The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. NationNation, Carry Amelia
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The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation
Nation, Carry Amelia
Nation, Carry Amelia, 1846-1911; Social reformers -- United States -- Biography; Temperance -- United States
I feel that I have been peculiarly favored to go into these places, to
"cry aloud and spare not and show my people their sins." I find this
class so hungry for something better. These poor actresses, who dress
in tights and sing indecent songs, are a weary, tired, heart-sick lot of
slaves. I mingle with them as a sister. When I can say a warning word
I say it. I call them affectionate names and mean it. God will judge
both of us. He knows who loved much; he can forgive much. Christ
said to a lot of men who took the amen pews: "The publicans and harlots
will go into heaven before you." Why? They "repented when they
heard". "How are they to bear without a preacher?" I never see a man
or woman so low but as a sculptor said of the marble: "There is an
angel there." Oh, God, help me to bring it out!
Jesus received sinners and ate with them. He left a command that
Christians should invite these to feasts in their homes. Oh! what a
revival of religion there would be if the homes of Christians were opened
to the lost and sinful, who are dying for some demonstration of love.
If the Son of God, the lovely, the pure, the blessed ate with sinners,
ought it not to be a privilege to follow Him. We are commanded to
"warn, rebuke, and reprove with all long suffering and doctrine." People
will work in a revival to get sinners saved, and will pass them day
after day on the street and not a word of Scripture, do they use to
remind them of God's judgements. Jesus said: "The world hateth me
because I testify that the works thereof are evil." I have had men to
swear at me, call me names and threaten to knock me down. At first
this caused me to feel mortified but that passed off. These very men
have afterward told me I was right and they were wrong. The devil
"threw some on the ground and they foamed at the mouth" before he
was cast out. I have often taken cigars and cigarettes out of men's and
boy's mouths. I wished to show them the wrong and that I was a friend.
Would you let one you love take a knife to open a vein or cut himself?
Oh! the sweetness and force of that promise: "Your LABOR is never in
vain in the Lord." This covers all cases, if you, for the love of God, do
anything. I often say to myself, after rebuking for sin: "You made a
mistake in the way you did this or that, and are you sure it was done
for the love of God and your neighbor?" "Yes." Then "your labor is
never in vain in the Lord". It is not WHAT we do that prospers, but what
God blesses.. "He that planteth is nothing and he that watereth is
nothing, but it is God that giveth the increase." And it matters not how
awkward the work, if it be done from love of God, it will prosper. Like
other things, the more you do, the better you can do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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