vested a cent that would not be approved by God ? I have not defrauded God, nor my church, nor man?” If .so, when you go up and knock at the inner door you will get in. Oh God, baptize us in the works of Thy salvation. Give us a blood-washed throne; that will take this city for Christ. SAM JONES’ SERMONS. 188 CONSC IENCE— RECORD-GOD. Now, brethren, let ns all be prayerful. Let every man that believes God hears and answers prayer lift his heart continually in prayer to God while I try to teach in the name of my Master. I want to read to you three or four verses in different parts of this book — the Bible. Let us give especial attention to them, because they have much to do with the discussion that follows: Rejoice, 0 young man, in thy youth ; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes ; but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. — Ecclesiastes xi., 9. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. — Ecclesiastes xii., 13. And then we read again : So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. And then again we read : And the books were opened and then another book. And now we come to the text : What I have written I have written.— John xix, 22. AN IMPERISHABLE RECORD. There are two “ somethings” and one “ some one” that I had to do with yesterday. I have to do with them to-day. I shall have to do w r ith them forever. “Conscience” and “record” are the two somethings and God is the some one. Conscience — Record — God. Conscience and record are like two index fingers pointing right up and into the face of God, and God is the great index finger pointing to the final judgment. Conscience — that something running over my life, proving the right, disproving the wrong. Conscience when outraged, is that something that will not let me CONSCIENCE — RECORD — GOD. 189 sleep, no matter how soft my pillow. Conscience — that something that will not let me eat, no matter how richly laden the table may be. Conscience — that some- thing in me that makes me drop my head in guilt and shame before the world. Conscience — where is the man in this audience who never felt the pangs and pains of out- raged conscience? The poet was right when he said : What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do. This, teach me more than Hell to shun, That, more than Heaven pursue. And I am right in saying upon this occasion that the most fearful sin a man ever committed in this life is to sin directly and to sin persistently against his own conscience. Do you do that thing which conscience says thou oughtest not to do ? Do you not do that thing which conscience says thou oughtest to do? Do you persist in the evil w T hen conscience cries, “Stop! hold! murder! murder! don’t do it?” Conscience — ah, me, brother! some one has said that an outraged conscience is the worm that shall never die amid the fires that shall never be quenched. Conscience! Conscience! Record! Record! My record is as much a part of me as my immortal being is a part of me. “Yes,” but you say “the surgeon’s knife can soon separate that hand from me.” No, sir. No, sir! Some months ago I sat by the side of a man who had an empty sleeve dan- gling at his side. All at once he turned to me and said: “These fingers have been hurting me all day.” Said I: “ What fingers?” He replied: “The fingers of my right hand.” Said I: “My friend, there is no right hand there.” He returned: “They tell me this arm is buried on the bat- tle fields of Virginia, but, sir, that hand is as truly there to- day as it ever was, and the pains and the twinges and the I9O SAM JONES 5 SERMONS. pangs of this hour are almost intolerable to me in these fin- gers. 55 SUBJECT AND RECORD INSEPARABLE. Mv record is a part of me. It belongs to me. It is in- separable from me. My record as a man ; your record as a man. A man without a record would be an anomaly. A man without a record would be a moral monstrosity in the universe of God. What I have said, what I have done, where I ‘have been, are but so many subjects discussed upon this record of the life of man. Record! Record! And then, with conscience and record pointing up into the face of the great God, and the great God pointing to a judgment seat — a judgment seat! I tell you, my friend, if there is not to be any final judg- ment, when man shall be brought to a final bar to giv e an account of all the deeds done in the body — if there is not to be any judgment hereafter, there are incidents and feelings and aspirations and fears and dreads about my being that can not be explained in time or eternity. Every bad deed of my life, every wayward act of my life, every wicked word of my life, have been so many lingers point ’ng me ever and anon to the great day that I shall give an account to God for the way 1 have lived, for what I have done, for what I have said. Judgment is a forensic term, and means simply the equi- table adjustment of an issue, but in an ecclesiastical sense it means the final sermon in Heaven’s chancery, when God hall summon men and augeh alike around his great white ilirone and there sift the issue between himself and ad cre- ated intelligence; and when God once says to you “ Ye cursed 55 there never shall be an after jurisdiction. The record of my guilt, as the glory of my commendation, will I CONSC I ENCE — K ECO R D GOD. I g I blaze forever in full view of my eyes as my vindication in Heaven or my condemnation in Hell is ordered. ESCAPING JUDGMENT. Judgment! Let us strip this subject of all its mystery. When a man has violated the laws of Missouri there are but three ways by which he can hope to escape. One is by force of law, another by force of testimony, another by par- don, where the governor extends his clemency and pardons the criminal. Now I grant you that justice may be defeated in many ways. A criminal may violate the law of Mis- souri and fly from justice, and keep out of the way of sher- iffs and officers. He may bribe the grand jury so that they will not And a true bill against him. He may bribe the jury that tries him, or the judge that tries him, but when a man is once arraigned before the criminal courts of this country there are but the three ways by which he can hope to escape justice. One way is by. force of law. Now when a crinrnal is brought into the court house, and one witness after another is introduced, and they prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and when the judge picks up the Code of Missouri and says : “ This man is guilty, but the law of Missouri does not make the offense a crime,” the man is acquitted by foice of law. There is no law that says his conduct is crimi- nal, therefore he is acquitted. But if the thing charged in the indictment is a crime, then he may be acquitted by force of testimony. When the jury after hearing the evidence, say: “ There is not sufficient evidence to convict, and we And the prisoner not guilty,” then the prisoner is acquitted by force of testimony. But if he is condemned by law and he is condemned by testinu ny, then there is but one hope, and that is the par- don of the governor. 192 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. ESCAPING DIVINE JUSTICE. Now, up yonder (pointing heavenward) before that tribu- nal there can be but three ways by which men can hope to escape. You can not dodge God’s ministerial officers and keep out of their w T ay. You will come to the judgment ! to the judgment! to the judgment ! When we leave this room this afternoon some will go this way, some that way, but every road you take converges right at the judgment seat of Christ, and if we never see each other’s faces again we shall meet at the throne of God at last. I can not dodge God’s ministerial officers. As the Bible w'ould quote it : Oh, whither shall I go from thy presence ? And whither shall I flee from thy spirit ? If I take the wings of the morning and fly to the utter- most parts of the earth, the Lord God is there. If I make my bed in Hell the Lord God is there. No, sir! God Almighty will burn this world up and bring us to the judgment seat of Christ. You can not dodge the ministerial officers already on your track. One of God’s sheriffs put his hand on your head one day, and since that it has begun to frost. God’s sheriff touched your eye one day, and you have been wearing spectacles ever since. God’s sheriff touched your leg, and you are now walking with a cane along the streets. Wherever you meet men the touch of God’s sheriff is upon them ; and that means simply: I have claimed you for my own ! T will take you by and by. And then, again, you can not bribe God’s grand jury. They have already sat upon your case, and the verdict reads : The soul that sinneth, it shall die, and he that believeth not shall be condemned. AN INCORRUPTIBLE JUDGE. I know in this country sometimes that a criminal some- times rushes up and defies the court and its authorities ; but CONSCIENCE — RECORD — GOD. 193 can you defy tlie court of God that sits upon the throne ? Shall I rush up in the presence of the great God, who in the beginning held a great flaming mass on the anvil of eternal purpose, and pounded it with his own powerful arm, and when every spark that flew from it made a world — shall I rush up into the presence of such a God as that and defy him ? No, sir ! Shall I bribe the Judge of all the earth ? No sir ! But when I shall be individualized at that final moment, and shall walk out into the presence of that great God, I have but three ways in which I can hope to escape. One is by force of law. Now, hear me ! I shake that little bundle of paper (the Bible) in your face, and if that little bundle of paper is true, it outweighs all this universe. If this book is true, I have in my hand a bundle of paper that does not weigh ten ounces, that outweighs all the stars of the universe. If this little book is true — and we have to die whether it is true or not — you and I must meet God and give an account of what we have done in the body. The law of God. I want to say at this point that God will spring no new law upon you up yonder. Men say : “I do not like to read that Bible, it condemns me.” If this law condemns you down here in Missouri to-day, it will con- demn you up yonder at the judgment to-morrow. You will be the same man. This will be the same book. VIOLATING THE SPIRIT OF LAW. “But,” says that man, “I have never violated many laws in that book.” Well, listen: He that breaketh the least commandment is guilty of all. How do you understand that? Yonder is a boat chained to the wharf on your levee. That chain has a hundred links, but if I want to cut that boat loose, how many links must I cut? fifty of the biggest links? ten of the middle- 13 194 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. sized ones? No. I need only cut the smallest link, and that boat is as effectually loosened as if I had cut them all. And he that breaks the least is as guilty as if he had broken them all. Suppose I want to go to Kansas City. There is one right road to that place, and a thousand leading in other directions. When I take one of the wrong roads I am as effectually out of the way as if I had taken every wrong road in the universe. And, brother, hear me : God looks not upon sin with the least allowance, and can any man stand up before the final bar and say, “ I have never violated a precept of that book”? Until you can do that you can never hope to escape by the force of law. The law condemns. The apostle tells us that Ko flesh shall be justified by the works of the law. The law is but a rule of action that prescribes what is right and prohibits what is wrong. And, brother, hear me! If, in your past life, you have ever violated a precept in this book you can not hope to escape up yonder by force of law on the final judgment day. “I am guilty before God. I have violated precept after precept. I have not only done it repeatedly, but I have done it knowingly and willfully. I can not hope to be acquitted by force of law.” THE FORCE OF TESTIMONY. Then I say to you, how about the force of testimony ? Now we have come directly to the text: What I have written I have written. I just quoted .before that : So, then, every one of us shall give an account of himself to God. Know you that for all these things you shall be brought unto judgment whether these things can be good or bad. Now we stand there before His final throne. What I have written I have written. I declare to you this evening that it is my belief, and it is CONSCIENCE RECORD — GOD. I9S founded on Scripture, that every man and every boy of us are now writing testimony by which we shall stand or fall on the last judgment day. Greenleaf on Evidence tells us that the best evidence a case is susceptible of shall be pro- duced. He tells us again that written testimony is better than oral testimony. He tells us again that the evidence produced must correspond with the allegation and be con- fined to the point at issue. Now, brother, here is the best testimony (the Bible), and every word of it in God’s own handwriting. Written testimony is better than oral testi- mony. Lumpkin, one of the grandest jurists that ever sat on the Supreme Bench of Georgia, said : “ I would rather trust the smallest slip of paper than the best memory man was ever gifted with.” Here is written testimony: Start an engine from New York to San Francisco, and there is at- tached to its side a little piece of mechanism which indicates the number of miles it has traveled, the stoppages it has made and how long it has stopped at each station, and if you want to know the record of the journey you need not ask the engi- neer a word. The little piece of mechanism on the side of the engine tells you its record. You go to the city of New York and you see the Fifth Avenue Hotel with its 700 rooms. You see that it is lighted up day after day and night after night, some rooms burning 100 jets, some ten, some one. You step to the proprietor and say: “How can you keep an account of this gas? How do you know how much you burn?” and he says: “Come with me.” You walk with him down underneath a double stairway. He strikes a match and lights a candle and holds it to the dial plate of the gas-meter. He says: “ You see that finger trembling on the face of the dial? That indicates to the one hundreth part of an inch how much gas has passed through this meter during the past three months. There is 196 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. a record for you! ” And every man and every boy this even- ing can stand up and face this fact. What I have written I have written up to this hour. A RECORD NOT FOR WIFE’S PERUSAL. Ah, me ! the record of some men, the record of some boys who hear my voice this moment ! If your wife could read your record just as you have written it down she would spurn you from her presence and drive you ever from her home. There are boys listening to my voice whose mothers would drive them from their presence if they could read the last night’s record of those boys. Oh, the record ! Boys ? every oath, every wicked deed, every -midnight carousal, every debauched act of your life is written in legible indel- ible letters, and shall sparkle forever on the tablets of your hearts. Oh me! men sometimes say it makes no difference. Brother, it makes no difference whether you approached this hall in this or that spirit, but it makes an eternal differ- ence whether you did right or wrong on your way here. Record! Record! We sometimes say : a as true as the Bible,” but every record, every line on the tablet of your heart is just as true as the Bible is true. It is a secret rec- ord. God would not suffer an angel of Heaven to touch that record. God would not suffer the worst enemy in the world to touch that record of yours. God would not suffer your precious mother to put her finger on that record. It is a secret record of the soul by which it shall stand or fall at the judgment seat of Christ. True! true! Holy Spirit, shine on our record this evening! Let us read it now in thirty seconds — a record of accumulated guilt that will drive us to some power to save, some power to relieve. CONSCIENCE — RECORD — GOD. I 9 7 COMPANY RECORDS. Record ! Record ! Record ! Wliat is your record as a Presbyterian ? On one side of yonr record I see recorded vows of eternal constancy to God. On that page I see, “ I swear eternal allegiance to God and the right. ” Brother, what is yonr record from that day to this? Brother Methodists with vows upon you that would almost crush an angel, how have you lived since you knowingly and intentionally made these vows to God ? Ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, what is your record since the day God called you unto his work, and you promised to be faithful to God and to man ? Oh, Holy Spirit shine on these records here this evening. Let us see what we must meet at the final bar of God. I want to say to you that I would fre- quently preach very differently but for record-making. I w^ant to say to this vast assemblage of fathers, husbands and sons here -this evening, that while I preach the gospels to others, I never forget for a moment that I have a soul in my own body that will be saved or lost. God pity us here this evening, and turn our eyes inward, to see these records as God would have us see them. What is your record, hus- band ? What is your record, father ? What is your record, son ? There are hundreds of men here this evening, and the only reason you can hold up your heads, the only rea- son you can move among your fellows is the consciousness that nobody on earth can read your record. It is hidden out of the sight of man. There are men listening to me now who, if I could tear a page of the record from their heart and stick it there on that wall in legible letters, would shrink from this congregation, rush out of this hall and out of this town and never be seen within its radius again. Oh brother, it is hidden now, but God’s word for it, every SAM JONES’ SERMONS. I98 wicked act, every secret sin shall he proclaimed from the house tops. Oh fearful thought ! Record ! It was this that made the poet say : It is not all of life to live, Nor all of death to die. A wife’s trick ok her husband. I know that you may drown out this record in a night’s spree, but it comes back with all its power to condemn in the morning. I know that in the giddy round of pleasure you may drown its voice for the hour, but ever and anon it shakes, it shakes its horny hand in your face, and says : u Look ! Read the record of yesterday, of last week, of last year.” What I have written, I have written. What have you written upon the record of your life ? What upon yours ? And upon yours ? I stand here to con- demn no man. I ask you, my brother, in all love and kind- ness, what is the record you have made to this hour? Some months ago a lady slipped a pedomiter into her husband’s pocket as he went out in the evening. He was a business man in the city, but every night as he left the supper-table he said : “ I have to go down to the store.” On one occasion she put one of these indicators in his pocket, and when he came back she took it out and consulted it. The faithful little dial told her that her husband had walked seventeen miles that night. (Laughter.) And she said to him : “ Husband, where have you been to-night ? ” He replied : u I have been posting my books.” She said : “ Hus- band, that won’t do. Do you post your books as you walk ? ” “ No,” he said, “ I post my books sitting at my desk.” She pulled the little indicator out and put it in his face and said, “ There is the record of your work ! Seven- teen miles to-night. (Laughter.) It is half a mile to the store, and half a mile back. Explain yourself.” She made CONSCIENCE — RECORD — GOD. 199 him explain, and it turned out that he had walked sixteen miles round a billiard-table playing pool. (Loud laughter.) And I tell you, my congregation, to-night, that within your bosom there is a faithful record being kept every day, and when at last God shall say, “Who art thou and what hast thou done ? ” the record lias passed into the recording angel’s hands, and he shall read line after line and page after page of guilt that is enough to damn the universe. (Sensation.) A VARIANCE FROM THE RECORD. Oh, record! record! Every oath has been recorded. Every wicked act has been recorded. Every unfaithful act has been recorded. Oh, sir, up yonder! Oh, my brother, how about your record? And I have found out another thing : Men talk one way with their tongue and write another way upon the record of their heart. A man stands up there and says, “ I do not believe in God. Then he writes down upon the tablet of his heart, “ I have just told a lie. I do. I do.” (Applause.) A man out there says, “ I don’t see any use in revivals. I am as good as anybody in the church.” Then he takes up his pen and writes within, “ 1 have told one of the biggest lies I ever told. There is a big use in revivals. The world is going to de- struction and I am the meanest man in town.” He writes one way and talks another. Brethren, I will know you by and by just as you are. Oh, record ! record ! There are men who hear my voice this afternoon who, if their record were to close with this hour, have sinned enough to damn the universe, and I beg you never add another line to that accumulating record of guilt, which is enough to make the devil when he looks at it hide his black face under his wings ! God pity us this 200 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. evening ! May the pen drop from our palsied hands! May we never indite another line that may condemn us here or at the judgment bar of God. AN INEFFACEABLE RECORD. What I have written, I have written. And I want to tell yon that orice you put it down it is down forever. The autobiographies we write on paper can be altered and underlined, but the autobiography you have written on the tablet of your heart can never be altered or erased. It goes down as it is. It abides* with you forever. Record ! record ! record ! At the age of twenty-four I was brought face to face with the fact that I had a record suf- ticent to damn the universe. Brother, let me turn to Spen- cer ; let me read him through and through, and having done so, I say to Mr. Spencer: “ I have been charmed with your theory, but how about my conscience, my record, my God?” Mr. Spencer says: “I do not treat on those subjects.” I say: “Of all the subjects, those I am most in need of.” Then I turn to brother Darwin, and after reading his evolu- tion theories, I say: “But how about my conscience, my record, my God?” He says : “ I do not treat on those sub- jects.” I go to Mr. Tyndall and all earthly philosophers and scientists just at the time I need help and enlightenment, but they turn their backs on me and walk off. How, with record enough to damn the universe, I stand with no phi- losopher to help me, and no scientist that can reach me. Brother, hear me ! All the tears of my precious mother could never have erased one single line of this record. All the prayers of my father would have been wasted on this r ecord. All the prayers of the church would avail nothing. All the combined chemicals of earth could not have erased one single word of it. Oh, what shall I do ? CONSCIENCE — RECORD — GOD. 201 And now, brother, I will tell you why I have my highest hope of salvation on this blessed gospel. When every other source had failed me, I took this book in my hands and I sought the cross of Jesus Christ, and there, a poor, guilty, wicked wretch, I fell down under the cross. And the precious Savior picked me up and pardoned all my sins. He blotted out this record of mine and he took my arms and put them around the neck of God. And I love this religion and this Bible, because it proposes to do with con- science and with record and with God. And there is no other system in the moral universe that proposes to lead a poor man in these dreadful extremities. GOING TO THE CROSS. Aye, with record enough to condemn all men, I went to the cross : I saw one hanging on the tree In agonies of blood. He fixed his languid eyes on me, As near his cross I stood. Sure, never to my latest breath Can I forget that look ; He seemed to charge me with his death, Though not a word he spoke. My conscience felt and owned the guilt And plunged me in despair f I saw my sins His blood had spilt And helped to nail him there. A second look He gave, which said : - “ I freely all forgive, My blood is shed to ransom thee, I die that thou may’st live.” And now I understand that blessed old hymn: There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel's veins. 202 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. BROTHER .TONES 5 HOPE. Bless God for that precious blood that saves a poor, lost, ruined sinner ! I want to say to you to-day that my hope of Heaven rests on this point. Fourteen years ago, a poor, wrecked, ruined sinner, His blood washed away my guilt, and now my record has been washed out in the precious blood of the Son of God. Now take heed to the judgment. Charge me with Sabbath-breaking, charge me with infidelity, charge me with everything, but there is the record, and the precious blood has washed out every page and every line, and I stand acquitted on the final judgment day by the force of testimony and the prerogative of pardon. Blessed be God! Acquitted on the final judgment day. Brother, brother, the hope of the world is the cross of the Son of God. Let us rush up under that cross this evening, the lost, the wicked and the wayward. Fourteen years ago I was the worst of the worst, and sometimes I think that God suffered me, in spite of my mother’s prayers and my father’s ex- ample, to go down to the gates of Hell, that I might be sent back again to bring back the men closest to the gates of Hell. God help you this evening ! I care not who you are, he will not only pardon your sins but he will^ separate them as far as the East is from the West. He says : I will blot them out of the book of my remembrance. Oh, brethren, let us turn our eyes to the hope of the world. This evening let us in God’s own terms of capitula- tion, run the white flag out of the citadel of our hearts, and God will tell the angels to get their wings and fly down to earth and convey peace and hope to every rebellious heart. I want every man that would run up the white flag and sur- render to God and the right, to try to live for God and make his way to Heaven, to stand on his feet for a mo- ment. CONSCIENCE — RECORD — GOD. 203 All rose to tlieir feet, and Mr. J ones thanked God for that hopeful demonstration. In conclusion he made a powerful appeal for a liberal collection. The appeal had the desired effect. The collection amounted to upwards of $300. 