Our Moral Wastes, and How to Reclaim Them (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1859. Excerpt: ... OUR MORAL WASTES. CHAPTER I. Here is a seed-corn. You wish it to grow and multiply itself. It has the germ of vitality, and it is wondrously endowed with a life-sustaining and self-propagating power. It is a good seed; there is no taint of evil in its nature, and no lack of fruitfulness in its kind. Thus it is with Christianity.. It is a thing of growth, and it grows from the seed. "The seed is the word," and that word has within itself the germ of the Christian life--pure in its nature, vital in its character, and fitted, under proper conditions, to become abundantly fruitful. Here is an extensive track of waste land. It is overgrown with thorns, thistles, and weeds of various kinds, and the atmosphere above and around it is charged with noxious vapours; yet there is soil on this waste, and here and there it exhibits traces of former cultivation. The heart of the ungodly man--the sinner in his sins--is at first like this waste. There the native well-springs have been poisoned, and thorns and thistles and noxious weeds grow where the fruits of righteousness ought to abound. In some, these weeds are the only produce the soil has ever yielded, while in others there are traces of former cultivation; but in all, the good seed has been destroyed, and where grace abounded, sin now still more abounds. A farmer is commissioned to do his best to reclaim this waste, and to restore its character. He has abundance of good seed, and all the means and appliances necessary to insure good husbandry; he knows also how to use these means, and work these appliances, and this knowledge implies an obligation to apply them. If he be diligent in his calling, he will reap the fruits of his industry; if he fail in his duty, either by neglect or indolence, by thoughtlessness or pe...