204 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. PREPARE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. We invite your attention to the twelfth verse of the ninth chapter of the prophecy by Zachariah: Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope; even to-day do I de- clare that I will render double unto you. The all-absorbing theme with God and angels and good men is the sal vation of the living. Not the salvation of men who lived fifty years ago, or a hundred years ago. They have had their opportunities and enjoyed their privi- leges, and they have met their destiny. Not the salvation of men who shall live a hundred years hence ; they have yet to be born, and yet to enjoy their privileges and oppor- tunities. But the absorbing theme of God, and angels, and good men, is the salvation of men and women who live and walk and talk upon the face of the earth to-night. And isn’t it passing strange that this great question should so engage the heart and mind of God, and of angels, and of good men, and yet, perhaps you, and you, and you, should be the only creatures in all God’s vast universe that seem to be totally disinterested in this great question? And now, we purpose to-night, not to draw upon our imagination or try in the least to impose upon your credulity, but we stand squarely on the book, and we will talk about what we know. A COMMON KNOWLEDGE. Somehow or other I love frequently to talk over things with the friends that I know, and when we begin to talk about “I knows” and the “you knows” and the “he knows ’ 5 and the “she knows,” then we begin to get very close to one another. There are some things that we all know in PREPARE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. 205 common. I know that I am twenty-four hours nearer the cemetery than when I assembled with you in this house last night. You know you have one day less to live than you had this morning when the sun arose upon this world. You know that these moments bear our life away, and are carry- ing us into the great beyond. You know that in your youthful days your heart was softer, your conscience was more tender, and your will was more easily affected by truth, and by grace, than it is to-night. You know that you are not such a husband as you ought to be. You know you do not set such an example to your children as you ought to. You know your life and character to-night are not what they ought to be before God and man. I say that when we begin to talk about these things that we know, we are getting very close together, and there are some things that we know from the teachings of that book. And now we come squarely to the text : Turn ye to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. We stop at this point to say that there are three classes of prisoners with hope, and there are three classes of pris- oners without hope. Now let us find our latitude and longi- tude in spiritual things. Let us find where we are on this occasion. It is the privilege of every man to know his bearings to-night, to know just where he is and to know whither he is tending. FALLEN ANGELS WITHOUT HOPE. * The first class of prisoners without hope that the book speaks of are the angels who kept not their first estate, but sinned against God and were driven away and put in chains of everlasting darkness, to await the final judgment day. While you and I have had a chance of life, and while peace and pardon is for the fallen man, those angels who kept not 206 SAM JONES* SERMONS. tlieir first estate are in that lone land of deep despair, with- out a ray of heavenly light or a spark of hope, forever and forever. As I look upon an immortal spirit whose chains coniine it to hopeless and everlasting despair, my heart shud- ders as I look upon the picture. But I never saw an angel. I have never been brought into sympathy with angels by association. I know very little of them. Angels have not flesh and blood. They are not subjected to wrinkles and gray hairs and old age and death, like you and I, and perhaps they are separated from our sympathy. But this book speaks of another class of prisoners with- out hope. That is that man and that woman who have walked the streets of the city of St. Louis, enjoyed just such privileges as you and I enjoy, and then die without God and without hope in the world. There may be some gospel truth in that old couplet : While the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return. but when fate snuffs the candle and it goes out in death, then all hope is gone forever. I ask you, mother, did you ever pray for your boy since he breathed his last breath? Wife, have you ever offered prayer for your husband since he bade you good-by in death? Sister, have you wrestled with God at the mercy seat for the salvation of your brother since he passed out of the world? No, sir, the common convictions of humanity are all together on this proposition, that as the tree falleth, so it shall be forever, and that, in- stead of there being anything in death to reverse and to sanctify and to save, that death is the opening of the door and the passing out of the soul into eternity WHERE PREACHING IS IN VAIN. I have preached the gospel in more than twenty States, perhaps, of this Union. I may preach the gospel in every PREPARE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. 207 State of this grand old Union. If God were to call me to China I would go to China and preach the gospel as will- ingly and as cheerfully as I bade wife and children good-by to come to your city. But there’s one place I never have preached the gospel, and there’s one place I never shall preach the gospel of J esus Christ, and that is out here in the ceme- tery. I shall never stand among the tombstones of earth and beg the bones of the cemetery to come to Christ. No, sir ! Never! What you and I do with this question we must do between this and the gate of the cemetery. What you and I do upon this question, we must do before the doctor lays his hand upon our pulse for the last time, and bids our weep- ing wife or loved ones to prepare for the worst — that death shall come in an hour. What you and I do upon this ques- tion must be done before that clock on the mantel-piece seems to click louder than ever before. What you and I do must be done before wife or loved ones shall bathe their handkerchiefs in their tears and weep over us as we pass out of time into eternity. If that book teaches anything clearly, it teaches there is no knowledge or device or repentance in the grave, whither we are all tending, and I tell you, my brother, that whatever we may be in this life, or what preparations we may make and what character we form in this life, shall settle destiny for us when life shall bid us walk out of the body and go into the great beyond. And this man and this woman, who have lived and died in our midst, enjoyed the same privileges, enjoyed the same oppor- tunities that you and I enjoy, and yet, in spite of all over- tures of grace and the wagon-loads of sermons that have been wasted upon them, in spite of all, have come to death’s hour without preparation, and passed into eternity to be judged by the God of all the earth ! Oh, 208 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. Death rides on every passing breeze, And lurks in every flower ; Each season hath its own disease, Its peril every hour. NO TIME TO SELL. And perhaps 1,000 of this congregation at this moment, if you were to die in your pew before I am through preach ing, would be prisoners without hope, forever. Tour heart- in your bosom is a muffled drum beating your funeral march to the tomb. And every step you and I take from this hour to our dying couch, shall be toward the cemetery, and yet we rush right upon the gates of the cemetery unprepared for death and unprepared for eternity. I see men whiling away and throwing away hours of their life. Many and many in this city will be like the million- aire of London who gave liis/life to making money, and when stricken sudden ] y with meningitis, his doctor hurried to him and said to him, “ You have meningitis and you’ll be dead in two hours.” And the wealthy, worldly man looked him in the face and said: 66 Doctor, if you’ll keep me alive till to-morrow morning at 8 o’clock, I’ll give you £100,000. I’ll give it to you cheerfully.” The doctor looked at him and said: “ I have prescriptions to give and I have remedies for disease, but, my friend, I have no time to sell. Time belongs to God.” Oh, poor, wayward, worldly man, that whiled away all the precious hours of life, and now, forsooth, when death meets him, tells his physician, “I will give you half a million dollars if you will keep me alive for sixteen hours.” Oh, poor humanity, throwing away hours and privileges that are worth all the world ! . PERSONAL CONGRATULATIONS. A prisoner without hope. Oh, sir, if there is a fact in my history for which I am PREPARE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. 20g shouting thankful and hope to praise God for in Heaven for- ever, it is the fact that God did not let me die in my sins. It is the fact that in and through the abounding mercy and grace of God, I was brought to see myself and repent of my sins and make peace with God before I went hence and was no more among men. A prisoner without- hope. Oh, me ! Have you ever shaken hands with a man who this moment is a prisoner without hope forever? I stood under the tent at St. Joseph, and said on one occasion, u I am preaching now the funeral sermon of some soul in this congregation. I feel it in my blood and bones that some man is rejecting his last chance to make peace with God.” And in less than ten days from that hour a young man who sat in that congregation and heard the words of my lips, staggered and fell, in a drunken spree, and dropped dead on the streets of St. Joe ! ( Sensation.) Oh God ! help that man who is to pass out of time first ! God help him to be prepared ! And just as certain as we are gathered in thi s hall to-night, God has thrown this revival meeting in your pathway and has thrown all this between you and that estate where you will be a prisoner without hope forever. A SAD STORY. I have often thought of the experience and incident of a young man, vigorous and healthy and strong, raised by pious parents, and on his dying couch he sent for his pastor. The pastor was a personal friend of his, and when he walked into the room and saw his sunken condition, the poor boy looked up in the preacher’s face and said : “ I have sent for you, but not to pray for me. I have given all my life to sin and worldliness, and I have not courage now to turn over the poor dying man to God,” and, said 14 210 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. he, “ I have not sent for yon to pray, but I have sent for yon that I might give you a message to my friends at my funeral service, and,” said he, “I want yon to tell my friends at my funeral that I am dying a lost man, and lost forever. But tell them that if any man had slapped me on the shoulder ten years ago and said : ‘ Tom, ten years from to-day yon will be dying without religion , 5 I would have told him: ‘No, sir. I had a good mother. I have a respect for religion, and I intend to give my heart to God.’ “And , 55 said he, “ if any man had slapped me on the shoulder twelve months ago and said : ‘ Tom, twelve months from to-day you will be dying without religion , 5 I would have looked the man in the face and said : ‘Yon don’t know me ; I will never die without religion ; my purposes are fixed to seek and obtain religion before I die . 5 55 Said he : “ If a man had ten days ago said to me : ‘ Tom, ten days from now you will be dying without religion , 5 I would have said : ‘No, sir ; you don’t know me ; 5 “ and,” said he — and I want you to listen to this, the saddest thing a dying man ever said — - “ at last, at last, after all my mother’s prayers and all my good resolutions and all the means that have been brought to bear upon me, at last, at last, I am dying without religion.” And that is the saddest thing mortal man ever said upon his dying couch. And if you die to-night, the world would sit around your corpse to-morrow and say : “At last! at last! After all his resolutions and all his purposes, he died with- out religion.” THE WILLFULLY WICKED. But there is another class of prisoners without hope* Thank God we are not among fallen angels ! thank God, we are not among the dead ! There is another class of prisoners without hope, and that is the men and women of this city PREPARE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. 21 I that are just as certain to be damned as they walk the streets of this city to-day. There are men in this city who have not heard a sermon for twenty years ; there are men in this city who have settled it. “I never intend to hear another;” there are men in this city who have fenced, effectually fenced, their souls off from good, and thrown around them bulwarks and doors that the grace and spirit of God can never pene- trate in this world. And when I walk out on the streets of our town and find a man as he walks the street, that has settled it — “I never intend to repent,” I would as soon shake hands with a dead man as to shake hands with him. He is dead to all that could lift his soul to God ; dead to all that could make him good and happy; dead to all that could save him in time, and dead to all that could save him in eternity. I beg you, my friend, to-night, to stop a moment and con- sider. Have you crossed the line? Have you crossed the line from beyond which no soul ever returned ? ^here is a time, I know not when, A place I know not where, The spirit will poise his golden wings And leave me in despair. THE DIVINE DEAD LINE. There is a line by which all our paths are crossed, beyond which God himself has sworn that he who goes is lost. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. And in my short life as a preacher, I want to tell you to- night I have seen men reject and reject and reject and reject the mercies of God until I have almost heard the gates of mercy close in their face forever. A prisoner without hope. Just as certain as he breathes he is a doomed man. He 212 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. never will repent. The chances are all against ns. The chances are all against ns, now may be. Brother, will yonr heart ever be as tender as it has been in the past ? Will yon ever be worked np under gospel truth as yon have been in the past ? And if after all yonr tender years are gone and all the influences of yonr youthful days fail to reach you, are not the probabilities to-night that yon never will repent, that yon will die like you are, “a prisoner without hope ” ? Ah, me !-the poet said : The wretch, condemned with life to part. Still, still on hope relies, And every pang 1 that rends the heart Bids expectation rise. But, oh, sir ! when hope dies out and endless despair takes possession of the soul — oh — sir, then I ask you, what is there but the cry : u Oh, miserable me ! which way shall I fly ? 55 Infinite wrath ! infinite despair ! Which way I fly is hell; Myself am hell ! Oh, sir, the soul that is impenitent gravitates to its home, and its home can be nowhere else except in the perdition of the damned. A prisoner without hope. I wonder if there is a man here listening to me to-night that you could not move him with the gospel and the thun- ders of all the worlds ; if there are men here to-night who are not just as disinterested in what I say as if they had no j soul to save, and there was no immortal interest at stake. My brother, let others do just as they please, and let others throw away their time and their souls, but let’s you and I make our peace with God and our calling and election sure, so that when we fail on earth we may secure a mansion in the skies. PREPARE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. 213 THE PRISONERS WITH HOPE. But, I thank God, there is a different side to this ques- tion, and let us consider it but a moment. There are three classes of prisoners with hope. The first class we mentioned are the faithful men and women of the Church of God, striving, struggling, day after day, to keep the com- mandments of God, and love and serve Him with all their hearts. Oh, thank God, there are many of this class in the city of St. Louis. They are prisoners, but, thank God, pris- oners of hope — prisoners of hope. Every good man that walks the face of the earth is a prisoner of hope, and Oh, what a blessed day is ours, While here on earth we stay; We more than taste the heavenly joys, And antedate that day. My mother was once a prisoner of hope, but when death cut the ligaments that bound her to earth, she went home to God, and for thirty years she has been walking the golden streets, one of God’s freemen, forever. My precious father was a prisoner, but, thank God, a prisoner of hope ! and when at last he, upon his dying couch, pushed the doc- tors back from his bed, he overleaped the circle of loved ones about his dying couch, and above star and moon he went until he overvaulted the very throne of God itself, and to-night he w r alks the golden streets, a child of God and a freeman forever Thank God these chains will not last always. Thank God these temptations are not forever. Thank God these environments will not last further than the grave ! Bless the Lord, O, my soul ! There is a world Where the wicked cease from troubling, And the weary are at rest. We, I say, are bent upon that gracious home up beyond the skies. 214 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. HEAVENLY CONSOLATION. I never see a wife grow pale and suffer that I don’t bless my God there is a country where no wife shall ever pale, and where no sickness shall ever come. I never see my precious children suffer and swing like the pendulum of the clock between life and death that I don’t thank God there is a country where health blossoms forever upon the cheek and the light of life shall ever sparkle from the eyes of our children. Oh, thank God, there is a world of freedom ! And these faithful Christians are on their way to the world where freedom shall be enjoyed in its most blessed and its most glorious sense. Brother, you are a prisoner of hope, and as long as that star of hope shines over my pathway here is one man that is ready to deny himself and take up his cross and follow Christ. As long as that star of hope shines over my pathway I am ready unto every good word and work. As long as that star shines, over my pathway, like St. Paul I will throw aside everything and count it nothing, and neither will I count my life dear unto my- self, but that I may run with patience the race to that city of God where sickness and sorrow and pain and death are felt and feared no more. Oh, brother, if you mean that a man shall do his duty, shall preach the gojspel, all right, I will preach. If it is to pray, I will pray ; if it is to lead the devotions of my home, I will do that ; if it is to divide my last cent with God and the poor, I will do that ; if it is anything, if it is every- thing, I will give up all things that I may have all things in the sweet by and by. A prisoner of hope. Blessed be God ! There is an assurance in every man’s heart that inspires him by day and by night. A prisoner of hope. PREPARE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. 215 St. Paul said : That blessed hope ! That blessed hope ! A HOPEFUL CLASS. Well, thank God, there is another class of prisoners with hope. That man out there that does not belong to any church, but he stood up here yesterday afternoon and said, “I run the white flag up ; I surrender to God ; I want to be a Christian.” Brother, hear me to-night : God loves the meanest man in St. Louis, just like God loves the best man in St. Louis. Brother, yonder is a father that loves a son with all his heart, and that son is headed to a drunkard’s grave. Does that father’s love save that boy from the drunkard’s grave? There is a mother with -all her affec- tions wrapped around her boy, and yet he drinks, and drinks, and drinks, until at last he leaps out from the pres- ence of his mother into a drunkard’s eternity, and that mother will go to his grave twice a week and carry flowers and plant them on the mound above him, an4 bathe the dust that covers his body in her precious tears ; but did that mother’s love save that boy from the drunkard’s grave ? Neither can God’s love save his son — you and I — unless we bring ourselves in the compass of grace and let Him save us. THE MILITARY CALLED OUT. At this point Mr. Small advanced to the front of the stage and handed Brother Jones a paper, which the latter read, as follows: A number of the members of my command are in your audience to- night. You will please kindly announce to them that they are wanted at the armory at once for active service. (Signed) E. D. Meier. Mr. Jones. — If you are here just retire quietly and we’ll proceed with the services. 2l6 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. After the commotion caused by the militia-men present getting up and leaving the hall had somewhat subsided, Brother J ones said : Now, let us give special attention, for I will tell you, when your doctor says to you that you are wanted in eter- nity, that will be a greater, grander announcement than this. Let us be perfectly quiet, for I assure you we have no in- terest, perhaps, in that announcement. Some one suggested that the call was for the purpose of par- ticipating in the obsequies of the late Vice President Hen- dricks, when Brother Jones proceeded, and said: That is for Hendricks, the Yice President. I suppose that is what the announcement is for — to gather the artillery for, perhaps, to go to Indianapolis to-night. I hope we’ll all be quiet. My! My! If that sort of an announcement stirs you that way, I wmnder how you’ll feel when death shall strike you and you have got to go into eternity ! A NOBLE SURRENDER. A prisoner of hope. That man who has in his heart the burning desire to be a Christian is a prisoner of hope, and I tell you, my brother, the man who says to-night : “I surrender to God ; I give my life to him ; I seek the cross ; ” that man is a prisoner of hope ; and you will never be damned if you will follow the inspira- tion and the desire. “ God help me to be a Christian.” Oh, brother, there are many men in this house to-night who have the burning desire in their heart to be a good man — and some to be a good woman. Well let me tell you that every one of you with such a desire in your heart, every one of you, if you foster that desire and follow the purpose out, God will meet you with peace and pardon, and you by and by shall be a freeman forever. PREPARE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. 2 \ / Friend, let’s yon and I look after our hearts to-night. Is there down in our souls an intense, burning desire to be a Christian? If there is, let us surrender to that desire to- night and say: “I will make my peace with God.” And then, there is another class of prisoners with hope, and that is, those men and women w r ho have not made up their minds at all, but they are thinking on this question. Oh, brother, there is a chance there that you may be saved, and I wish every poor man here to-night with the desire in his heart to be a Christian, I wish you would, like Garfield — President Garfield — when they probed his wounds he looked at the doctors and he said: “Doctors, is there any chance for my life?” The doctors answered back: “Yes, there is a chance,” and Mr. Garfield said : “Well, I will take that chance;” and he did, and wrestled and grappled with death for three long months as no hero in America, perhaps, ever did ; and if that man and that woman will take the chance — a chance that you have to-night — and grapple with it with all your ransomed powers as grandly and nobly as Garfield did with life, then I say to you it will issue into a bright, happy, joyous experience here, and Heaven in the end. Listen! A DIVINE PROMISE OF REWARD. Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. Even to-day I de- clare I will render double unto thee. How a word on this part. Hear me! I will render double unto thee. A great many people think, “Well, after all, I am not ready yet to seek religion. If I were to seek religion now, I would have to give up everything, and just live a poor, sad, groping pauper the balance of my life.” Well, you never made a bigger mistake in your life. Listen: Even to-day do I declare I will render double unto thee. 218 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. “ Double.” I never read that passage that I do not think of the incident a church brother told me once. He said there was a young man in a revival meeting he was carrying on who was seeking religion earnestly for two or three days. One day he walked out of the church after the young man and said to him, “You are in earnest; you are in earnest. I can not see why you are not blessed and saved.” “Oh,”’ said the young man, “I think I know the trouble. Every time I go to the altar and seek God on my knees, this fact comes up before my eyes. I clerk in a grocery store that retails liquor by the quart and pint, but not by the drink, and every time I kneel down and pray, the fact that I am clerking and selling liquor by the quart and pint comes up before me and stops my prayers.’b “ Well,” said the preacher, “ I would give up my clerk- ship.” “If I do,” replied the young man, “It looks as if my mother and sisters will starve. My mother is a widow,, and my sisters are orphans ; and every bite they eat comes from what I earn. I would surrender it in a moment if it was not for that.” “Well,” said the preacher, trust God and do the thing you ought to do, my brother.” He told me the young man went on down to the store and told his employer : “ Sir, I have been seeking religion ear- nestly, and I can not be pardoned ; I can not pray as long as I clerk for you and sell whisky in this house.” Do you hear this? A man can not get religion and sell whisky at the same time. That is as true as God made this world. And then I will tell you another thing. A man can not keep it (religion) and sell it (whisky.) A man can not keep it and drink it : Listen to me a minute. FOR CATHOLICS. I saw in a paper the other day, I saw in a paper in thi s PREPARE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. 219 city die other day, a boast that this was a Catholic city and not a Protestant city. I deny it. With all my heart, I deny it. A Catholic city ! Y on may know, and I know a man is a Catholic by his cross. What is the cross an em- blem of ? Purity, holiness, righteousness. And you tell me that the cross of Jesus Christ is the foundation stone of all the devilment and whisky drinking and corruption of this city. It is a lie as black as hell, I do not care who said 't. ( Applause.) The grand old Catholic Church will never father the corruption and guilt there is in this city. ( Re- newed applause.) When I see the sisters of charity going forth on their errands of mercy and goodness, and when I look to the noble priests and the popes and bishops of the Catholic Church who teach us the purest morals and would lead us closest with Christ, I will not let any man say this is a Catholic city. It is a lie. I wish the city were that or something else that would make the people quit their meanness. Ido. (Great applause.) And if the Catholic Church will take St. Louis and redeem her from her bar- rooms and her lewd houses, and her Sabbath-breaking and her corruption, I w T ill put on my hat and turn the city over to the Catholic Church and say : “In Christ’s name bring her to Christ.” (Tremendous applause.) I am not here to fight the Catholic Church. God bless the Catholic Church and help her to be pure and holy every day and every- where ! God bless the Catholic Church just in proportion as she is pure and holy and good ; as she represents the emblem of the cross she bears. (Long continued aji- plause.) AN IDEA FROM CHICAGO. I want, to read this article. I want you to learn it: Chicago, Nov ember 3d. — The Chicago Reformed Alliance are about V> take measures to have the saloons closed on Sundays. The city gov- 220 SAM JONES SERMONS. ernment will not be asked to take any action in this movement, the method proposed being to prosecute all offenders against the State law known as the Dram Shop Act, which prohibits the opening of saloons on Sunday, under a penalty of $200 for the first and second offense, and a term in the penitentiary for the third. A number of prominent lawyers have volunteered their services for the prosecution of offenders. Among a number of saloons visited yesterday by the committee but one was found closed, and to-day indictments will be found against a few of the offenders. One of the members of the committee said there would be no trouble with the first-class saloons. Hear that. (Laughter.) Well, I reckon hell itself is graded somehow. (Benewed laughter.) “ The first-class saloons !” One of the members of the committee stated that there would be no trouble with first-class saloons, as the owners seemed perfectly willing to close up on Sunday. Brother, let me say to you this : Old Missouri on her statute book has promulgated a law that forbids the sale of liquor on Sunday ; and I want to tell you that the question, u How men sworn to execute the law can let this city be de- bauched with Sunday saloons,” is a question deeper than I have the power to probe into. If you will elect me gov- ernor of this State — and you could not run after me fast enough to give it to me, I have something better than that — but if I were elected governor of this State, I would not sleep three hours a night until I saw that the laws of my State were enforced. (Applause.) Thank God, Georgia has a governor who is one of the most pious men in our State. He loves Jesus Christ. He is an earnest deacon in the Baptist Church. The chief justice of our Supreme Court will pray all night around the altar with a penitent. Our judges and men in authority love God and are moral men. A REFLECTION ON MISSOURI’S GOVERNOR. How can you reform any State in God Almighty’s world PREPARE FOR THE LIFE TO COME. 221 with an old swill -tub for a governor and two or three old mash-tubs for Supreme Court judges. (Great applause.) A man who is privately corrupt can never be politically pure (great applause), and the first thing we did when we wanted to reform Georgia was to put God-fearing and good men in authority, and, by the grace of God, we have the best State in the United States of America. You run a freight train through Georgia on Sunday, and the conductor and the brakesmen and the whole crew employed on the train will sleep in jail that night. (Cries of “Good” and applause.) And you open a bar-room in our State on Sun- day and you will sleep in jail that night. (Applause.) We have a God and a Sunday in Georgia, and they are as pre- cious to us as our wives and our children. (Applause.) To-clay do 1 declare I will render doable. Now, there is no malice aforethought in what I have just said on this tangent, but I say this about selling whisky : No man can be a Christian and sell whisky. I hope to God Almighty the grand old Catholic Church will turn every barrel and every demijohn out of the whole concern. I hope the grand old Methodist and Presbyterian and Baptist Churches will touch not and taste not and handle not the men who sell it or the men who drink it. A TEMPERANCE STORY. That boy of whom I was speaking told his employers, “I can not stay any longer with you.” They said, “Well, we are sorry to give you up. You have been a good boy since you have been with us.” And they paid him off. They were pay ing him $50 a month. That boy went back to the services and surrendered his heart to God. And he went home and lifted up his heart to God. The next morning, just after breakfast, he received a note from his old employ- ers. He went down to their store, and they said, “Walk 222 SAM JONES SERMONS. into the liquor-room that was.” He walked in and he saw that every barrel had been rolled out ; and they said to him, “ ¥e have closed out that part of the business,, and if you will come back and clerk for us again we will give you $100 a month. To-day do I declare I will render double unto thee. No man ever lost anything by surrendering a wrong and giving his life to God. No, sir. Well, some man in the house may say, “I do not believe your anecdote.” But I can tell you one a heap bigger than that. (Laughter and applause.) Fourteen years ago — my brethren of the minis- try, hear me — fourteen years ago I gave my life and heart and all to God and entered into his service, and I read in that book — and I thought it was a big statement — If you will forsake houses aud lands and all to follow me, I will give you one-hundred fold more in this life and everlasting life in the world to come. Well, I took God at his word. When I started out to follow God, I left our little home in Cartersville, but, bless- ed be God, he has given me a hundred homes wherever I have gone — just as good as home could be. And I left one mother — a gracious stepmother she was to me — I left her to follow Christ, and, bless his holy name, he has given me a thousand mothers wherever I have gone, who have been as good to me as my own precious mother. I left a few friends in my own home to follow Christ, but, blessed be God, he has given me a thousand friends for every one I have left. And, blessed be God, I have now one thousand fold more in this life and the bright hope of everlasting life in the world to come. God help every man here to-night to say, I will turn to the stronghold ! I will be a Christian ! I will give myself to God ! AN APPEAL TO THE PROFESSORS. Now, as we are v-oina* to dismiss this service in a moment, PREPARE FOR THE LIFE ko COME. 223 brethren, I wish to say I have been here a week, preaching, praying, doing the best in my poor, humble way, with a thousand faults and a thousand mistakes. I know it. I know it. I know it. I need sympathy and the mercy of God for myself. But, brethren, will you be honest with God ? Will every member of every church who sits before me to-night — and only members of some church — how many of you will stand up with me and say : “ God helping me, I intend to be loyal to my vows ; I intend to help to win the world to Christ by a faithful, earnest life and make my way to Heaven ; 1 am going to work out, under this star of hope, my salvation, with fear and trembling 55 ? Brethren, I say not now what your past life has been. But listen a moment. I want to talk for myself a moment. Brethren, whatever may have been my past, I feel like standing up and saying with you : u Oh, God ! if I have never done it before, right here and now I give myself to thee from head to foot, through and through, soul and body ? for time and eternity. 55 How many of you brethren in Christ, of all churches, will stand up with me a minute and say : “ That is my honest 'conviction ; I give myself wholly to God 55 ? How every one that feels that way, stand up. (The great majority of the people in the hail rose.) THE PENITENTS. Well, thank God. What a host. Brethren, let us keep our vows and do our duty. How, please be seated a mo- ment. I am going to ask every man — you see what we have done — I am going to ask that every man not a member of any church, not a professor of religion, will stand up. Oh fathers, we can not afford to be wicked and wayward. Boys with good mothers, boys with good fathers, you can not af- ford to be wicked and wayward. Brethren, how many of 224 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. you not members of any cburcli will stand up and say hon- estly “ I want to be a Christian ; I want to be a good man ; I want to seek Godj; I want the prayers of all this people”? H OW) my friend, will you be honest with your soul and with yourself ? I trust every man not a Christian will stand up in his place for a moment and say — and having said it, stand by it forever — “ I want to be a Christian. I want to do right; I want to find my way to Heaven.” How many in this house, in the gallery or anywhere, will stand up and say : “ It is true from the depths of my heart I want to be a Christian”? How, let every one not a member of a church, stand up. Will you stand? (Some fifty persons rose.) That is right. Thank God ! Thank God ! Every- where over the house ! stand up and stand a moment. That is right. Thank God ! Thank God ! How in a moment we are going to pronounce the benediction, and will every person here — you who stood up and you who did not stand up — if you are not a Christian, when the congregation passes out stay here about five minutes, and let us talk over this eternal question? Oh, this is business for eternity! Won’t you stay with us a few minutes? Gather herein front after the congregation passes out, and let you and I talk a little on this question to-night. These preachers will help you. If you have your wife along she will come with you. If you have friends along, your friends will come with you. Let every soul not a Christian come to the front after the congregation passes out. Pray God to-night that you may all ] rofess the precious hope that you may be saved for time and eternity. ( Cries of Amen.) Blessed God, abide with us now and forever. Amen. Seventy-five persons stayed to prayers, and of these, twen- ty -five made profession of Christ as their hope for the life to come. DO NOT DELAY' REPENTANCE* 225 BO NOT BELAY REPENTANCE. While this damp night is keeping many away let 11s who are here be earnest and prayerful. I have scarcely ever seen a rainy night during revival meetings that were not better than any other nights of the meeting in results and in blessing upon the congregation. I naturally take it for granted this congregation is in earnest, that you are here for good. And now let us be prayerful, and let us expect, each of us, for himself, just such a blessing on our hearts as we need. If it is a blessing of consecration on the part of Christian people, let us expect that and let us not be sat- isfied to go away without it. If it is of pardon, justifica- tion, peace — if that is the sort of blessing we are seeking, let us look for it to-night, and let us not go away satisfied without it. SAVING HIS TEXT FOR THE ENDING. It is usually customary for a preacher to announce his text and then discuss it. We generally read our text and then expound it. But, without any purpose or desire to be singular or odd in this case, I shall first preach the ser- mon and then read the text, because this text is the answer to the question I want you to spend thirty minutes with me in discussing. This is a wonderful old book from which we get our text. It goes back to the beginning of all things, and forward to the end of all things. In the first chapter of Genesis I read of my own origin and the origin of all creation, and I read how the evening and the morning were the first day and the second day, and how at the end of the sixth day the sons of God and the angels shouted over a finished 15 226 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. world. One chapter of this book is devoted to mv origin, and the thousand chapters which follow warn me of my destiny. God devotes one chapter of this book, one page of the book, to telling me whence I come and all the other warnings and all the other rebukes and promises and pre- cepts of his word are but so many index fingers pointing into the great hereafter, warning me of my destiny. I believe there is but one thing condemned in this book, and that is sin ; and sin is the only thing in the universe of God that can permanently harm a soul. Disappointments may sadden me. Vexation and cares may worry me, and the thousand of the environments of earth may fret me. But there is but one thing that can permanently damage the soul, and that is sin. And, really, I don’t need any enlightenment from this book or the pulpit to teach me that sin will do its most work on character, on the soul, on my present, on my future destiny. And if it is sin that all the cannon of Heaven are turned loose upon ; if it is sin that God would not have us commit ; if it is sin that Heaven frowns upon, and that perdition itself would have us commit ; if it is sin — then I stop and ask this question : Why will you continue in sin? SALVATION A PERSONAL MATTER. Now we notice a moment the words of this question. They are very simple, and yet they are very forcible : Why will you continue in sin? Salvation is a personal matter. Damnation a personal matter. I can get no one to die for me ; no one to be buried in my stead ; no one to stand before God in my place ; no one to pass into glory in my stead ; no one to be damned in my place. Salvation is pre-eminently a personal matter. I am saved, if saved at all, thank God— I am saved in my- DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCE. 227 self and for myself. If I am lost, it is me lost, and if every other man should make his way to God, I am shut up to the consciousness that Heaven’s door is closed in my face, and that I personally am shut up in Hell forever. Men sin in groups and go in schools and run with the mul- titude, but judgment is personal. Salvation is personal. You and I, if we walk into glory, will walk in just as per- sonally and as really as if we were the only ones that left this earth for a better world. If we are damned, we shall be damned as personally as if we were the only men that the sentence of God should rest upon through all eternity. And this question means something. THE QUESTION NARROWED DOWN. Why will you ? — not why will the church ; not why will the preachers ; not why will the cities ; not why will States ; but why will you, you, you? I don’t mean the man in front of you, nor the one behind you, nor the one to your right nor your left. I mean you! you! Why will you continue in sin? How, recollect : I don’t ask you how it is you have lived in sin up to this hour. I don’t ask you how it happened that you were born a sinner. That might involve a theo- logical discussion that you and I haven’t the capacity to go into. I don’t ask you why you have continued to live in sin up to this moment. That is a question that might involve exculpatory statements on your part, that I have neither time nor disposition to listen to. The question, plainly put, is, not why you have come into this hall to-night a sinner, nor why you were born in sin, but why will you go from this hall in rebellion against God and to lead another hour of a life of sin? That’s the question. Now, some people think that sin is a something that 228 SAM JONES SERMONS. floats around in the atmosphere. Some people think sin ip a roaring lion going about seeking whom it may devour But sin is not something in the atmosphere around, and sin is not a roaring lion on our track. Sin is an act committed. It is a deed done. It is a word spoken. “ Sin,” said the apostle, “ is transgressing the law ” — doing something that you ought not to do and which you know you ought not to do. It is saying something that you ought not to say and which you know you ought not to say. It is the living of a life of rebellion against God, and the doing of those things that God forbids and the leaving undone those things that God commands we should do. Now, the question plainly put is : Why will you lead this life and continue doing and say- ing those things and neglecting these things ? Why will you? THE PLEA OF IGNORANCE OF SIN. Now we answer first for you : Is it because you are igno- rant of what sin is ? Can any man in this house say, “ I don’t know that it is wrong to swear, and wrong to drink, and wrong to lie, and wrong to rebel, and wrong to live in darkness ” when light is proffered ? Can any man say that ? Can any man raised in the land of Bibles look God and an- gels in the face and say, “ The reason I live here an impen- itent sinner is because I don’t know what sin is”? Will you say that? Have you never read in that book, “Thou 1 shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain ” ? Have you never read in that book, u Thou shalt not bear false witness ” ? Have you never read, “ Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy ” ? Have you never read, “ He that breaketh the least commandment is guilty of all ” ? Then I ask you, friend, can you say now, or ever, that the DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCE. 229 reason yon leave here impenitent to-night is because you don’t know what sin is? Will you say that ? Do you know that every sinner in this land stands self- convicted on that proposition? There’s not a sinner in this city that hasn’t for years been criticising the life of the church, and you know that every criticism of your lips on the life of a member of the church is incontestable proof that you know what right is, and that you know what wrong is. You won’t suffer these members of the church to do wrong, and when they do do wrong you speak of it, and point the finger of scorn at them. The fact of the business is, the church ought to live up to the world’s standard of character, and my highest aspira- tion in this life is for all of us to come up to where the world knows and says we ought to get up to. That’s it. These sinners don’t permit us to do wrong. If we do wrong they say: u That isn’t right! You’ve promised to do right.” Oh, brother! don’t let the church’s standard of righteousness be lower than the standard that sinners have raised for us ! WRONG FOR PROFESSORS, WRONG FOR SINNERS. Yes, but you say, “ 1 know it is wrong for members of the church to do that way, but is it wrong for us ? ” Look a here, friend ! 1 have got as much right to get drunk to- night after service as any man in this house, God being judge, you see. I have just as much right to go and gam ble to-night till 3 o’clock in the morning as any man in this house has, God being judge. I have just as much right to tell a lie to night when I am through preaching as any man in the house has to tell a lie, God being judge. I won- der who gave you permission to do wrong. And the big- gest mistake in this universe is for a man, simply because 230 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. lie don’t belong to the church, to imagine that God has given him license to do wrong. God doesn’t look upon sin with the least allowance, and “ the soul that sinneth, it shall die,” whether in the church or out. The only difference between men in the church and men out of the church is, the one acknowledge their obligations to live right and the others have not. That’s all. You are under as many obli- gations to God and right, to be and to do good as I am. Doesn’t God feed you and clothe you and care for you and doesn’t his sun shine upon the just and the unjust alike, and hasn’t the blood of Jesus Christ been poured out for you just like it has been poured out for me ? I have as much right to do wrong as any man in the world if you let God be judge. A WHOLESOME DIFFERENCE. I know it looks worse for a member of the church to do wrong, and I’ll tell you wdiy. The difference between a member of the church and that sinner out of the church is this: That member of the church is like a white piece of canvas, and you sprinkle any kind of mud or dirt on a white piece of canvas and it shows very plainly; and that’s the member of the church. But you take an old, dirty, grimy piece of canvas, and you can just rub anything you w r ant to on it and it don’t show at all. (Laughter.) And that’s the difference between a member of the church and an old sin- ner out of it. (Laughter.) If I were to go down to-night and get drunk, or if I were to get drunk on the streets of St. Louis to-morrow, the tele- graph wires of the country would catch it up and it wmuld be telegraphed all over the face of the Union, “Mr. Jones is in St. Louis, drunk.” (Laughter.) But there’s many an old- red-nosed fellow in this town DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCF. 231 gets drunk every day and nobody pays any more attention to it tlian they do to the sun shining. You see that’s the difference between a gentleman and a vagabond ! Don’t you see ? (Laughter.) If I were to step out on the streets to-morrow and swear and profane the name of God, the newspapers would catch it up and declare that I was blaspheming on the streets of this city. But there are 10,000 black-mouthed swearers in this town who profane the name of God every day upon the streets, and people pay no attention whatever to them. Now, you see, that’s just the difference between a gentle- man and a vagabond ! Don’t you see ? (Laughter.) A DISTINCTION IN THINGS. I’m glad this world makes distinctions. (Laughter.) I’m glad. There’s some of you won’t walk down street but some vagabond will say to you, “ Come in and take a drink with me.” But I can walk these streets ten years and nobody will ever ask me to take a drink. Don’t you see? (Laughter.) This world knows wdio’s who. I’m so glad this world will let a gentleman pass on and let him alone. I’m glad of that. And whenever a man asks you to take a drink with him in these bar-rooms down here he’s got you down in his book as a vagabond (laughter), and he ain’t missing it much, either. You can put that down. (Laughter and applause.) I know the sort I used to ask when I drank. I know how I had them down, and I never misput a fellow down, for I had him down right every time. Why, there were gentle- men down in Cartersville. I would never let ’em see me go into a grocery, much less ask ’em in. And I am so glad that a man never gets it right but what he respects virtue, 232 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. and sobriety, and goodness. I’m so glad of that. (Ap- plause.) No man here to-night can look the preacher in the face and say, “The reason I live here a sinner is because I don’t know what sin is.” We know wrong is wrong and right is right. We know we ought not to do wrong, and we know we ought to do the right. PLEADING IGNORANCE OF CONSEQUENCES. Well, then, I ask you again, is it because you are ig- norant of the consequences of sin? Will you say that? Is there a man here who never read in that book, “The wicked shall be turned into Hell”? But you say, “Forsooth, and there is no hell.” I know the cry of this nineteenth century is, “ There is no hell,” and I am sorry to see that in all this land, where men have sworn eternal allegiance to that book, there is not one preacher in twenty to-day that will stand up and preach hell as that book asserts it. Of course, the preachers in St. Louis do, but I am speaking of preachers elsewhere. They won’t do it. (Laughter.) Why, it is considered vulgar now, really vulgar, for a man to get up and preach hell to sinners. (Laughter.) Don’t you know that it is so ? And I want to say to you this : I will take the records of the Church of God, and every preacher that had power with God and influence with men, and that brought thousands to Christ, every one of them — I run back, and I will take Bunyan, and I will take Whit- field, and I will take J onathan Edwards, and I will take Charles G. Finney, and I will take your own leading evan- gelist in America, Dwight L. Moody. I will take C. H- Spurgeon, in London, and every man that had power with DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCE. 233 God and influence with men — believed in a real, genuine, Scriptural, brimstone hell! Now, what do you say? (Ap- plause.) NOT POLITE TO BELIEVE IN HELL. It is not polite to believe that way (laughter), and many a little fellow has scratched that out of his creed ; but he won’t be in hell more than fifteen minutes before he will revise his creed, and have nothing in it but hell (laughter) ; he will scratch out all the rest. (Laughter.) I am sorry for a fellow fooling away his time that way. And I want to say to you to-night, the biggest fool this world ever saw is the man that gets in the biggest, broadest, plainest road to hell, and stops on the way trying to persuade people there is no such place as hell! The biggest fool this world ever looked on is the man that spends all his proba- tionary existence trying to persuade himself that there is no hell, and then, after death, he lays down in hell, forever realizing that there is one. You say, “Well, I don’t like these hell-scared sinners.” Why, bless you! they are the only sort I do like. And I want to tell *you to-night, fourteen years ago I got a good scare, and, blessed be God ! I ain’t over it good yet, and I never want to get over it (laughter) until 1 get into the pearly gates, safe forever. (A voice : “Amen ! ”) And I believe in hell just as strong as I believe in heaven, and I believe that a topless heaven has its counterpart in a bot- tomless hell. And just in proportion as you let up at this point, that minute you run riot in wickedness and sin and outrageous conduct ; and I want to say to you all to-night, my fellow-citizens, I believe that if a man lives and dies in his sins, because that book says so, that he is lost — and lost forever! If Heaven is eternal, then Hell is eternal, for the 234 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. same adjectives that apply to the one apply to the other; and this much I say, “ God help me ! God help me ! that I may never go there.” THE LOCALITY OF HELL. A man asked me the other day where Hell was? Said I: “ I don’t know, and by the grace of God I never will know — I never will know.” And he asked me was there really genuine, burning brimstone there? Said I : “ I am so afraid there is, that I am never going there, and I am never going to see whether there is or not.” (Laughter.) God keep the gate of Heaven wide open before me, and some of these days I will run right into glory and to God ; and then, in Heaven, shut up forever, I shall be delivered from Hell forever. No, sir, no man here can say, “ The reason I live here a sinner is because I don’t know what sin will lead to.” I like very well the definition of the old colored woman. When the old man came home he said, “ Auntie, the preacher preached to-day about hell tire and brimstone,” and he said, “Auntie, where does God get all the brimstone to burn forever?” The old woman said, “Honey, all the old sinners takes the brimstone with ’em there to burn ’em forever. (Laughter.) No, sir! Then I come closer to you wdth this question. You say you will leave here a sinner to-night — and men will do it to-night. Impenitent sinners, you will leave here that way. Well, why? It is not because you are ignorant of the na- ture of sin, and ignorant of its consequences. You know what sin is, and you know what sin will do for a man, and I know that sin will ruin a man in this world, and I know that sin is the same in all worlds. Men are the same in all worlds, and it is not a question how long he will endure, but how long will sin endure? DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCE. 235 THE PLEA OF INDIFFERENCE. Then, I ash you again, is it because you are indifferent to the truth ? You know what the truth is, and you know what sin will do for you, and yet you are indifferent to the truth. Oh, how many indifferent men in this world that wear a placid countenance when every nerve and muscle in them ought to be shaking under the pressure and power of truth as it is applied, to them ! Oh, how many indifferent m6n here to-night — indifferent to the truth; indifferent to their condition — and may be in twenty-four hours from this moment they will be in eternity and their body in their cof- fin ; and yet they are perfectly indifferent to the future — ■ indifferent ! And I do thank God that whatever may have been my estate as a sinner, thank God, I never reached the point when I was indifferent to the truth. Sometimes I would not go to church once in six months, with the bells ringing all around me Sabbath morning, and yet I say to you to-night, I never went with my Christian wife to the house of God and heard an honest gospel sermon that it didn’t move me from head to foox. I tried to appear in- different. I would not let my wife know how I felt for all the world ; I would not let the preacher know it for all the world, and yet I carried a placid, indifferent countenance through it all. And yet that man out there says to-night: “ That is my condition, I feel a good deal different from what my wife thinks anything about and what my neighbor thinks anything about ; I am concerned about the great hereafter.” It is not indifference. THE PLEA OF RECKLESSNESS. Then I ask you, “ is it because you are reckless as to the consequences ?” Sometimes men put on an air of reckless- 236 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. ness and sometimes they seem to defy God and defy man ; they curse with a loud voice and sin with an outstretched arm, and they think, “ I have nothing to conceal ; I sin publicly and openly ; I defy God to his face,” and there is a reckless- ness that is enough to make men tremble as they look upon it. Recklessness^ You say, “ how foolish these things.” In my own town one night, one of our citizens, a daring, reckless drinking man, stood on the platform of the depot, and he said : u To-night I am going to walk up the railroad and meet the down passenger night express, and,” said he, “ I am going to meet it on the track and gather the engine in my hands and hurl it into the ditch on the side of the track.” They laughed at him ; felt his recklessness had assumed a very humorous turn, and that night as the down passenger train came rolling and thundering down, just a quarter above the depot, this maddened, reckless wretch met it on the track and stooped to catch it by its defender, and it rushed and rolled on and he was ground to powder. Oh, how reckless that man w^as ! And there is that man rushing right up into the face of God and his judgment, and by and by instead of tossing God and judgment to one side, “ upon whom this stone shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.” GREEDY FOR HELL. Recklessness ! There are men in this city that are reck- less in the highest degree. They are not willing to live out their three-score years and ten and lie down and die and go to perdition by the natural order of things ; but instead of living out their three-score years and ten, and dying and going to Hell, twenty, thirty, forty years hence, I see these men frequenting bar-rooms, pouring the liquid damnation down their throats, and I see it affecting DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCE. 237 their constitutions day by day, and then I see the physician of the family tell him: “You must hold up, sir, or you will soon be in your grave ; 55 but instead of holding up he . drinks on, and drinks on, and now we see him with liquor bringing him within six months of his grave and of Ileil and of his lost estate, and he is not satisfied to drink on, and at the end of the six months he walks out on your street and picks a quarrel with a friend, and that friend shoots him down on the sidewalk, and he leaps off the sidewalk of your city down into Hell twenty years before his time — and there is a man greedy for dam- nation ; he is in a hurry to be lost. God help that man to-night as he leaps recklessly into perdition and the cham- ber of the dead. Whatever you do, halt to-night and say, “ I will not rush on God and the grave and on eternity un- prepared . 55 AHEAD OF SCHEDULE TIME. There are men out here in your cemeteries to-night, if they had lived along as quiet, sober citizens, they could have been here hearing this sermon to-night ; they could have enjoyed the blessed privilege of these revival meet- ings. There are men in your cemeteries to-night who might find Christ in these meetings and be saved forever, but they were reckless and greedy for damnation and in a hurry to be damned. The Lord pity us to-night and check us up to-night, and if we never stop again, God bring us to a halt and bring us to our senses one more time before we die. You say: “ I am not a reckless man . 55 There’s many a man appears to be reckless, but when he turns off the gas at night and sits alone with God he is afraid of God, and he is afraid of the judgment, and he is afiaid of eternity, and he 238 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. is afraid of the- great beyond. “ No, sir,” it is not reckless- ness you say. THE PLEA OF PRESENT SATISFACTION. Then I push this question on you and ask you this : Is it because you are satisfied with your present estate, your present condition? I am so glad, brethren, that God will not sutler any man to lie down and sleep his way to Hell. No, sir! Twenty-four years the life of a sinner taught me this fact : A poor sinner’s breast is like the troubled sea ; It has no rest ; it lives devoid of peace ; A thousand stings within our souls Deprived our hearts of ease. And I tell you to-night, I never saw a minute of my life that I was satisfied with my condition. No, sir ; I was an orphan and I was friendless and hopeless amid all the gaye- ties of life, when I looked at my condition. “No, sir,” you say, “ it is not because I am satisfied with my present condi- tion.” God won’t suffer a man out of harmony with him to get into an estate like that. I don’t care what you say about your happiness and your peace and all that sort of thing. God bless you, brother, you know it is the truth, that the pleasures that you drown your life in are Like poppies spread, (You seize the flower, the bloom is shed ; Or, like the snow-fall in the river, A moment white, then melts forever. Lord pity us poor fellows, feeding on the husks of swine day after day and trying to satisfy the immortal soul. A COMPROMISE LIFE. “No, sir.” you say, “it is not because I am satisfied with my present condition.” Then I ask you again: “Is it be- DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCE. 239 cause you are leading a sort of a compromise life — ‘I am going to be religious after a while’ ?” If I were to make this proposition this moment — if I ask every man in this house who intends to prepare for death between this and his dying moment, to rise, every one in this house would stand up immediately. No man ever settled and fixed the question unalterably and forever, “I have made up my mind to be damned.” I never saw the man that would say that. Then, brother, have you and I any more time to throw away? I have often thought of that little fellow running down to the train with all his might, and just as he reached the depot the train rolled off, and there he stood, sad and dis- appointed and dejected, and a kind friend looked on the little fellow and said, “My little man, I will tell you what is the matter.” “What?” said the boy. “Oh,” said the man, “you didn’t run fast enough.” “Oh, yes, I did,” said the boy, “I ran with all my might, but my trouble was I didn’t start soon enough.” And oh, me ! there’s many a man in this world that will miss Heaven, not because he didn’t start, but because he didn’t start soon enough. And I have seen the passenger stand at the depot platform and the train had gone, had gone, had gone, and I looked into his face and I saw written upon every tissue and ligament of his countenance, “ Left ! left! left!” And when the last hope shall have swept by you and gone on without you, then upon every fibre and tissue 01 your soul will be writ- ten, “ Left and lost ! Lost and left forever.” Oh, my Lord ! teach men that while God Almighty runs His trains right at our feet every day, and checks up enough for us all to get aboard, it is the bounden duty of every man to step on board and go to God and to glory. 240 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. FOLLY OF “ GOING- TO QUIT WRONG.” A great many people think, “Well, Pm going to quit doing wrong; I have made my mind up for that.” Yes. What is that worth ? Here is a man whose all depends on his reaching Cincinnati to-morrow morning at 8 o’clock. He goes down there to the depot to-night and stands there and lets the trains all pull out and leave him. You will say, “Friend, you have lost your all.”- “I know that.” “Well, why did’t you get on board?” “Well, I — I — I came down here to the train, and I — I — I thought if I wouldn’t throw any rocks at the engineer, and I wouldn’t cuss the con- ductor, the thing would take me along anyhow. I thought all that was necessary was for me not to bother the engineer and conductor.” And there’s many a man in this world standing and being left forever who expects to get in at last because he didn’t cuss the preacher and throw rocks at the meeting-house. (Laughter.) There’s a good deal of that sort of foolishness in this world. A PLEA OF SPIRITUAL APATHY. Then we come at you with this question: You say, “Ho, sir, I will not lead a compromise life. I know I ought to he religious, but I have not set a day ahead.” Then I ask you this question : “ Is it because a spiritual apathy has taken possession of your soul ? ” Listen, brother: Awake, thou that sleepest, and arouse from the dead and Christ shall give thee life. The saddest attitude of the soul as it lies on the brink of perdition is the attitude of slumber. A man sleeping over his immortal interests! Can you imagine a man like that? In our State we have a Mr. William A. Rogers, president of the Marietta Female College. One morning his wife DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCE. 241 was indisposed and lie sent his servant to the drug store for quinine. In a few moments the servant came back. Mrs. Rogers took the powder and put it on her tongue. She rinsed it down with water, but as soon as she had swallowed it she walked to the front porch, and to her husband, who w T as in the flower yard, she said : “ Husband, that was not quinine I took just now. I sent for quinine, but I am satis- fied that was not quinine. 55 Mr. Rogers ran down with all his might to the drug store and said : “ What was that you sent my wife ? 55 The druggist threw up his hands and said : a Sir, I have sent enough morphine to your house to kill a dozen persons. 55 Mr. Rogers ran over to the doctor’s office and carried two physicians home with him. They admin- istered emetics and strong coffee and various remedies, and directly a death-like stupor began to crawl over her frame. The agonized husband turned to the doctors and said: “Is there any chance to save my poor wife? 55 “ Yes, 55 they re- plied, “if we can keep her awake for four hours we can save her life. 55 The minutes seemed like hours as they walked her up and down the floor, and threw cold water in her face and whipped her person with cruel switches, and every means was used. Directly that death-like stupor be- came so oppressive that she turned to her husband and said: “ Husband, please, sir, let me go to sleep, 55 and he said, “ Oh, wife, if you go to sleep you will never wake up again in this world. 55 “I know that, 55 she said, “but please sir, let me go to sleep. 55 And they walked her up and down the floor, and, directly, when the stupor overwhelmed her whole being, she turned to her husband, and said : “Hus- band, please, sir, let me sleep for just five minutes. 55 And he said : “Wife, if. you go to sleep for flve minutes, you will never wake up. Aris6 ! Arouse! 55 And thus they 16 242 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. ♦ waited until the four hours had passed, and the doctors pro- nounced her safe. THE OPIATE OF SIFT. And I have seen the soul of man just in that condition. I have worked with him, prayed with him and wrestled with him day after day and week after week, and the devil would administer opiates to his soul and he would say: “ Just let me sleep until this service is over — this last hour’s service of the meeting. Just let me sleep through this.” And I have aroused him and we have sung, “ Come humble sinner,” and on and on, and then he said : “ Just let me sleep through this last verse.” But if 1 die, that mercy sought That on the King have cried, It’s then to die — delightful thought — As sinner never died. And he sang the verse through, and he closed his eyes and slept and slept and slept, until in hell he opened his eyes, wide awake forever! Oh, brother, can you sleep that way ? Oh, brother ! Oh, how men sleep over their im- mortal interest! How men sleep over the interest of their souls ! I can arouse this town with the cry that there is danger to a family here. In the city of Atlanta, a few months ago, the Wilson House, one of our second-class hotels — in size, I mean — caught tire. The flames burst out of the window, and directly the fire-bells commenced ringing, the fire com- panies came thundering down the street, and multitudes pressed toward the hotel . The servants ran from room to room and awakened the guests. They waked up this one and he dressed hurriedly and ran out. They waked up that one and he dressed hurriedly and ran out. DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCE. 243 COULD NOT BE ROUSED. Finally a servant went to one room in which there were two guests, each in a different bed. He aroused one. He jumped out of bed. He aroused the other, but with a moan and a groan he went to sleep again. The guest who had been aroused dressed himself hurriedly and ran to the bed of the other and shook him and said : “ Get up, the house is on fire.” He simply moaned and groaned and went back to sleep. When his friend had finished dressing he ran to the bed and pulled the man out of bed. He stood him on his feet and said: “ The house is on fire! Hurry! hurry! or you will be burned up. The man as he was turned loose shot back into his bed with a moan and a groan, and went to sleep again. And the next day, when they were raking among the debris of the building, they found his bones all charred and burned. And many a time on earth, heaven seems to long to arouse us and pull us away from our sur- roundings and stand us on our feet and cry “ Fire ! eternal fire ! ” and yet there we stand, and at last among sulphurous flames and eternal perdition, our bones lie burned and charred forever. Look here, friends, if we wake to-night, let us stand up like men and flee from the wrath to come. A DEAD PEACE. You say, “No, I am not asleep. I am wide awake. I hear it. I not only hear with my ear, but all you say js ringing through the chambers of my soul ! ” Then one more question and we come to God’s answer. Is it because a spiritual apathy has taken possession of you ? Is it because a spiritual peace — a peace that defies the cannon, that walks away unmoved from God, a peace that means the certain, awful and dreadful death of the soul; 2 44 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. a peace that a man gets at the cannon’s mouth and with the sound of musketry all around him, a conquered peace that means the apathy of the soul? I will illustrate it. At one of our big camp meetings in Georgia, Bishop Pierce was announced to preach at 11 o’clock on Sunday morning — Bishop Pierce, whom we love so well, and whom we believe to this day to be the grandest preacher America has ever produced. Tented on that camping ground was a good woman, or rather, her husband tented there. She was a Christlike, good woman ; her husband was a wicked, way- ward sinner about sixty years old. He tented there on ac- count of his wife, and he was kind and clever to the preach- ers and to all the guests at the camp meeting. On that special occasion the old man brought his chair out and took a seat among the worshipers. And the bishop said that when he stood up and read his text something seemed to say to him, “ You are preaching the last awakening sermon ' that that old sinner will ever hear.” He said the Spirit of God came down upon him and seemed to turn loose all the powers of his nature. He poured hot grape and canister on to the devoted head of that old sinner. A VICTORY FOR SIN". And there he sat in his chair and turned pale and red, and at times he would turn and twist in his chair and bite his lip. He was very restless during the whole sermon, and as soon as the bishop sat down the old sinner took his ' chair, went to his tent, fastened the front door, barred the the back door, and shut the windows and fastened them. When his wife came to dinner with her guests she knocked for admittance. The only answer she received was an un- earthly groan that was awful to listen to. She looked through a crack in the window and saw her husband pros- DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCE. 245 trate in the straw on the floor. She said : “May God Al- mighty secure a victory over my poor husband. The good Spirit of God has touched his heart.” She went back there at three o’clock that afternoon and the battle was still going on. She knocked for admission, but received no answer ex- cept those moans and groans. She went back at midnight and the battle was still going on. At daylight next morn- ing that battle was growing hotter and thicker — a battle greater in its results than Gettysburg or Waterloo or any other battle ever fought in this world — a battle between God and an immortal spirit. At one o’clock in the after- noon, just twenty-five hours after he shut that door, he opened it again. His wife was standing on the opposite side of the tent. She saw the tent door flew open, and she ran upon the wings of the wind to embrace her converted hus- band; but when she went up to him the cold marble look of his countenance ana the rigid frown on his face told her that he had conquered the Spirit of God. But it took him twenty-five hours to do it, and that was the last battle that poor old man ever fought. He was never disturbed any more. And I want to tell every man here that you have that same battle to fight to-night or to surrender to God. It may not take you twenty-five hours ; it may not take you twenty-five minutes. You may fight God and conquer his spirit within your heart in twenty-five seconds, and that will be the last battle you will ever fight on this side of eternity. Oh, me! This night surrender, if in your heart there has stirred the wooings and warnings of God’s Holy Spirit. All sin will be forgiven you except sinning successively and persistently against the Holy Ghost. And he that doth this shall never be forgiven in this world or the world to come. And successively sinning against the Holy Ghost is the 246 • SAM JONES 5 SERMONS. lighting of it for the last time out of your heart and to let him leave you in despair. THE ANSWER AND THE TEXT. Now, the answer comes right here. Listen, my friend. God says the reason a man will continue on m sin is this : Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore, the heart of the sons of men is fully set m them to do evil.— Ecclesiastes viii, 2. That is to say , because , the sentence or punishment for evil is delayed ten or twenty years before I am damned for it, I will just sin on. Here is the proof. Listen. If you knew that immediately the next oath crossed your lips that you would be sent into eternity, you know you would never swear again. If you knew that the next time the intoxicating cup touched your lips your sentence would be immediately pronounced, you would never drink again. The logic of sin is this : “ Be- cause God is good I will sin ; because God is long-suffering I will rebel against God, and I will make God’s goodness a reason for my wickedness and God’s long-suffering an . ex- cuse for my continued crime.” Oh Lord, have mercy on us and help us to decide it here and now. u I will never sleep another moment on earth until my past is buried in the precious promise of God. I am going to look out for my soul in the future.” Now friends, in all love and kindness, if you would make peace with God and get to Heaven, how many of you who are not Christians to-night will say, “ I don’t want to fight that fight. I w r ant to surrender to God.” How many of you, young and old, fathers and mothers, will stand up where you are, and say, by standing up, “ I would surrender to God to-night and live and be a Chris- tian”? Oh, if I were there in your place, I would be the DO NOT DELAY REPENTANCE. 247 first one to stand up ! Let us now decide to make our peace witli God, and call a halt in our course of sin. (Several persons rose to their feet.) That is right. Whoever feels like saying, “I will repent to-night,” stand up. (More rising.) That is right, my brother. Do not be ashamed or afraid. Stand np in the gallery, in the dress circle or anywhere. Stand up all over, you who feel like saying, “ I want to repent to-night. I would not fight God out of my heart.” A CALL FOR PENITENTS. And now I will say to the congregation we are going to have an after service, and all of you that want to retire do so. Every one of you who are not Christians who stood up stay with us and come to the front. All who did not stand up, and are not Christians, come to the front, and may God to-night give us one hundred souls for Christ. Oh, friend, do not leave here if you are not a Christian ! I trust to- night one hundred or more honest penitents will come and take their seats in front here and tell me, “ I want to know God.” A good many were converted here last night, and a good many in the church to-day. Now, my -friends, let us make our peace with God, and it will be the grandest night in our history. The regular services closed with the benediction, but the after service lasted quite a while, local ministers and other Christians going nobly to the front to talk to those who felt a desire for a better life, and had made up their minds to walk after it. 248 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. PURSUE NOT EVIL. And now we invite your attention to the 19th verse of the 11th chapter of Proverbs : As righteousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death. When a good man dies he not only goes to Heaven, drawn thither by the natural fbrce of spiritual gravity and by the approval of God and angels, but when a good man dies he goes to Heaven by the common consent of all intelligent beings in this world. When a bad man dies he not only goes to Hell, drawn thither by the natural force of spiritual gravity, by the approval of God and angels, but when a bad man dies he goes to Hell by the common consent of every other man in the universe. Did you ever attend the funeral of a good man — one that was known and read of all men as a good man ? Haven’t you sat in the church as the preacher said, “Here lies the body of our brother, and his spirit is gone home to God to live forever with the angels haven’t you gone out of the church and heard saint and sinner both say, “That’s the truth ! That good man has gone home to Heaven . That preacher told the truth when he said that good man has gone home to God!” Haven’t you heard that in conversation on the street, saint and sinner both speaking it out ? Did you ever attend a funeral of a differ- ent character, one of these members of the church, may be? that don’t live right, and haven’t you heard the preacher stand up and say, “Here lies our brother’s body and he has gone home to Heaven,” and then seen hundreds of heads begin to shake in a moment, and then you walk out on the street and saint and sinn'er both say, “ The* preacher out- raged every principle of truth, and I’ll never hear him PURSUE NOT EVIL. 2 4 , preach again. He knows that man hasn’t gone to Heaven? and we know it, and everybody else knows it.” NO PREACHING INTO HEAVEN. Oh, my brother ! This old world won’t let a preacher preach a bad man into Heaven, and this old world won’t let a preacher preach a good man into Hell. I have found that out. And the preacher’s words don’t go with us into Heaven or to Hell. If a man is in Heaven at all he is there long before the preacher takes his text, and if a fellow is in Hell he is there long before the preacher takes his text, and the preacher can not preach a fellow into Heaven or Hell. They are down there before he takes his text, to one place or the other. It is all foolishness, and a great deal of harm is done in this world by preachers taking a false position on this point. And I’ll tell you how. If your husband didn’t live right and your children didn’t live right'and your mother didn’t live right, I am the last man in the world you ought ever to get to funerahze, for I tell the truth — when I am talking to the living I tell the truth, because I can’t harm the dead by telling the truth. As righteousness tencleth to life. Oh, my brother! the path of the just is as a shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day. A good man’s tendency is upward and onward and higher and higher. Oh, brother! the good man has the promise of the life that now is and everlasting life in the world to come. And just so sure as goodness and righteousness leadeth to life hereafter, just so He that pursueth evil pursueth it to his death. Really, I don’t need, as I have said before, any Bible to teach me that sin will kill, that sin will doom, that sin will de- stroy, I don’t need any Bible on that point. I never saw a poor, staggering drunkard but what I looked in his face and 250 SAM JONES 5 SERMONS* said: “ Oh, Lord God, sin is ruining that man and sin is kill- ing that man and sin will' damn that man . 55 I never saw a poor, pale, ruined woman halting along the streets of the city that I didn’t look at her poor, tottering form and say : “ Sin has ruined that woman and sin is dooming that woman and sin is disgracing that woman and sin will eventually damn that woman . 55 No, sir. No, sir. I don’t need any Bible to teach me that sin will ruin human beings ; that sin is death to the body and death to the soul. THE PURSUIT OF EVIL. He that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death. The full idea expressed here, the real idea expressed here, is this : The natural tendencies of men are evil, and all a man need to do in order to be doomed here and damned hereafter, is just to follow the bent, the inclinations, of his own heart and ways. Sin is a disease. It is a leprosy. It is a cancer of the soul. I took up a newspaper some months ago and I read that Senator Hill, of Georgia,— Senator Ben- jamin H. Hill — had a little trouble, as was said, with his tongue, and they made light of it and said it was caused by a fractured tooth. A few days after that I took up a secu- lar paper and I read that Senator Hill was under the sur- geon’s knife at Philadelphia and that they had taken out about one third of his tongue. And they said: u It will all heal up and he will be well in a few days.” Well, a few days more and I picked up the paper again and it said: “ Senator Hill is back under the surgeon’s knife at Phila- delphia,” and how the doctor had cut all the glands out of the side of his face and neck. Then young Ben Hill turned to the doctor and said : u Now, sir, will my father get well?” The surgeon said : u If we have extracted the last particle of virus — this virus of cancer — from his system, he PURSUE NOT EVIL. 251 will certainly get well, but if there’s the least particle -of that virus of cancer left in his system it will stray off to some other gland and start a second cancer.” THE VIRUS OF SIN. The next I heard of Senator Hill was that he was at the famous springs in the West. I walked down to the depot of my town one day that I happened to be at home, and when I walked down to the train the passenger train rolled down all trembling under its air brakes, and stopped. I I looked toward the car, and I thought I saw what was the outline of Senator Hill’s face. I walked on down toward the car, and he pushed his bony hand out of the car and took mine, and I looked in his face and said : “ My Lord ! is this all that is left of Senator Hill, the grandest man that Geor- gia ever produced? ” And I looked at the poor fellow, and a few days after that I took up the Atlanta Constitution and read : “ The grandest procession that ever marched out of Atlanta marched out yesterday and buried Senator Hill out of the sight of men.” And I want to tell to this congregation to-night, just as certain as the virus of cancer killed Senator Hill’s body, just as certain the virus of sin will kill your soul at last. And it isn’t a question of how you have been baptized. It is not a question of what church you belong to. The only question for time and eternity with every mortal man is this : Has this virus of sin been extracted from my soul ? Oh, thank God. Eighteen hundred years before I was born, the old world began to sing : There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel’s veins, And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains. 252 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day, And there may I — Thank God — And there may I Though vile as he. Wash all my sins away. STABS AT CONSCIENCE. Blessed be God, at this fountain opened np in the house of David, for uncleanness, the world has been washing away its guilt for thousands of years. And here, to-night, we bid all ye wretched, ye hungry, ye starving, ye de- bauched, ye degraded, ye unclean men, I bid you, you, to come to the living fountain and drink, and never be ill or thirsty again. Oh, brother, is that virus of sin in your soul ? Nothing but the blood, Nothing but the blood, Can wash my sins away. Every sin of a man’s life is a direct stab at his conscience When men start in sin and sin on and on, there comes a time by and by when their conscience is honeycombed with the stabs of sin and it expires and breathes its last and the man walks through life without a conscience at all. Oh, conscience ! that reigning principle in. my bosom that speaks out when wrong presents itself, and thunders out against wrong ; that something in me that approves the right. And every sin of my life is a stab at my conscience, and by and by I make the last fatal stab and conscience is dead forever. Will you let me say, my congregation to-night, that the great trouble with the world to-day is that conscience is stabbed to death. Why, do you tell me that this government in this State and this municipality here would be run like it is PURSUE NOT EVIL. 253 if conscience was alive? No, sir ! National conscience is dead! If a man goes into a credit mobilier or any other job in this country and filches from the government a few hundred thousand or a few million dollars he is dubbed “ Colonel ” and sent to the United States Senate, and con- sidered one of the leading citizens of America ! But if a poor negro steals a dollar to buy him bread, he spends a lonely, weary time in jail and in the chain gang. What is the matter ? Conscience is dead !. (Great laughter.) CONSCIENCE IS DEAD. Conscience is dead ! That’s all. Oh, my fellow-citizens, let me say to you to-night that the trouble with this country is that the national conscience is dead, and individual con- science is dead, and the church’s conscience is dead, and thus we are marching on, Tramp ! tramp ! tramp ! The boys are marching, without conscience, and without the saving power of con- science to check them. Ah, me ! Look at St. Louis ! And I want to tell you right now that a Christian man can not patronize the thea- ters in this town. Why? The day that a Christian man consecrates to God, he can go to the play that he was at on Friday night, and see the same company desecrate God’s Sabbath on Sunday night in the same house that he sat and saw the play on Friday night! And do you tell me that a Christian with a live conscience will look on a thing on Fri- day night and go to see a play on that same stage on which that same crowd are going to desecrate the Sabbath and violate God’s law ? No, sir. A Christian man with a live conscience can not patronize an institution of that sort. And if I had nothing in God Almighty’s world against the the- 254 SAM JONES SERMONS. ater, I say I am down on any crowd that can not make a living six days in the week and have to rush o ver on God’s Sabbath and desecrate that day to make a living ! Iam down on that sort of a crowd ! (Applause.) DOWN" ON THE THEATERS. They say I am down on the theaters ; but, God bless you, if they will make the theaters as good as the church — and that would not be hard to do (applause) — it would not; that ain’t asking much of them — it. ain’t. (Laughter.) I pledge you my word whenever theaters will keep the ten com- mandments I will stand up and advocate them. But I am down on them as long as they are down on the ten com- mandments. (Applause.) Do you understand that ? They are growling mightily on my track. The theatrical compa- nies say they would rather run against the devil than Sam Jones (laughter and applause), and they are down on me. One of the leading theatrical gentlemen just from a southern tour, said : “ I tell you, a theatrical crowd better keep clear of Sam Jones’ track, for I’ll tell you, you can not make salt where he has been.” I like that. (Laughter.) I want to cut a canal through the whole business and ditch it off and sun it awhile and make it decent. (Applause.) And no theater-man nor no theater-goer need say one word to me about holding up — u don’t denounce us” — until they keep the ten commandments, and when they do that I will bow to them politely and say, “ Gentlemen, I sheath my sword and I will never hit you again.” But I am going to fight anything that breaks the ten commandments. I am stand- ing by these ten commandments, and I am going to die by these ten commandments. TRAFFICKING WITH EVIL. The conscience of this city is dead. Don’t you know PURSUE NOT EVIL. 255 whenever St. Louis says, “ You shan’t sell whisky here in this town,” don’t you know it has got to get out of here ? Don’t you know that? And I will tell you another thing. We members of the church will stand around here and curse bar-keepers — in a pious way I mean — and abuse bar-keepers and abuse saloons. Now let me tell you. Every citizen of this town walks up to the bar-keeper and pats him on the shoulder and says, “ We’ll license you if you will divide with us.” Now, ain’t that saying, “ If you will pay us taxes for selling it, to fix up the streets and keep the town going — if you will divide with me” — that’s it — “ we’ll pat you on the back and protect you.” (Applause.) Ain’t that so? “If you will slip $200 a year in this pocket here to help fix up the street leading to the church, w r e will license you, pat you on the back, protect you, and we’ll tell our preacher to shut his mouth — £ Don’t you open your mouth.” ’ Ain’t that so ? (turning to the ministers on the stage.) I don’t know whether they ever told you preachers to shut your mouth or not, but you have done it voluntarily if they didn’t make you do it. (Laughter and applause.) THE BAR-KEEPERS ARE GENTLEMEN. I want to say to St. Louis to-night that the bar-keepers and saloon-keepers are the gentlemen and St. Louis is the vagabond! Now, what do you say? The bar-keeper is selling it to get a little money to feed his wife and chiidren, and you all are letting him sell it if he will give you part of the money to fix up your streets. Ain’t that the way it is going? The Lord have mercy upon us! And this is just the way it is standing in this country. And I will tell you if the Lord Almighty will come down to-night and rake and dig the dirt off our consciences where they are dead and buried, and if he will burst the tombstones off of them and 256 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. dig them out of the ground, and tear the grave clothes off of our consciences and let them walk the streets of this town one day, we’ll revolutionize this town in one week so that a familiar friend would not recognize it. (Applause.) That’s the truth. Conscience ! Conscience ! Do you want to know why I think your conscience is dead, brother? You don’t pray in your family ; you don’t attend your prayer-meeting ; you don’t do anything scarcely that a Christian ought to do, and you say, u I feel all right.” (Laughter.) The old fool don’t know the difference between feeling all right and not feeling at all — that’s what is hurting him. (Laughter.) And I will tell you it takes a philosopher to go in there and tell the difference, too. A dead man feels as good -as any body (laughter), but he doesn’t feel at all. (Renewed laughter.) CONSCIENCE AND POLITICS. Conscience ! Conscience ! As soon as we got the con- science of Atlanta aroused we put whisky out of Atlanta^ and they may file a hundred bills of injunctions, but, mark what I tell you ! When the majority of the people of a town say a thing can't be did, it ain’t going to be did — that’s all. (Laughter and applause.) The majority in this coun- try rules. And when a fellow don’t like to live in a coun- try where the majority rules, then he can emigrate, and I’ll buy him an emigrant’s ticket any day he wants to go. (Laughter.) Talk about sumptuary laws, I will tell you. I was born a Democrat and raised a Democrat, and never voted any- thing but a Democratic ticket, but if they try to ram sump- tuary laws down my throat in the shape of a barrel and a demijohn, I ain't a Democrat — it’s a lie. I’ll die first. (Great applause). PURSUE NOT EVIL. 257 THE NIGGER BETTER THAN WHISKY. And I’ll tell you another thing. When you look for the Democratic party to come down the road you can clear the way. You will see a governor astraddle of a whisky barrel and all the other little Democratic politicians riding demi- johns right down the road — that’s the way they have got the thing in this country. (Laughter and applause). And I told them some time ago — said I: “ You bring up your two parties now — the Radical party running on the nigger and the Democrats on whisky — that’s about the way the thing stands now — and they say, ‘ Now if you are a good Democrat just swallow this candidate and this barrel down;’ then if you ain’t a good Democrat you are a Repub- lican. You have got to swallow this man here and a darkey’ — you are obliged to swallow one or the other.” I will look at the two. Now, there’s the Democrat and his whisky, and here is the Radical and his nigger, and I say : “Have I got to gulp down one or the other?” “Yes.” “Well,” I will say, “one bottle of whisky — one might have done me more harm than all the niggers in the Southern States,” and I will say: “You just pin that fellow’s ears back and grease him and down he goes.” (Great applause again and again renewed.) UNWISE PARTY LOYALTY. That’s just my honest sentiments about it. And I despise this miserable loyalty to party that takes the party lash and whips me into voting for anybody. I don’t care who he is or what the party is that nominates him. God Almighty! Raise the conscience of America from the dead and let us not ask whether he is this or that, but “ Is he a pure, good man and will he do right in office ? ” (Great applause.) 1 7 258 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. That is it ! I will never vote for a drunkard, nor a gambler, nor a debauchee, I dont’t care who nominates him. Never! I have got too much conscience for that. Conscience ! And we have sinned and sinned until con- science is stabbed to death, and we are a good deal like the fellow that said when he first joined the church any little thing he done wrong nearly killed him, but he says : “ I ? ve got so now I can steal a horse and it don’t bother me at all.” (Laughter.) And that’s just about the way we are going in this country now — every fellow’s conscience dead ; and he can’t see any harm in this or any harm in that or any harm in the other. Almighty God ! arouse our conscience and bring it to life once more. We have stabbed it to death, and here we are to-night quibbling over this thing or that thing or the other thing. Instead of drawing our swords and battling for the right, and daring to do the right, we are wincing and whining around and saying, “I don’t see any harm in this, and I don’t see any harm in that.” Good Lord ! let conscience come up from the grave, and then you can see the line just as clearly as you can see the sun at midday in its brightest shining. CLOSING ST. LOUIS SALOONS ON SUNDAY. Conscience ! Whenever you get the conscience of St. Louis alive you are going to stop these Sunday theaters here, and you are going to stop a heap of devilment that is going on here on Sunday ; you are going to close up these saloons on Sunday. And I will say another thing; If I was a betting man and there wasn’t any harm in betting, I’d stake all I could raise on saying that twelve months from to-day you will witness the last saloon open on Sunday in this city. (Applause.) I am down on any crowd that is so greedy they ain’t PURSUE NOT EVIL. 259 willing to pour damnation down a follow’s throat six days in a week and quit with that. I am. They are the greediest men I ever saw, if they ain’t willing to compromise on six days’ work to put in for hell and damnation a week. That ought to satisfy any fellow. Conscience! Conscience! Conscience! I know you will say I am a fanatic. You know the difference between a fanatic and one of your sort sitting back there — one’s con- science is dead and buried, and the other has got a live con- science ; and it don’t take a live conscience long to make a fanatic out of a fellow. That’s true. I found that out. Conscience ! Every sin of my life is a direct stab at my conscience, and stab after stab the blows are given, until conscience gasps and breathes its last, and now the man can do anything in the world, and he can see no harm in anything in the world. DEADENED SENSIBILITIES. Conscience ! But it does its work on. He that pursueth evil pursueth it to the death of his sensibilities. The nat- ural tendency of sin is to dry up the fountain of a man’s sensibilities. Oh, me! There are men here to-night that could not shed a tear if they could get a kingdom for a single tear — all the sensibilities of their nature dried up; and you might just as well preach to a dead man as to preach to him. Why, he says all emotional flow and all emotional feeling and all concerning liis sensibilities is 'dead long ago. Oh, my God ! JPity a man that has stabbed his sensibili- ties to- death, and has no feeling about his immortal interests. And, then, he that pursueth evil not only kills conscience and stabs sensibility to death, but he goes on at his work, and then, he that pursueth evil pursueth it to the death of his powers of resistance. 26 o SAM JONES’ SERMONS. THE STOPPING POWER. You see that throttle and that engineer’s hand on it, and you see that engine rolling at the rate of fifty miles an hour, with an impulse almost omnipotent! The greatest power of this nineteenth century is the throttle-valve of an engine. Hext to that greatest power is the lever of those air-brakes — the stopping power. The first is the go-ahead power, the next greatest power is the stopping power. I was sitting on an engine some months ago with a friend, and as we sat there talking I saw ahead. Said I : “ Look at those cattle on the track!” We were rolling forty-odd miles an hour. He just took hold of the lever of his air- brake and turned it around, and slapped on every brake on every wheel and blew his whistle, and gave the cattle time to clear the track ; and but for that brake-power that day, those cattle might have ditched that train and killed half the men on it. The power to stop ! The power to stop! WHEN THE BRAKE WON’T WORK. I believe it was on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad that some months ago a passenger engineer pulled his great long passenger train of thirteen cars, seven passenger coaches and four sleepers, heavily up a steep grade, until he reached a tunnel. When he ran out of the tunnel he pulled out his watch and saw that he was an hour behind time. He had thirteen miles of down-grade, to the river, and he shoved his lever forward and pulled his throttle open, and that en- gine commenced to roll and thunder down that grade until she reached a speed of sixty miles an hour. Down that grade, and on and on she rolled, with every pound of steam thrown against her piston-heads, until she rolled within a mile of the bridge across the river. When he reached that PURSUE NOT EVIL. 26l point he shut the steam oft, and turned the ]ever of the air- brakes, but they were out of fix. He instantly awoke to a consciousness of his peril, and said: “I am within a mile of the river, with a speed of sixty-seven miles an hour, and my air-brakes out of fix.” Then he 'reached out and caught his wliistle-lever and whistled a fearful blast, that called for “ down-brakes.” The brakeman ran to the car door and stood there. The car was jumping and pitching and toss- ing, and the brakeman said : “ It is certain death for me to walk cut on that platform to those brakes.” The engineer felt his train rolling on with an increased impulse, and he reached out again and caught hold of the whistle-lever, and again with fearful blast called for “ down-brakes.” And the captain, the conductor, ran up to the rear end of the car where the brakeman stood, and said : “ Go out and put on those brakes. Don’t you see that we are near the bridge ? The engineer has whistled for down-brakes.” The brakeman said : “Captain, we can not go out on that platform. It is certain death to go out there. We can not stand here in the car.” And* on and on the train rolled and soon swept on to the bridge. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh cars rolled onto the bridges, but the first sleeper swung too far out to the left and struck the bridge, and the four sleepers were hurled into the river below and swept into eternity. What was the matter ? The brakes would not work, that is all. And I tell you here to-night, in St. Louis there are 10,000, 20,000 men that have pulled to the top of the grade and have started down and down, and on and on they roll to-day, and every brake on their nature is gone forever. [Sensation.] POOR BOB HERRICK. Poor Bob Herrick, at home, a good-natured, kind-hearted man he was, with a pleading wife and against the advice of 2 62 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. physicians, drinking on and on! And now he is on his dying bed and he is surrounded by friendjs. It took four men to hold him on his dying couch and when the last lucid moment came he said, “ Doctor, is there any chance for my poor life ? ” “ No, Bob,” he replied. “ If you drink you will die and if you don’t drink you will die.” And two hours after poor Bob foundered on the rocks of damnation, with his wife and children clinging around his neck. Gone ! gone ! gone ! gone forever ! There are men, perhaps, listening to me to-night who will never stop cursing, who will never stop drinking. You will die with an oath on your lips. God pity the man that has reached that point when he has said, “ I can not quit! I can not quit.” It would seem that God had stricken such poor wretches with judicial impotency. Oh, my friend, to- night let ns put the brakes on our nature and say, “ I will quit ! I will quit ! I will drink no more ! I have drunk my last drop. I have sworn my last oath.” Let you and I settle that once and forever, and say, “ God being my judge I will quit to-niglit.” You have no more time to throw away. You need not catch up any more momentum. No, the momentum some of you have will run you on and on until you make the final leap and you are gone forever. Your appetite for whisky could not be any stronger. The appetite of your lustful nature is such that you are de- bauched from head to foot now. On and on men go until they awake to a realization of their doom and say : “ I am rolling on with a momentum that frightens me. Every brake is removed from my machine. I am doomed, and I am certain I will be damned at last.” THE LAST SLACKING UP. Look here, friend; let us stop to-night. I tell you I verily PURSUE NOT EVJL. 263 believe that if I had not stopped at my father’s dying couch fourteen years ago, I believe that was my last slack- ing up. I believe that if I had not then said, “ Father! father! I speak it from the depths of my nature, I have quit — I am done forever” — I believe right then and there that was my only chance to stop and recover myself. And, blessed be God, I made that stop. Blessed be God! there was a turning-table right there, and on that turning-tabie I rolled my engine, and turned round, and I am rolling the other way to-night, I trust with a momentum that will sweep me into the kingdom of God by and by. And he that pursueth evil pursueth it to the death of his intellect and his reason. I believe that men sin against their intellect until they get to a point where their minds will no more grasp Scriptural truth than they can make a world. In Georgia, in my own State, in one of the towns there, a lawyer of great legal ability would come out and hear me every time I preached there and shake hands with me. On one occasion I met him the next day, and he said : “I like to hear you preach. You seem to be candid and honest, but the Gospel you preach is the veriest nonsense in the world to me. I can see nothing in it.” Oh me, brother, the poor old fellow has sinned until a lie seemed to be the truth to him and the truth a lie, and I verily believe a man can so distort his mind and becloud his intellect until he can not grasp a Scriptural truth as easy as he can make a world. Oh, friends, let us stop to-night ! God pity the man that debauches his intellect and rolls on and on and on. A$d then lastly, and I will be through in a word or two : He that pursueth evil pursueth it to the death of his own soul. Oh me, I can understand you when you say a man has sinned his conscience to death, has sinned his sensibilities to death, and destroyed his power of resistance, and sinned his 264 SAM JONES' SERMONS. reason away ; but, oh., sir, when you tell me that sin will kill the soul, when it comes to the death of the soul, then I stagger back and am lost in wonder and in dread. The death of the soul ! Take these two words, u Death ” “ eter- nal,” “ Eternal ” “ death.” Both of these words are the most dreadful in our language, but coupled together, 0I1 what a compound ! Eternal death, Death eternal ! What does it mean ? The death of the soul ! The death of the soul ! DEATH OF THE BODY. The death of the body. I see this body. I have walked up to the dying couch of a friend and stood over him as death was doing its work on his body. I have watched him closer and closer as death came upon him. I watched him to the point where there was a glare in his eye and a twitch- ing in the muscles of his face and a jerking in his nerves and a heaving in his bosom, and then I walked off and shut my eyes and said : “ Oh, death, how cruel thou art to that loved friend ! I have gone back and put my hand s on him and he has had the same glare in his eyes, the same heaving, of the bosom, the same jerking of the nerves, the same twitching of the muscles : and Hooked and went away again and say : Temporal death is not eternal death.” And then I ask : “ Eternal death, what is it ? Oh, does it mean an everlasting glare of the eye ? Is it an everlast- ing jerking of the muscles? Is it an everlasting twitching of the nerves? Is it an everlasting heaving of the bosom? Is it to die forever ? ” And yet I can never die. Oh, God, Help me to make my own election sure, And when I fail on earth, secure • A mission in the skies. THE DEATH OF THE SOUL. Oh, thank God Almighty, there is no death to a good PURSUE NOT EVIL. 265 man. On my first pastorate a good man died. .Death robbed him of his strength day after day, month after month, and I walked into his chamber the day before he died and I saw that death had stripped him of almost every ounce of his flesh. I said : “ Oh, literally, here is nothing left but skin and emaciafliljjB I can never forget how death had done its work on him, and there he was without the power to raise his hand or move his body. And one morn- ing death walked in at the door and struck him its last fatal stab. And as death walked up to his bed he looked it in the face and pushed his bony hands out before him. As death made a stab at his. bosom, he bared it to death, and as death struck the blow he said : u Life eternal ! Eternal life,” and swept out of the body and was gone forever. And I said : “ Blessed be God, that as death did its worst and struck its last blow he cried : ‘ Eternal life,’ right in its face.” Blessed be God, I believe in eternal life. I can not live with any other thought. Just thirty years ago I tip-toed into my father’s parlor, one morning, and they said, u Be quiet; mamma’s dead ! ” I was not old enough to under- stand if. I walked up to the casket and looked down upon mv mother. She looked paler and sadder than I had ever seen her, and when they removed the lid father kissed her, and elder brother kissed her, and I kissed her, and I said, “ Precious mamma’s lips are so cold.” She has been buried in the State of Alabama thirty years, and if I was to go down there to-morrow and dig the earth off of my mother’s body and disinter her bones, I expect I could gather them all up in my hands, and as I would stand there looking at my mother’s bones, would say, “ Great God, is this all that is left of my precious mother?” and as I stand looking at those bones my knees smite together, and I am in despair, and all at once a voice speaks audibly in my ear and says: 266 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. This corruption shall be of incorruption. This mortality shall be swallowed up by immortality.^ And I look np and say : Thanks be unto God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. A GOOD MAN ? S DE^Ljg Death of a good man — what is it ? Wliat is it ? Death to a sinner — what is it ? Here he is now, bound hand and foot ; there he is, without power to move, and here comes a venomous reptile and approaches closer and closer, with- out power to get out of the way of it. He looks at its ap- proach, and it comes closer and begins to coil around his limbs and around his body, and in the cold embraces of the venomous reptile he shudders, and when the snake makes its last coil around his body and draws back its head for the fatal bite, he looks down its mouth and sees the fatal fangs of damnation and death. The snake recoils a moment, and then plunges the fatal fangs into his victim, and then in the pangs of agony and death he dies forever ! But the Christian — the snake approaches the Christian. He does not appear to be able to get out of its way, but just as it approaches, a kind hand reaches down and takes hold of the head of the snake, pries its mouth open and takes out the fangs right before the eyes of the Christian and turns the offensive snake into the inoffensive snake, and the snake coils itself around his body and he recoils because he is in the embrace of a serpent, but when the serpent draws back for its last bite, the Christian laughs and says : Oh, death ! where is thy sting, Oh, grave ! where is thy victory ? And leaps out of the body forever. THE LAST APPEAL. Oh, brother, let us never sin ! Oh, brother, let us en- PURSUE NOT EVIL. 267 deavor to begin a new life to-night. Brother and sister, let us never die. Let us give ourselves to God and begin eter- nal life. I want to say, in conclusion, I sympathize with every man that is not a Christian. Will every man that is not a Christian stand up, and by doing so say : 66 1 want to be a Christian.” . (A great many persons rose to their feet.) Now, before we dismiss the congregation I want every member of any church to stand up and say : u I pledge my- self anew to God for a better life. I am going to do better. I am going to set a better example to my children and to my city.” (Almost the whole congregation stood.) Oh, brethren! what a victory for Christ! The meeting closed with the benediction. Quite a number of penitents stayed after the rest of the audience had left, and many were encouraged in their re- solves to start anew for the heavenly life. 268 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. IT PATS TO BE RIGHTEOUS. We invite your attention to-niglit to the last clause of the tenth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel by St John. Really the text is this: The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But we take this text to-night because it is illustrative of the principle we want to discuss : But thou hast kept the good wine until now. I want to say to you before I proceed that I feel less like preaching to-night and more like talking. I feel like I wanted to talk to each man and woman just as if we were sitting in our parlor or sitting in your family room face to face. Let us talk about this, and you talk back at me with your mind and let us see where we will get to to-night in this discussion. There are two questions that always come up naturally and legitimately, and, you might say, inevitably, between employer and employe. There can be no such thing as a contract for labor without the asking and answering of two questions. ' Now, if you seek to employ a man for a day or a year or an hour, the first natural and inevitable question on his part will be : What kind of work do you want me to do? And when this question is satisfactorily answered, there is another just as inevitable and natural, and that is : What will you pay me for it ? We say these two questions are at the very basis of all contracts for labor. There can be no intelligent agreement without, 1, the question, What kind of work do you want me to do ? and, 2, What will you pay me for it ? IT PAYS TO BE RIGHTEOUS. 269 WHOSE SERVANT AM I ? Now, there are persons here to-night who may boast of the fact : “ I never was in the employment of any one ; I never sustained the relationship of a hired servant.” They boast of the fact that they live under the freest government the world ever saw, whose very constitution guarantees to every man his life, and his liberty and his property. And yet there is a very special sense in which we are all servants, and there is a very special sense in which we are employed, and there is an awful sense in which pay-day is coming. Now, whose servant am I? In a spiritual sense every man is a servant. He has his master and his employment and pay-day is coming to him. Now, whose servant am I ? We may settle that very easily and in a very short time. Our Savior said: To whom ye yield yourselves [servants to [obey, his [servants ye are, whether of sin unto death or obedience unto righteousness. He said again : No man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will despise the one and cling to the other. He said something a little stronger than that : He that gather eth not with me scattereth abroad. The dividing line is so narrow that no man can stand on that line. I am either on one side or the other. There are a great many men here to-night, though, that will tell you, you go to them with a question like this : “ Ai;e you a bad man ? ” “■No, sir.” “ Are you a good man ? ‘ “ No, sir.” • A MIXED LOT. Neither good nor bad. There are a great many of this 270 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. sort in the world. Really, they are in the majority. Well, now let me tell you. There are two characters in every community that ever I have been in, that are a puzzle to half the community. One character is that member of the church that will pray in public and pray in his family, and do anything the church wants him to do, and pay liberally, but he don’t treat his fellow-man right ; won’t pay his debts ; won’t live right toward his fellow-man. He seems to do everything that God wants him to do and to do right toward God, but he don’t treat his neighbor right. Well, now, here’s the other one, standing right by his side. He’s a just man and pays his debts ; he is generous to the poor; he seems to be, all in all, a good citizen. Well, now, there the two stand, and the balance of the community, a large proportion of the community, stand and look at these two characters, and say: “Well, I’d rather be that man out of the church, that’s just and generous and pays his debts, than to be that man in the church that mistreats his neigh- bors.” Well, why do you want to be a fool and be like either one? I don’t I assure you, and by*the grace of God I don’t intend to be like either one. I am going to do right toward God, and I’m going to do right toward man, and there’s the whole man. And this is the first and greatest of the commandments : Thou shalt serve God with all thy heart and mind and strength. And the other is like unto it : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And no man who is an enemy to his neighbor is a true friend to God. And no man who is an enemy of God can be a true friend to his neighbor. A half man ! A half man ! ' He will [do right toward his neighbor. He won’t do right toward God. He will do right toward God, but won’t do right toward his neighbor. Now, my friend, I say, in all love and kindness, if you are of these, I don’t want to be like you, I don’t care which character you represent; and, IT PAYS 'JO BE RIGHTEOUS. 27I God helping me, I want to do right toward God, and I want to do right toward my fellow-men. And after all, these men, neither good nor bad, yon ask then: “Will you go to Heaven if you die?” “No, sir; I hardly think I will.” “Go to Hell?” “No, sir; don’t think I’ll go to Hell.” And your sort will necessitate some sort of third universe or world in eternity. You are not fit for Heaven; you admit it, and you are hardly bad enough to go to Hell. And here you are, and you have been to God and to this community, all your life, in just such an attitude as that. NO NEUTRAL GROUND. Brother, let me say this to you, you are on one side or the other. I recollect once at a county camp-meeting a gentleman approached me and he said: “ I’m mighty glad to see this grand work going on here. I hope this whole community will be saved.” “Well,” says I, “thank you, brother. What church do you belong to?” He said : “ I don’t belong to the church, but,” he says, “I’m a Christian.” I said: “You a Christian and not belong to any church! Why, you are the man I’ve been looking for, too, these many years. I’ve offered a reward — a large reward — for one of your sort. Christians are sort of scarce in the church, and the Lord knows I didn’t know there was one out of the church. I’m gone lost, now. (Laughter.) I’ve found an anomaly in the moral universe of God — a Christian out of the church!” And I said to him: “I am mighty glad to meet you, sir. Now,” said I, “this afternoon when I call up the j enitents, I want to call on you to pray for them.” “Oh, no!” he says, “I can’t pray in public.” 2J2 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. Says I, “Why?” Said he, “ Because Pm not a member of the church.” “Well,” said I, “when the service is over this afternoon,, take one of the boys — one of the penitent out from the altar — and go out into the woods and pray with him.” “Oh, no !” he says, “I can’t do that.” “Why?” said I. “Because I am not a member of the church, Mr. Jones.” “Well,” said I, “can’t you just take one of the boys by the arm and. take him off out into the woods and talk with him about Christ?” “ No ! ” he said, “ my trouble is, I’m not a member of the church.” “ No , sir,” said I, “ That ain’t your trouble. Tour trouble is, you belong to the devil from your hat to your heels 1 That’s your trouble.” (Laughter.) He that is not with me is against me. He that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. SETTLING THE QUESTION. There is no neutral ground, sir. Every Christian man has his banner and his weapon, and he is out in the front ranks, and he is lighting for Christ and for his cause. Now* whose servant am I? To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are. Well, now, let’s settle this question, each one for himself. The Lord Jesus Christ said this: It ye love me, keep my commandments. Do you do that? No, sir. Lie said again: Come out from among them and be ye separate. Have you done that? No, sir. Deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. IT PAYS TO BE RIGHTEOUS. 273 Have yon done that ? No, sir. Well, that settles the question beyond all cavil that you are not a servant of the Lord God, and then, if you are not a servant of the Lord God Almighty, there is but one alternative you have: You are a servant of the devil. Every man that walks this earth is a loving, willing, cheer- ful servant of God, or he is a servant of the devil — one or the other. Now, will you slip up to your master, the devil, and ask him what kind of work he wants you to do? Ah me!' That seems like a foolish proposition! What kind of work does the devil want his servants to do? He wants them to profane the name of God ; to violate the Sabbath; to bear false witness ; to do a thousand tilings that w T e are guilty of every day. He wants me to do those things that will make my wife think less of me and make my children think less of me and make my parents think less of me. He wants me to do those things that are disreputable and that dishonor God and that will doom my soul forever. Isn’t that so? I can prove it by fifty thousand smners in St. Louis that that is true. THE DEVIL’S WAGES. Then, if I must do such disreputable work as this, and must engage in such disreputable employment as that, what is the wages? Woe and misery and anguish on earth and damnation in the end. Is that $0? Well, there are thou- sands of sinners living and thousands in eternity to-night that are living witnesses to the truth that the devil would ruin them upon earth and degrade them in time and damn them in eternity. Pay-day is coming. It has come to mill- ions. It is now coming to thousands. What’s the wages ? 18 274 SAM JONES' SERMONS. Preaching once in my own church on a line of thought like this, I turned to an old gray-headed sinner sitting over to my left. Said I: “There you are, after sixty odd years of age, and I wish you would get up and tell this congrega- tion your wages for sixty -five years of sinful bondage.” The old man twisted and turned in his pew, and next day he met me on the road and said he : “ Oh, J ones, when you put that question to me last night, if I had stood up and told the plain truth it would have frightened many a soul last night. I can tell you, sir, that for sixty-hve years of sinful bondage, all I have to show for -it in the world is the. most godless family in all this settlement, and a hard heart, and a stiff neck, and a rebellious soul, and no assurance at all that I will ever be saved.” Oh, sir, when a man of sixty-five years of age reaches a point where his stock in trade is all things like that, it is enough to frighten a man who has not gone farther than some of you boys. • Then, if I be a servant of the Lord God — and thank God he has many servants in the city — the question comes up : What does the Lord God want his servants to do ? He wants me to love mercy and to do justly and walk humbly before God. He wants me to bear the fruits of the spirit, which are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle- ness, goodness and faith. He wants me to work diligently and work righteousness and speak the truth in my heart. He wants me to do those things that will make my wife think more of me, aud that will make my neighbor think more of me, and make my children think more of me. He wants me to do those things that will honor me in time and elevate my soul every day, and ultimately bring me to the saint’s everlasting rest, in a world of bliss and peace. IT PAYS TO BE RIGHTEOUS, 275 A DELIGHTFUL SERVICE. Now, brother, if this is true, the Lord wants us to serve him gladly and serve him joyfully, and there is nothing that the Lord wants me to do that I won’t be in doing it, a better merchant, a better farmer, a better lawyer, a better doctor, a better mechanic, a better everything and anything, for religion is the best thing on earth to mix with life, and there is nothing better in Heaven than religion. Now, there are some seemingly hard things we have to do for Christ, but I will honor him that this declaration is true as earth and Heaven ever listened to. Listen ! I will honor my Savior with this fact: I have done some seem ingly hard things, but the hardest thing I ever did for Christ was the thing that made me most like him after I got through with it. He that sweats and toils and suffers for Christ shall have flagons of joy and rivers of pleasure for every tear and pang he has ever had. Now, if it is such delightful service that I am to render in the employ of my God, wliat is the pay? What is the pay? Why, brother, he gives me enough cash to live on every day, and when I get old and wrinkled and gray- headed and can not work any longer, God comes down and picks me up in his loving arms and carries me home to Heaven to live for ever and ever. WHY NOT SERVE GOD? Is that true? True as Heaven. Then I stop and ask my- self this question : If these things are, and this world knows they are true, then what ? Why is it that every man in the world is not a servant of God ? Why is it that there is a servant of the devil in the universe? If the 276 SAM JONES 5 SERMONS. devil wants to employ me in disreputable service and de grading service, and it is misery and anguish in time and damnation in eternity, and God gives me delightful, joyous employment and helps me to build a character that will stand the test of judgment, and finally sits me down on the streets of the paradise of God a saved man — if one is true and the other is true, why is it that there is a servant ol the devil in all this broad land ? Now, let us see why. Thou hast kept the good wine until now. This text illustrates a principle in this moral universe on both sides of the question. The devil’s economy is to give the best he has got first and then it gets worse through all eternity. Now, to illustrate — and I always could illustrate a thing faster and perhaps better than I could talk it. THE PALACE OF SIN". Now, when I was a ten or twelve years old young boy, the devil took me up into a large, capacious palace — a mag- nificent structure it was, beautiful, glorious in all its archi- tectural beauty. He carried me into the palace and led me around, and I looked upon and worshiped the pictures hanging around the walls, and then I looked at the beautiful carpets on the floor ; I looked at those beautiful windows, with their lace curtains. I looked again, and there was a table of pleasure, and a chair of ease, a sofa of contentment, and, oh, how many thousand things in that palace charmed my heart. And then he said to me : “ If you will be my ■ servant, all this is yours.” And I surveyed those pictures, and those beauties, and that elegant furniture, and that beau- tiful palace, inside and out, and I said: Well, sir, I enter your service. If all this is mine, what do I care for God and Heaven and everlasting life ? ” and I took possession. I remained in there, joyfully, several days. But I walked out one day, and when I returned I saw my chair of ease was IT PAYS TO BE RIGHTEOUS. 2 77 gone, and, somehow or other, I never felt as easy in there afterward as I did before. I returned another day and my sofa of contentment was gone, and, somehow or other, I never felt contented in there after that. I came back another day and my table of pleasure was gone, and some- how or other, the pleasures had departed with the table. ILLUSIVE PLEASURES. I came back another day and one of those beautiful win- dows had been removed and a solid wall placed in its stead, and 1 said : “ It is not quite as light in here as it once was. 55 I came back another day — a beautiful picture was removed, and how blank that wall looked ! Another day, and another piece of furniture gone. Back another day, and a window gone — perceptibly, darker. Another day and a door had been removed, and I said : “ There are not as many ways of ingress and egress, now, as I once had. 55 And on and on and on, until by and by the last picture was gone, the last, window had been removed, and, oh, how dark and gloomy was my home ! And again, and again, and the carpets were all taken up, and how bare and cold that floor ! And again, and again, and another door removed, until the last door had been removed, except one, and the windows were removed and everything gone, and, oh, how desolate ! But fourteen years ago the latter part of August last, I walked out of that palace to see my father die,* and I promised him I 5 d never go back any more. THE WAGES OF SIX IS DEATH. I know a man that stayed there just a little longer than I did — my friend he was. He stayed there until the last piece of furniture was gone, and every window removed, and the doors all taken out, and he said : “ I can’t get out of that 278 SAM JONES 5 SERMONS large, capacious palace. 55 The walls were coming together every day, every hour, and on Thursday night, about one o’clock, as his wife stood by his bedside, the walls of that palace crushed together, and he admitted with his dying breath that “the wages of sin is death ! 55 My God ! how many souls in St. Louis are encompassed in that palace to-night ! How many in there, with doors all removed and windows taken out ! And they will realize some of these days, as the walls crush together, that “ the wages of sin is death. 55 , SIN PROMISES BEST AT FIRST. But how on the other side ? This is but a picture of life, brethren. Life ! Why, I can remember the first dram I ever drank. It made me feel manly. I thought, “Well, surely I have found the elixir of life, the grand panacea for all sad feelings. 55 But I drank, and drank, until I despised myself and loathed, and loathed, and loathed my very being, because I was a miserable drunkard. I recollect the first oath I ever swore. I thought it stfunded manly. But I cursed and swore until I was a black-mouthed villain, and I despised myself when I walked into the presence of a Chris- tian gentleman. Oh, my congregation, to-night 1 tell you that sin has its richest, sweetest ingredient at the top of the cup, but as you go down, and down and down, the bitterest driuk that a hu- man being can swallow is the last dregs of the sinner’s life. Oh, how painful ! Some of you know that to be true. The devil offers and gives the best first, and it gets worse and worse and worse through all eternity! And there is not a sinner, twenty-five years old, in this house, but what you will realize in eternity that you saw more real pleasure in a life of sin, up to twenty years of age, than all eternity had for you after that time. IT PAYS TO BE RIGHTEOUS. 279 A STORY OF BYRON. When Lord Byron, who drank of every cnp that earth could give him, and who had all the ministers of earth to play around him at his bed, Lord Byron w'ith an intellectual and a physical nature that oould dive down into deepest depths and could soar into the highest, and whose wings when spread could touch either pole — and that poor man just before he died, sitting in his gay company, was medita- tive and moody, and they looked at him and said : “ Byron, what are you thinking about so seriously? ” “Oh,” he said, “ I was sitting here counting up the number of happy days I had in this world.” And they said : “ How many do you make it ? ” “ Oh,” he said, “ I can count but eleven, and I was sitting here now wondering if I would ever make up the dozen in this world of tears and pangs and sorrows.” Oh, brother, he went to depths you know nothing of, and to heights you will never reach. Let me say to you to- night, you are reaching -the point like the great prominent character in England who was sitting thinking in his study, and a friend said : “ What are you thinking about ? ” He said : “ I was sitting here looking ^t my dog on the mat and wishing in my heart I were that dog lying there.” Oh, sir, there are depths to which humanity can go that we loathe ourselves and despise ourselves, and yet these things promise mighty nice in the beginning. THE FIRST CUP THE BITTEREST. But how about the other side of the picture? The first thing the Lord gives to a man is the bitterest cup that he ever swallowed up to that hour — the cup of conviction— re- pentance. Oh, me ! when David took this cup in his hand* and drank it down he said : It is the wormwood and the gall. 28 o SAM JONES’ SERMONS. And he said : It makes my knees to smite together, and the pains of hell got hold upon me. I found trouble' and sorrow. There is no experience in all the universe of God like the experience of the soul in the deepest hour of its spiritual anguish. And this cup that God presents — the cup of con- viction — to the honest soul, oh, how it makes his knees smite together, and what wormwood and gall it is ! I can never forget the hours in my life^when I turned this world aloose and had no God to take my hand. Oh, brother for nearly a week I was wading and waging through the deepest trials. I had turned loose all my sins, and I could not find the hand of God. I was reaching up, saying, “ Father, take my hand ! take my hand ! 55 And on I went. I felt like the veriest orphan in all the universe of God, and miserably I pressed my way along; the most miserable man in the world. Thank God for those awful hours ! They have been so awful to me that my footsteps shall never go back over that road % God, let me die before I shall ever cross that weary quagmire again in my human experience, poor and wretched and miserable ! /rHE GOOD WINE. That was the first cup. I drank it down. And oh, what anguish and misery of soul. The next cup God presented to my lips was the cup of justification, and I drank it down, and I said, “Well, surely God has kept the good wine until now.” Oh, none but God can know how glorious the sin- ner feels when he hears the voice of God saying: Son, daughter, thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven ! That is the second cup. And on, and on — I have had a thousand I think sometimes — but I want to tell you it is bitter ! bitter ! bitter ! And as you swallow the cup down, ever and anon as you hand the cup back to the hand of IT PAYS TO BE RIGHTEOUS. 281 God, he tells you, “ and still there is more to follow.” And on, and on, and on ! Why, the first cup God presented to St. Paul, he was stricken down in the road and struck stone blind. For three days and nights he groped his way in darkness until he reached the house of Ananias, and when Ananias laid his hands upon him and the scales fell from his eyes and joy came into his soul, I expect St. Paul thought, “Well, God has kept the good wine until now.” And a few months after that St. Paul was caught up into the third heaven and poised himself over the city of God and looked down on the towering spires and jasper walls and pearly gates and his ears were charmed w r ith the songs of angels and the music of the redeemed. I expect as he looked down on that city of God that he said: “Well, verily God has kept the good wine until now.” A LAST CUP. But by and by in his lonely prison at Pome God present- ed another cup and St. Paul took his pen again and wrote to Timothy: The time of my departure is at hand. He just took that great clod of a word which we call “ death ” and threw it on one side and he said : The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course ; I have kept the faith. But God stooped over the parapet of heaven and shook his crown in his face, and* Paul said, “ I will wear that to- morrow. I will sleep in this old dungeon to-night and eat a cold breakfast in the morning, but I will take dinner in Heaven to-morrow with God and the angels.” And if we had St. Paul down here to-night to conclude this service, and he would just tell us what good things God has in store for us, we would all leave here shouting the praises of God 282 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. for the glorious hope of an immortal life beyond the skies. Oh, brother ! better and better and better through all eternity. THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN - . I have thought of a thousand things in reference to eternity. I have thought this way ; I have laid down and dreamed of * Heaven, and I have stood up and thought of Heaven and I have sat down and read of Heaven, and then I have sung of Heaven, and on I go ; but, brethren, all the money I have got in the universe is in this bank, and if it don’t break I am a millionaire. I have felt it many a time. All my calcula- tions and all my interest is in that direction, and if at the final day God should say to me — Depart ye cursed into everlasting flames, I will turn my back and walk away from the gates of Heaven the worst disappointed man that God ever drove away from his presence. * Ho, sir. My calculations are all that way. And then after a while, if I do succeed and step inside of the pearly gates and turn around and see God and angels, and precious mother and father and loved ones^ brethren, I will just bury my face in my hands and say,, “Sure enough, beyond all doubt or cavil, I am here, I am here.” And blessed be God, ’I just as fully expect to realize that I am in heaven as I realize to-night I am in St. Louis; in fact more so. I may be mistaken about being in St. Louis, 'it may be somewhere else ; b % ut when I get to Heaven, there is no place in the world like Heaven, and I will know I am there, sure enough. SAM JONES TO THE DEVIL. When I was in Waco, Texas, I was stricken down by laborious work withnnalarial typhoid fever. I suffered day after day and day after day for fourteen long days. I saw IT PAYS TO BE RIGHTEOUS. 283 the anxious care on the doctor’s face, and on my wife’s face, and one day the devil, almost in his visible presence, came into my room, and, slipping up to my bedside, said : “ Now you have worked yourself to death. Now you are down with typho-malarial fever. Your system is reduced, and your nervous system is exhausted. You will never rally from your sickness ; you have worked yourself to death.” I said to His Majesty: Now, you get out of here ! You get out of here ! If I had it all to do* over again I would not strike a lick less. 1 do not care much whether I go to Heaven about this time next week. Do you think you can set me back with that sort of talk ? ” Said I : u You can get out! You get out of here! If I have worked myself to death, glory be to God 1 I have worked myself to Heaven, and that is the grand consummation of it all.” • About nine tenths of the reasons why I want to stay down here is not because I think so grandly of this old world, but I want to stay here until God gives me time to eliminate from me everything that ought to be eliminated before I go. As soon as God shall empty me of all worldliness., and all self and fill me with his presence, I am ready to go any time. I don’t want to be forever what I am to-night. I want to be eliminated of some things and take in some other things before I crystalize forever and shall be forever what I am. A VISION OF PEACEFUL DEATH. Better! Better! Well, now I know what a servant of God will do for other folks, and we are all alike. I have been watching some things mighty close during the last few years. I was pastor of a church and in that church there was one of the most faithful, godly women I ever saw in 284 SAM JONES SERMONS. my life. Her Imsband was wealthy, and she gave with a princely hand to the poor and to every good cause, and it wa?s joy to her heart to do for the Master. And finally her time came to pass out of this world. I visited her in her last illness. She was dying of consumption, and had spent several winters in Florida. She was now dying of consumption, and when I would go into her room and talk to her, she would frequently say, “ I dread to die, not the results of death,” she said, “ but the agonies of death.” And I talked to her and encouraged her all I could. She said, “ I am so frail, I am so weak I can scarcely lift my hands, and, oh ! how can I grapple with physical death?” The last time I visited her before she died she motioned to the company present to leave the room — I suppose she did, for they all got up and walked out at once and left me alone with her. Then she said : A FORETASTE OF HEAVEN. “ My pastor, I have some things of importance to say to you that I never want you to mention while I live, for the world makes light of such things, and what I say to you is as sacred to me as my own soul.” She said, “ You know I told you when you were here last that I was afraid of the agonies of death ; not of the beyond.” “ Yes, ma’am,” I re- plied. “ Well,” she says, “ I am not now.” “Well,” said I, “ what brought about the change ? ” She said, “Yester- day I was lying in my room there and I put my handker- chief over my face and I was thinking of Heaven, and,” she says, “ all at once a scene just as natural as life presented itself. It seemed that I stood upon the moss-covered banks of a beautiful river, and the noiseless water was rolling gently by.” And she said, “ All at once a little boat ran its prow out right at my feet, and the oarsman invited me into the IT PAYS TO BE RIGHTEOUS. 285 boat; I stepped into the little boat and it moved off so noise- lessly, and we disembarked on the other bank amid the shouts of the angels and the songs of the redeemed, and,” she said, “they carried me np a beautiful avenue to a palace, and we walked up to the door of the palace and the door stood ajar.” She said, u They carried me into the palace, and I felt like a stranger in a strange place. They carried me up to the King and introduced me to him, and as soon as my eyes fell upon him, I saw and recognized immediately that it w T as the world’s Redeemer, my precious Savior, and I was at home from that time on. Now,” she said, “ I am not afraid to die.” Just a few days afterwards, as her husband sat with her, she called him in a whisper. He went to her. She said : “Husband, I feel so delightfully strange ; what do you think is the matter with me ? ” He felt her hand and felt her arm to her body, and it was cold. “ Oh, precious wife,” he said, “ you are dying.” She raised her arms and clasped them around his neck, and said : “ Oh, husband, if this is death, what a glorious thing to die.” And she fell back upon her pillow and never breathed another breath. A JOYOUS REUNION. Just eleven days after that I was walking along by the hotel, and the husband of this good woman said: “Mr. Jones, my little Annie is very sick. I wish you would come and see her.” She w r as the only child of that man and the good sister that had died. As I walked into the room, there was little Annie, little ten-year-old Annie, sick with diph- theria. I walked in and took her hand, and said : “ Sweet darling, are you suffering much?” She said in a whisper: “Yes, sir; a good deal.” I said: “Darling, do you want me to talk to you? ” And she said : “ Yes, sir ; if you please.” 286 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. “What about ?” I asked. She said: “I want you to talk to me about Heaven.” I said: “Well, darling, it is a great country, a glorious place, where little girls never suffer, and mamma is never sick, and where all is life and health and peace.” And her little eyes would fairly dance like dia- monds in her head while I talked. And directly the doctors walked in, and her father said: “Annie, darling, the doctors want to cauterize, to burn your throat again.” She looked up so pleadingly, and said: “Papa, please, sir, don’t let them burn my throat any more. Mamma has been calling me all the morning, and I want to go.” “Why,” he said, “sweet darling, if you go papa won’t have any little girl. Won’t you stay with papa?” “Well,” she said, “they may burn my throat, but it won’t do any good. I am going to mamma.” They burned her throat, and she lay perfectly quiet a minute or two. Then she was visited by some Sun- day-school children, and she turned and said: “Won’t you sing, ‘ Shall we gather at the river?”’ And she said: “I have heard them singing it over there, and mamma is join- ing in.” The little children began to sing, and just as they commenced the chorus the sweet spirit of little Annie left the body with a placid, heavenly smile on its face, and went home to live with her mamma forever. dSTo wonder the old prophet said : Let me live the life of the righteous and die a happy death, and may my last end be like his. * * * Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace. THE VISION OF SATANIC CAPTURE. Peace! Peace! Now, another incident, and then I will (put, just to show you the difference; a simple contrast. I want you to see it. During the last cruel war — arid how cruel it was ! — a minister in our State was summoned to Vir- ginia by a telegram, which read: Your brother is mortally wounded. Hurry to the front. IT PAYS TO BE RIGHTEOUS. 287 This minister hurried to the front as fast as the trains could carry him to the battle-fields of Virginia. When he reached Virginia he found his brother was wounded sure enough fatally. He was in a country home, and he made haste to the place, and when he walked into the room where his'suffering brother was lying he went up to the bed and took his hand. He saw immediately that death was doing its work, and he said : “ Brother, I am so glad to get here before your death. Brother, I am so anxious about your soul. You have been a wicked man all your life ; I have prayed for you, and talked with you many a time. Now, brother, brother, will you right here surrender your heart to God ? 55 “ Oh,” said the wounded man, “ brother, do not talk to me about my soul. I have thrown away all my health and vigorous days and despised God and religion, and now I can do nothing with every fiber of my body burning and aching. Oh, brother, I can not talk with you now about religion.” The next day the brother tried his best to ap- proach him again, but the wounded brother waved him off, and said : u Brother, I am tortured to death with physical pain. Please, sir, do not trouble me now. I am unpre- pared and shall die unprepared, but do not torture me more than I am being tortured.” He could not approach him. It was the sixth night this preacher brother had sat by his brother’s bedside. Loss of sleep and exhaustion and anxiety had reduced him so much and worried him so that as the wounded brother was lying quietly that night about 12 o’clock he said to himself, “ I will lie down on the cot and rest for a few moments. I won’t go to sleep. I see brother is very km.” And he said, u I lay down on the cot and in a moment almost w 7 as sound asleep.” AN AWFUL DREAM. And while asleep he dreamt that his brother died with his 288 SAM JONES SERMONS. month wide open, and jnst as soon as the soul left the body he saw the devil come in in bodily form and approach the bed, and walk up to his dead brother and look down into his brother’s mouth and he saw that the soul was gone. And he said : “ I thought that when the soul of my brother left his body it hid among the piles of wood I had piled up by the fire to keep the fire going, and the devil scented the soul, and started around to my brother’s hidden soul, and as the devil approached that hiding place the soul flew out of the room, crying 4 Lost! Lost! Lost! Forever lost!’ And,” said he, “ in the distance I heard the wail of my brother’s soul as it hurried out of the reach of the devil, and in the dis- tance I could hear the shrieks and screams of my brother’s soul as the devil fastened his talons in it forever and ever. And,” he said, “ when I woke up agitated and frightened the light had gone out.” And said he, :c I jumped up and lit the lamp. I walked up to the bed. There w x as my poor brother, lying with his mouth wide open. And I believe God shut my eyes in sleep to show me the scene that trans- pired' in that room.” THE LAST APPEAL. God have mercy on men who will let the last chance of being saved pass away and then go into eternity unprepared. Will you risk it? Will you risk it? How many men sit- ting before me, or anywhere in this church, to-night, who are not religious, who are not professors of religion, young men who are not religious, fathers who are not religious,, how^ many of you will stand up before God and man and say, “ I don’t want to do without religion ; I want to be a Christian here and live with Christians here on earth and with them forever hereafter”? How many of you will stand up to-night and say, “ God being my judge, I do not IT PAYS TO BE RIGHTEOUS. 289 want to die a sinner. I want to be a Christian ; I want to be saved from sin”? Have you interest enough in your soul to stand up and say : “ I want the prayers of all who pray. I want to be saved from my sins”? Will you stand up — every person who wants to be a Christian and shun the death that never, never dies — will you stand up ? Do not be ashamed or afraid. (Quite a number of persons rose to their feet.) That is right. God sees you, and I tell you a man is not far from the kingdom of God when he will stand up and say : “ I want to be a Christian.” Oh, my Lord, save these people to-night. You can all sit down. God help us to- night to prepare for eternity. We have no more time to lose. (The Christians in the audience then filed out, and gave the front seats to the penitents. Over one hundred re- mained for prayers, and over thirty expressed a desire to lead a Christian life and join the church. The results of last night’s vigorous work, added to previous results, show that |over one hundred whilom sinners have been led to make profession of Christ as their Savior and hope of sal- vation, of which one hundred something like sixty have made application for membership in Centenary Church.) 19 290 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. MEN PAY DEARLY FOR ETERNAL DAM- NATION. We invite your attention to a very familiar text ; one that you have often heard quoted and perhaps frequently heard discussed from the pulpit : What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? And what will a man give in exchange for his soul? It is strange, brethren, that while science and philosophy have been busying themselves so much with the doctrines and dogmas of Christianity — it is astonishing that they have never thought about how much good they would do this world if they would just stop all that and begin to answer a few questions of the New Testament Scriptures to the world. Oh, what a vast benefit the science and philosophy would be to humanity if they would just answer this question: What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or, what will a man give in exchange for bis soul? Did you ever see an attempt on the part of any man to answer that question ? Did you ever see a philosopher sit down to answer that other question : How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? god’s quick response. Now if you notice the questions propounded by men to God and his disciples you will recollect how quickly they were answered. Once a trembling jailer ran out into the presence of Paul and Silas and he said : “ Men and breth- ren, what must I do to be saved ? ” — the most important, infinitely important question in the universe — and in the twinkling of an eye St. Paul spoke it out : “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” You know ETERNAL DAMNATION. 291 when the Scribes and cunning Pharisees and shrewd Saddu- cees used to approach Christ with the most knotty questions in the universe, that Jesus never said: “ Wait till I come around again,” or 66 Let me consult the authorities,” or “ Let me consult the encyclopedia,” but in the twinkling of an eye he always gave the answer to the most mighty problems and questions in the universe. And now, while God answers immediately, I say to you that God propounds some questions to us that have been emblazoned upon the pages of that book for thousands of years, and that we have never attempted to answer : What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? There are two things involved in this discussion: One is the world; the other is the soul. A PRETTY GOOD WORLD, AFTER ALL. This world is a multitudinous affair. It is a grand old world. There isn’t a want of any physical and temporal nature that this world does not stand with outstretched, benevolent hands and says to me, “Here’s what you want.” If I want water, three fourths of this world’s surface is covered with water. If I want gold, the bowels of the earth are filled with gold. If I want books, the millions of shelves laden all around me bid me take off and read. If I want friends, the 1,400,000,000 of inhabitants upon the earth say each one of them, “I will be your friend.” If I want bread, the heavy laden harvest fields wave back to me a smile of plenty, which says, “ Come and eat. Don’t be hungry.” If I want anything, and if I want everything, this old world stands up, with outstretched, generous hands, and says, “ Here’s what you want.” I have no patience with the idea that this is a hard old world and that it is a * 292 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. bad old world. I don’t like to have Christian people going about singing This world’s a howling wilderness, when you’re the dogs that’s doing the howling right straight along on that line. (Laughter.) No howling wilderness! This is a grand world. It is just such a world as a benevolent, gracious father would . give his children to live in for three score years and ten. It is a glorious world with all of its health-giving and life-per- petuating properties. This earth with all its bountiful stores of remedies and life-giving eatables and life-perpetu- ating blessings is a grand old world. There may be larger worlds and grander worlds than this, but this is a grand old world, brethren. What is it you want to-day as a man, as a mortal man, that this world doesn’t stand ready to supply you? And one reason why I know God has prepared a grand immortal home for me is the fact that he has spread out such a grand world all around me for me to live in just for a few days. If this is the tent and tabernacle what must be the everlasting halls of God. THREE IMPORTANT MATTERS. I believe it was Talmage who used this illustration. He said : If a man is going to invest in property about the first thing that man will do will be to look into the title. And, he said, after he has looked into the question of title, then the next thing with that man will be the question of insur- ance, if it is town property. Then, he said, the next ques- tion will be, how are others getting along who have made the conquest. I believe he said these are about the three questions that come up. Now, suppose I go out as a merchant. I have spent my days largely in merchandising. I have accumulated a for- ETERNAL DAMNATION. 293 tune, and now I want to retire to some beautiful country seat, where I may live in ease. I go out here a few miles and look over a magnificent farm, with its mansions, its out- houses, its creeks, its bottom-lands, its table-land, its wood- lands, its all. It just suits me exactly. But, as a successful business man, I’m not going to count down one dollar for that land until I have come here and examined the book of deeds and book of liens and book of mortgages, and see if I can get a good title to that land. Well now, brother, when I look around this old world I see it is just the world for me, and about the first thing I’m going to look into is: What sort of title can I get to it? Do you know T tljat a man may count down his soul for this world and in fifteen hours after he has made the trade death will come along with a writ of ejectment and say : “Off these premises ! Get off forever! And the poor fel- low will pull out his deed, but death is blind and can’t see to read it, and the poor fellow will say : “ I have counted down my all for this piece of property,” but death can’t hear a word you say ! TALL 1 LATED EXPERIENCE. And how many men in my own knowledge have I seen build their nice houses and prepare for comfort and ease, and in less then twelve months after they have entered their new places here is death coming to the door and knocking and walking in and saying : “ Get out of the house and go to the cemetery.” And maybe the fellow has in his pay every doctor in town almost, and he is beg- ging the doctors for power against death ; but death says : “You needn’t send for the doctors. You needn’t throw away any time. When I come for you I mean you have got to get off these premises.” In my own town I can call 294 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. to mind more than half a dozen different men who, in mid- dle age, had just built and fixed up their homes elegantly, and in less than twelve months from the time they entered their elegant homes they were turned out of them and car- ried to the graveyard. And I know mansions in St. Louis that have had the black crape tied on the door-knob! What does it mean? . It means — every black crape and every black veil in this world and every emblem of mourning means, “ You can’t get any title to anything down here.” “ FOR SALLY AND THE CHILDREN.” Oh, how true that is! Now, I like to see a man frugal and industrious and economical, and all that sort of thing, but, brethren, frugality and industry isn’t always at the bot- tom of our desire to get hold of this world. There’s many a man in this world that has accumulated and accumulated and accumulated, and you walk up to him and ask him : “ Are you an old miser ? ” u No,” he says, “ I’m no miser.” “ Well, what are you piling it up this way for ? ” “ Well,” he says, “I’ll tell you. I’m laying up for Sally and the children. I’m determined that Sail y and my chil- dren shall never endure the hardships I have undergone. I’m laying up for Sally and the children.” Yes, and if he could just see Sally and the children about twelve months after he has gone to the graveyard — Sally with her new teeth and the children in their fine turnout — the old fellow w r onld be astonished how Sally and the chil- dren were getting along without him. He would that. (Great laughter.) LAYING UP FOR A GOOD WIFE. Lay up! An old miser ! Laying up everything and lay- ETERNAL DAMNATION. 295 ing up every where and grasping in every direction, all to lay up and lay away, as he says, “ for Sally and the children.” And, my brethren, I love to see a man frugal, and I love to see him lay up, and I believe it is every man’s bounden duty to lay up for a good wife and children, but when he passes the point where really, down in his heart, he is miserly and is not caring for wife and children, then after he is dead and gone his money will curse his children, and perhaps curse his wife. I have seen that. And I tell you the honest truth as I stand here and look upon this congrega- tion to-night, if I had opportunity in this life — I don’t know that I ever would — but if I had opportunity, I would lay by a competency for my wife to keep her from want — she has given the best years of her life to me and my children — I would lay by enough to make my wife comfortable in all her future age, but I wouldn’t lay by a dollar in the world for one of my children. Do you know why ? Be- cause — listen ! if my children are any account, they don’t need it, and if they are no account every dollar I give them will sink them. Don’t you see ? misers’ money. I wish men would begin to learn that fact. An old miser an old fellow, died in one of the Southern cities, and after he died a preacher told me he went there and stayed all night, and they put him up stairs, and he walked into the garret and saw a picture hanging with its face turned toward the wall. He turned the picture round and it was the old man’s picture. They had done sent it off up stairs and turned its face to the wall ! (Laughter.) And that old man just spent his whole life laying \ip, as he said, “ for Sally and the chil- dren,” and look how they treated the old man ! Law me ! Look how Cornelius V anderbilt was smirched 296 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. all over in that trial after his death by his own legatees. Do yon recollect it? Now if a true, good, noble man has laid up for his wife, and laid up for his children, in harmony with God, I say all right. But I say a miser’s money will curse him after he is dead and gone and curse his children, and perhaps his wife, when he is dead and gone. Some of the truest, noblest citizens of St. Louis have laid up a compe- tency for their families, and their families are doing well to- day, and that is the proof that they laid it by right. But, brother, whenever a man shall ignore God and the rights of others and accumulate money in every direction, and then pile it up, as he says, simply for his family, that money will curse his family after he is dead and gone. We all know that is true. But if you will act in harmony with God, you can lay up all the money for your family you want to, and it will be a blessing to them after you are dead. But mind how you act out of harmony with God and grasp after this world ! POOR SINNERS. And then I’ll tell you another thing. It ain’t only the rich that run after this world. There’s many a poor fellow running after this world in this life and never gets any of it. I’m sorry for that sort of fellow. There’s many a fellow out here on a farm with nothing but forty acres of poor land and an old stiff-eared mule ; stays right there and goes to Hell for love of the world and love of money ! Never had the money, but he loves it immensely and he loves it intensely. I use this old world and what it has got in it just like I would use a walking-stick — to help me along to where I am going, and that is the only use I have got for it. And anything that is in my power that I can make help me upward as a stepping-stone to a better and higher life I want to use it. ETERNAL DAMNATION. 297 ROUGH ON THE MILLIONAIRES. Tliis old world. You take A. T. Stewart, the richest money king in America. Just a week before his death it would have taken a hundred business men a hundred days to Imve told how much A. T. Stewart was worth. But now that he is dead, I want to find out how much he is worth, and a little fellow 7 walks into his death chamber and takes a little tape-line out of his pocket and measures five feet ten inches one way, and eighteen inches the other way, and goes out here in the public cemetery and puts that measure on the ground, and there’s the sum total of all A. T. Stewart’s possessions. Do you call that being rich? You just take the money princes of this world, that spend their life in gathering money and ignoring God, and I declare to you to- day there are not enough millionaires in Hell to-night if the whole concern were to go into co-partnership, to buy a drop of water to cool their parched tongues. (Sensation.) Do you call that being rich ? Do you call that acting wisely ? You say that is for the best, do you? As using and not abusing. That’s it; and I reckon of all the insufferable conditions that pandemonium can offer to an immortal soul, as the poor fellow walks through the flames of damnation, is the consciousness: “I am money damned. I wmuldhave got to Heaven if it hadn’t been for filthy lucre. The devil toled me into Hell with nickels.” A POOR FOLKS’ HEAVEN. That’s an awful state of things. Well, I have said fre- quently that if there is any sort of people in the world I want to see get to Heaven, it’s the poor- white folks and niggers. (Laughter.) A poor fellow 7 don’t have anything in the world, and then to lay dovm and die and be damned 2gS SAM JONES’ SERMONS. forever is the most awful thought I ever had in my life. These fellows, riding round, having a big time, and ignoring God, and drinking line champagne, and playing cards every night, and going to the theater, they can sort of afford to be damned, but we poor white folks can’t. I tell you that. But a man in Hell with the consciousness, “ I never had any fun up yonder, and then eternally burning here,” it’s a pretty bad joke on him, it seems to me. (Laughter.) This old world, how deceptive it is ! And when you count down your soul for this world you can not get a shadow of a title to it, and a wise man won't do that. THE MATTER OF INSURANCE. Well, then, you strike that question of insurance, you take a piece of property in this town that an insurance agent won’t put a policy on, how much could you get for it on the market? There is not a man in the town that would buy it. Well, suppose you would take an insurance agent up to your house, and as you walked up toward the front gate the flames were bursting out from the cellar in your house, and the insurance agent says: u Mister, I can’t insure that property, it is already on fire down in the basement. .Don’t you see the flames bursting out?” Now, when you are going to get an insurance on this old world, the geologists tell us that it is already on fire down in the basement, already burning down there, and the chimneys for the under world — Vesu- vius and Hkna. Y on see those burning volcanoes throwing out molten lava year after year. BURNING WORLDS. I tell you, geology tells us a great truth when she tells us that this world* is on fire down in the basement, and, God Almighty’s word for it, she is going to burn up. ETERNAL DAMNATION. 299 Astronomers have pointed their telescopes here and yon- der, and they tell ns that within the last few years thirteen worlds have disappeared. At first they looked like other worlds, after that they turned a deep red — showing they were on fire, and then they put on an ash color, show- ing they w^ere burned to ashes, and then they disappeared — showing the very ashes were scattered abroad. Me get a title to it ? I can not get any insurance on it, and it is likely to be burned up any minute. I would not be fool enough to give any money for a thing of that sort, much less my immortal soul. INCONVENIENT PROPERTY. How about this being out in the trade? There is another thing. Did you ever talk with a fellow after he made a trade? You go down here to the city of Atlanta. On Peachtree street is one of the prettiest lots in the city. It has never been built on, and you say to the real estate agent, “ Why hasn’t somebody built on this beautiful lot?” He will simply tell you, u Everybody who has had anything to do with this lot has had trouble about it. They buy a lawsuit when they buy this property. Nobody wants it.” I have watched this old world pretty close, and every man who has had anything to do with this old world has got into trouble about it. Did you ever notice that the most miserable man in the world to-night is the richest man in the world ? I heard a fellow say once — he was rich, too— he said : u I said when I was young, all I wanted was $10,000, but,” said he, “ when I got $10,000, I wanted $20,000 twice as bad as I did that $10,000, and when I got $20,000, I wanted $40,000 four times as bad as I wanted the $20,000 y and when I got $40,000 I wanted $80,000 eight times worse than I wanted the $40,000. 300 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. Oh,” he said, “ Jones, there is no use in talking; it is just like drinking salt water — the more you drink of it the more you want of it (laughter), and the less room you have to hold it ” — and there’s a good deal in that, too. GETTING MONEY AND KEEPING IT. Laying up. And that’s the reason men say, “I can’t he religious; I am busy looking after the world ; I am busy taking cafe of life ; I am holding on to what I have got.” Another old fellow told me — says he : “ I’ve spent my life now up to middle age making money, and I don’t want to make another cent, but, Jones,” he said, “I’ll tell you the honest truth, it is harder to keep it after you get it, than it was to make it to start with.” It’s a pity for those fellows that have got it piled up and try to hold on to it, and everybody in the country want some of it. (Laughter.) I’m sorry for them. Josh Billings says the old miser that has accumulated his millions and then sits down with his millions at last, without any capacity of enjoying it, reminds him of a fly that has fallen into a half-barrel of molasses. There you’ve got the picture just as complete as Josh Billings ever drew a picture. SAM JONES’ LEGACY. I never had much money — never will, I reckon. I saw in the papers some time ago where a man had died in North Carolina, and left Sam Jones a wonderful legacy — and all that sort of thing. I was at home at the time. Several of my friends run up with the paper, and said : “Sam, did you see this?” “Yes.” “What are you going to do about it?” “I ain’t going to do anything.” “Well, I’d write on and tell him where I am.” ETERNAL DAMNATION. 301 Said I : “No, sir. I am getting on right well without a legacy, and God knows what I’d w do if I had one. I am getting on so well without one that I don’t want to fool with one.” (Laughter.) Don’t you see? I want you all to have legacies and live in fine houses, and I will go around and take dinner with you, and let you pay the taxes and servants, and I will en- joy the thing. Don’t you see? (Laughter.) That is a good idea, ain’t it. ? BELIEVES IN AGRARIANISM. All things are yours — God said that — all things are yours, life and death, and Paul and Cephas, and everything is yours. I believe in the doctrine, not of communism, but I believe in the doctrine of agrarianism. Everything is mine, thank God. Isay I have never had much money — I reckon I never will — but I say this much: I have had money, and I have seen folks that did have money, and I think some here know what money will do, and 1 say a man is a fool, an immortal fool, that will sink his soul for money. A LOTTERY TALE. Right along on this point, an incident occurred in a little town in Alabama, where I was born, before the war, in Bowery, a little town off from the railroad. There were a great many wealthy planters lived all around it, and there were about eight or ten little stores there and one doggery saloon, and that was just about the time the lottery tickets came out and were popular, and several of those leading men invested in lottery tickets, and this bar-keeper invested in one. The day after the drawing — there were no wires through the country then — they made up apian and fixed it elegantly, and it was all arranged. So, the morning after 302 SAM JONES 7 SERMONS. the drawing, one of these wealthy farmers drove up at breakneck speed to the bar-room, jumped out of his buggy, and run in and said to the bar-keeper: “ I will give you $15,000 for your ticket in the lottery.” The bar-keeper said, “ What did I get? What did I draw?” “It makes no difference, I’ll give you $15,000 for your ticket in the lottery. 77 The bar-keeper said he would not take it unless he knew what he drew. And directly another drove up in his buggy and jumped out of the buggy and said to the bar-keeper, “I will give you $25,000 for your ticket in the lottery.” And the fel- low says, “What did I draw? 77 “Well, I don't care what it drew, but I will give you $25,000 for your ticket, 77 but the bar-keeper would not take the money. And directly here was another driving up, another one, and they just come on and on until they ran the ticket up to $85,000, and he would not take it. THE bar-keeper’s HOPES. And they all come out, and the fellow locked ’his back door and locked his front door and put off for home and never came back any more that day at all. And next morning he walked up town to the post office, walked in there, and the post that morning brought the news from the lottery, and he saw what the news was and saw that he had not drawn anything (laughter), and he walked right back through that crowd, and as he passed through there was a suppressed titter of laughter, and he walked on a step or two and turned right around and walked back and faced them, with a mingled look of resentment and sadness and disappointment and joy in his face, and he turned to them, and said: “Gentlemen, hear me. 77 He said, “Before God, as an honest man, I tell you I am glad I didn’t get a cent.” ETERNAL DAMNATION. 3°3 BETTER POOR THAN RICH. Said lie: “I left my grocery yesterday about 11 o’clock, just as certain that I had that capital prize — I could not have been more certain if I had it in my hand, and,” he says, “ I went home believing I had it, and,” he says, “ I commenced talking with my wife, and we just sit there all day ; and sit there all night long last night, and never slept one wink, talking about what we’d do with that money, and,” he said, “as God is my judge, the most miserable time I ever spent in my life was since yesterday morning. I am glad, before God, that I didn’t get that money — I am. I was rich yesterday and last night, just as rich as if I had it in my hand, and I am poor now. I’d rather be poor a thousand times than rich *>nce.” (Laughter.) Do you get the idea? Now, that fellow tried that once and knew what he was talking about. GIRLS KEEPING UP WITH THE FASHION. What is this world? A man will die now and leave his daughters $100,000 apiece, and another man dies next door and he leaves his daughters not a cent. Those poor girls go to sewing hard every day working on a machine, and those rich girls go keeping up with the fashion. Now, watch them three years from that time, and the fashionable girl looks sallow and pale and bloodless and nearly dead on her feet, and there is the red, rosy, healthy vigorous girl. It will kill a girl quicker having to keep up with the fashion than if she sews all day for a living. (Laughter). What do you want it for ? How many in this world are making a fatal mistake right at that point. What do you want with it — to curse you, to curse your families? UNFORTUNATE EOYS. And in my own State I can go around the horseshoe bend 304 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. of one of our rivers, in the finest plantations in that State, and I can take those plantations one after another — the old people died during the war — and I am saying the truth to- night when I say that nine out of ten of their boys have already filled drunkard’s graves and drunkard’s hells. Twenty thousand dollars, a hundred thousand dollars, will buy nine boys out of ten a through ticket to Hell, and they will invest in it the first thing they do and check their bag- gage right through, and heaven and earth can not stop them. Don’t you know that is so? (Sensation). If my father, instead of turning to me in his dying hour and bid me meet him in Heaven, had spent his life accumu- lating money and turned over $25,000 to me when he died, I’d have been in the pit this moment. God bless you, brother, show to your children there is something better than money, and better than this world, and better than all the surroundings ; show them there is a God and an eternity, and that character is worth more than gold. What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world — If you get it all and lose your soul, what are you profited ? A COMPARISON OF RICHES. Well, whoever got the whole world? Whoever got one millionth part of this world ? Some fellows think they are rich if they are worth $100,000. Well, what is $100,000 compared to Vanderbilt’s fortune? Or, if you owned Vanderbilt’s fortune, what is that compared to the city of Hew York? And the city of Hew York, if you owned it all, what is that compared with America? And if you owned all America, wdiat is that compared with the whole world ? And if you owned the whole world down here, I expect if you could put two such worlds as this in your ETERNAL DAMNATION. 305 pocket and go to the Dog-star, and stay all night, that you wouldn’t have enough to pay your hotel bill in the morning, (Laughter.) And, after all, what is there in this world that takes away so much of our time and so much of our talent and so i#uch of our energy ? and how foolish it is ! WANTED TO STRAIGHTEN OUT HIS BOY$. A father in one of the Southern cities said to me : “ Oh !” said he, “two of my boys are dissipated, and,” said he, “my money will ruin my boys and I know it.” Said I : “ You say you’ve got money enough to ruin them both ? ” “Yes.” “ And you are certain it will ruin them ? ” Said he : “ Yes.” Said I : “ I’ll tell you how to dodge that thing.” Said he : “ How ? ” “Well,” said I, “give me this afternoon $20,000 apiece of those two boys’ money for the orphan home out here, and you go home to-night and say to Turn and Henry, ‘ I have given Sam Jones $20,000 of each of your money, and the very next time you get drunk I am going to give him $40,000 of each of your money ; and further on, your third drunk I will make him a deed for that orphans’ home for every dollar I have got.’ “ And,” said I, “you will straight- en them boys straight out — you will that.” And before my money should damn my children, I say to you to-night, I would give it all to the orphan homes of the country. Well, as I said, I told him wliat he should do with his money, and — well, strange to say, he never gave me a cent. ( Laughter.) I am afraid he will be in the pit before his boy is. 20 306 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. LEFT IT TO THE BAR-KEEPERS. I saw the other day where an old fellow — a man — said to another — “ Did you hear about Mr. So-and-So being dead ? 55 “ Yes . 55 “ He is a millionaire, and,” he said, “ he willed the last dollar in the world he had to the bar-keepers . 55 “ He did ! 55 “ Yes! Well , 55 he said, “he didn’t will it directly to them he just willed it indirectly to them — he just gave it to his boys and the bar-keepers will get it sure . 55 (Laughter.) This world, this world, this world. Oh, brethren, this world, with all that it has, can be nothing to me but a step- ping stone to a higher and a better life. THE MORAL HEALTHINESS OF POVERTY. You can go down among the rich bottoms of the Mis- souri and Mississippi rivers and there you find the most im- pure water, and you find the most mal arious atmosphere in the rich bottoms of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. You can go up among the old red hills of Georgia, and the clearest sparkling water you ever saw gurgles up through the old red clay, and the sweetest atmosphere blows over the old red hills of Georgia. Among the rich of this earth is the most corruption, and the most wickedness, and the most guilt. Among the poor of the earth you will find the sweet- est virtues and the noblest characters. Let us live among the poor. Let us have a good atmosphere and good water. And I will tell you, brother, that when a man gets drunk on money he is gone. You preachers are not candid with him. You do not tackle him as you should. When an old ETERNAL DAMNATION. 307 fellow gets drunk with whisky, his friends go to him and my : “ Look here, old fellow, you are going to the devil. I want you to quit and keep straight.” His wife pleads with him. The* minister pleads with him. Everybody pleads with him. But when a fellow gets drunk with money, bless you, his wife does not say anything about it. She enjoys the “ creetur ” herself; she does not say, “ Husband, you are going to perdition.” The preacher does not tackle him ; he is afraid to. There’s many a man in this town drunk with money. Have you brethren been up to tell him “ You are drunk with money and the devil will get you ” ? You never tackle them. You just say, “I want the favor of these old rich fellows, because I know if I bother them they will get mad with me, and neutralize my action and neutralize my power, and I can not do anything,” and they think : “ The best thing to do is to let the old fellow alone. I don’t want to antagonize him, but just make him pay his way along.” ( Laughter.) THE PRICE OF DAMNATION". Oh, sir, when a man gets drunk on money, nobody bothers him then. He just goes on and on, and to perdition he goes forever. What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul ? But we will make this discussion a little more practical and bring it down to where we have a practical interest in it in every sense. I want to say to you right now, I do not know what it is keeps you from being a Christian — you men sitting there. I can not tell what it is keeps you out of the church and away from God, but I will say that whatever it is, whether it is a dance, or a dram, or licentious- ness, I do not care what it is that keeps you away from Christ and out of the church, you can put all those things 3°8 SAM JONES’ SERMONS. together in one common pile, and point to the pile and say: “ That is the price of my immortality. That is the price I have sold it for.” Thatyonng man says : “ I would join the church, hut I love to dance.” That young lady says. “ I would join the church hut Hove to dance.” Well, young lady, go on. We will say that you go to two hundred balls — that is a big allowance, ain’t it ? — and that you dance hundreds of sets. By and by you die without God and without hope, and down into the flames of despair you go forever ; and as you walk the sulphurous streets of damnation you can tell them : u 1 am in Hell forever, it is true, but I danced four hundred times, I did.” (Laughter.) How, won’t that be a consola- tion ? That man out there says: u I want to join the churchy but preachers think a man ought not to take a dram and be a member of the church.” Supposing, brother, that you roll out forty barrels of the best Robinson County in the United States and drink it every drop, and then die and go to perdition. You can tell them in Hell, “I am in Hell forever, it is true, but I drank forty barrels of the best Bobinson County before I got here.” That will be a con- solation, won’t it ? That’s remuneration, ain’t it ? don’t get wives from ball-rooms. What do you want to dance for, young lady, wdiat use is it to you? If I had to marry a dozen times — and I am' like the Irishman who said he hoped he would not live long enough to see his wife married again — if I had to marry a dozen times, I would never go to a ball-room to get my wife. Do you hear that ? I used to dance with the girls, but when I wanted to marry I did not go to the ball- room to get my wife. Many a fellow got a good one in the ETERNAL DAMNATION. 309 ball-room, and many a fellow didn’t. (Laughter.) God gives a man a good wife and somebody else gives him a bad one. (Renewed laughter.) What good does it do you to be able to dance ? Take the best girl in this town after her family is reduced to a fear- ful crisis by her father’s business reverses. Now they are poor and that girl must earn a living. I will introduce her to a dozen of the leading citizens of the town, and give her a worthy recommendation in every respect. She is just what everybody would want as a music teacher, as a clerk or in any other capacity, but I will add as a postscript to the recommendation, “she is a first-class dancer,” and that will knock her out of every job she applies for in this world. And so with every sin. And I declare to you to- night that the thing that keeps us away from God and out of the church, that is the price we put on our soul. (\a WISE SALOON-KEEPER. ^ There is a man. He says : “ I would be religious if it were not for so and so,” and I never think of this, that I do not think of an incident in which a husband sat by his wife at a revival meeting. When the penitents were asked to nome to the altar, he was asked by his wife : “ Come, won’t you give yourself to God ? ” He shook his head and went home. That night she said to her husband: “I saw you were af- fected. I wish you had given your heart to God ! ” He said : “ Wife, I can not be a Christian in the business I am in.” She said : “ I know that.” He was a liquor dealer. And she added : “ Husband, I want you to give up your business and give your heart to God.” 3 io SAM JONES’ SERMONS. He said : “ Wife, I can not afford it. 55 “Well,” she said, “how much do you clear every year on whisky ? ” “Well, 55 he said, “my net profits are about $2,000 a year. 55 She asked : “ Husband, how long do you reckon you will live to run that business? 55 “ Twenty years, in the natural expectation of things. 55 “ How much is twice $20,000 ? 55 “Forty thousand dollars. 55 “ Forty thousand dollars ! How, husband, if you could get $40,000 in a lump would you sell your soul to hell for that sum ? 55 He said: “Ho, wife! no! I 5 11 close out mv business in the morning and I will give my heart to God right now. I would not sell my soul for $4,000,000,000. AN EARNEST REDEMPTION. Oh, that you all could see what keeps you out of the church and from God. That is the price you have placed on your immortal soul. How, a word in conclusion. The soul — that is the other thing. There is the world and here is the soul. How what? My soul, with its immortal interest; my soul, that shall live forever ; my soul, that will shake off this body by and by, and lay it aside as a child does its doll after it has done playing with it; my soul, that shall throw this body down and fly away from it ; shall I give my immortal soul for this world? Ho, sir, I can not do that. What then? I will give my soul to Christ. He is worthy of it; he died to save it. Yonder is a parliament. Adam has just fallen and sub- jected the whole race to death, and now the reverberating ETERNAL DAMNATION. 3 ” thunders of God’s wrath are heard athwart the whole moral universe, and the announcement is made in that parliament, “Adam— Man has fallen. The great federal head of the race has sinned and fallen;” and a*voice from the great I Am spoke out, “Who will take man’s redemption on his shoulders and bring him back to life?” I imagine the archangel stands up in that presence and shakes his snowy wings, and says : “ This task is too great for me.” I im- agine Gabriel might stand up and say, “ I shall blow the trumpet that will wake the dead, but this task is too great for me.” But all at once there was one who stood up in that presence and said : “ I will take man’s redemption on my shoulders.” And the angels began to wonder, and it has been the cause of increasing wonder ever since that he should become the Redeemer; that he should become man that he might redeem the race and be our Savior. SAVING THE SHIP. Brother, you saw some years ago that a ship in the At- lantic ocean sprung a leak away down in the bottom of her hull. The announcement that the ship has sprung a leak is made by the captain, and the pumps are got to work, but they' will not pump out the water as fast as it enters by the leak. The only hope for the safety of the vessel is that some one will give his life in order to stop the leak. Y ol- unteers were asked for, and one man spoke up, “ I will go down and stop the leak.” He went down and down — to the upper, then the lower, and then the third deck, and then he reached down into the water and worked there until completely exhausted. The pumps began to w^ork, and by and by the old ship grew lighter, and by and by the captain said : “ The leak is stopped, but let us go down and see about our iriend.” They went down to the third deck 312 SAM JONES' SERMONS. and saw liis body floating on the water. They brought him np and embalmed his body, and when land was reached they carried it ashore and buried it. And the spot was marked by a tombstone on which was the epitaph: This friend gave his life that all of ns might live. And the names of those he saved were all engraved below. And they bless the memory of that man and say; “If he had not died we should have been lost . 55 A RESCUED WORLD. And yonder is the old ship Humanity, and now the waves of God’s wrath and judgment begin to pitch and toss her and drive her on the rocks, and she is about to go down forever, when the Son of God sees her ; and I see him come from the shining shores of Heaven, as swift as the morning light, and throw his arms around this old, sinking ship. She carries him under three days and nights, and he brings her to the surface on the third morning ; and then God grasps the stylus and signs the, magna charta of man’s sal- vation, and then at the v blessed moment it is written: Whosoever believeth in the Son of God shall not perish, but have ever- lasting life. I will give my life to Christ ; he gave his life for me, and he is worthy of it. SOLD ON THE RUN. Down South before the war we used to put a nigger on the block and sell him to the highest bidder. Sometimes he would run away and we could not get him on the block, but we woulcLsell him on the run. “ How much for him running away ? ” W ell, brother, when God Almighty turned this world over to Jesus Christ he turned it over on the run, running away from God, running away to Hell and death, and the Lord Jesus Christ came as swift as the morning light ETERNAL DAMNATION. 313 and overtook this old world in her wayward flight, threw his arms around her and said : “ Stop, stop, let us go back to God. Let us go back.” Oh, Jesus Christ, help every man here to say, “I will go back. I have strayed long enough. I will go back now.” "Will you, brother? God help every man to say, “This night I have taken my last step in the wrong direction, and have turned round.” That is just what God wants sinners to do — to turn round — to turn round. Will you to-night say, “ God being my helper, I will stop. I will turn my at- tention to Heavenly things and eternal things. I will look after my soul, if I starve to death.” Will you do that? THE LAST APPEAL. How we are going to dismiss this congregation, and those who wish to retire can do so, but I hope those who are not Christians will remain, and if you are a Christian and want to help us, remain with us. Let us make this Friday night a night of preparation for a higher and a better life. Let one hundred of us say : “ I want to prepare to enter the church on Sunday morning.” If there is any man interested in his soul let him stay and talk and pray with us to-night. ■v 1 • ' /” , \ • . - n . >: .v THE AUDIPHONE, GOOD’ NEWS FOR THE DEAF. An Instrument that Enablas Deaf Persons to Hear Ordinary Con- versation Readily Through the Medium of the Teeth, and those Born Deaf and Dumb to Hear and Xjearn to Speak. How it is Done, Etc. The Audiphone is a new instrument made of a peculiar composition, possessing the .property of gathering the faint- est sounds (somewhat similar to a telephone diaphragm), and conveying them to the auditory nerve, through the medium of the teeth. The external ear has nothing what - < ever to do in hearing with this wonderful instrument . It is made in the shape of a fan, and can be used as such, if desired. When adjusted for hearing, it is in suitable tension and the upper edge is pressed slightly against one or more of the upper teeth. Ordinary conversation can be heard with ease. In most cases deafness is not detected. The Audiphone is Patented throughout the civilized world. I? 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