The New York herald., 1875-09-13
What Constitutes Faith in the
Gospel Of Christ.
TWIN MOUNTAIN HOUSE, N. r.,

The music, he said, Mr. Sankey's own The fol-
lowing are the Words
There ninety and nine that safely lay
In the shelter of the fold
But one was out on the hills away
Par off from the gates Of gold;
Away on the mountains wild and bare,
Away from the tender Shepherds
Lord thou hast here thy ninety and nine
. Are they not enough for thee
But the Shepherd made answer this OF mine
Has wandered away from me:
And although the road be rough and steep
go to the desert TO end my sheep.
But none of the ransomed ever knew,
How deep were the waters crossed,
Ere he found his sheep that lost
Out in the desert he heard its cry
Sick and helpless and ready to die.
Lord, whence those blood drops all the way
- That mark out the mountains trackY
They were shed for one who had gone astray
Ere the shepherd could bring him back =
lord, lord, whence are Thy hands so rent and torni
They are pierced tonight by many a thorn
And all through the mountains thunder riven
r, And up from the rocky steep
Rejoice have found My sheep'
Rejoice, ior the Lord brings back Ills own"
The regular begun with the reading by
Mr Beecher of the 1o1st and 1O2d Psalms after which
the hymn commencing
Your harps, ye trembling saints,
was sung; Then followed the prayer Before the
mon the hymn commencing
And let this feeble body fail,
was sung after which the preacher began
THE SERMON,
the world city that is set hill cannot bo hid
Neither do men hight candle and put it under
bushe but on candestck; and it giveth light to all
that are in the house. Let your light so shine be-
fore men that they may your good works and
glorlfy your Father which is in heaven.i
The discourse was unusually long and was able and.
eloquent and 1t cannot be adequately represented in
condensed report After brief exposition tho fore
going passages of Scripture Mr. Beecher proceeded to
say that religion by many is looked upon kind of
dogs life. Said he, 1t is not religion is not night
march, 1t is daylight come to men who have been sitting
aphu rtAris tiRall arHa
New Testament as the children of light, and what is
light but the revealer of beauty, by which all comely
things are brought TO mems eyes? They who follow
the Lord Jesus Christ the radiant people of the
world, or should be- In tho estimation of God, in
the revelation of the gospel religion is restriction
IL is cross is burden to be carried; 1t Is har
ness and yoke; but what must be that state in
which even yoke is easyS And yet that harness which
is contemplated in the New Testament Is described
easy II men can mount into the higher realm of their
own souls and live by the force of dvinely inspired
noblo sentiments, there that in life which
sorrow and trouble and fear and conscience itself is
servant and not master Religion is that which
men free You are the devils slaves and he is a hard
master who promises big wages and who however kind
he was when nc coaxed you into his service, when the
debt is to be paid takes you by the throat and says
"Pay me what thou owestn and never lets up Bat
Jesus Christ is one that free from bondage
and forgives them their debts when they cannot
pay them. Now religious life is husbandry The
divine conception of religion is that 1t makes splendid
men and noble women. For the most part are born
animals, brcd animals, and die ANIMALS, but
born animals that out OF this lower may
be evoked by the omnlpoent power OF the spirit of
God, the higher elements of the soul You do not know
the possibilities of the soul of man; you are poverty
stricken; your husbandry is like here and there an
oasis in the desert The sight of the freedom of God in
men should be
of all religious teaching and Of all Christian Institutions
the intellect not 10 be thrown away. Philosophical
teaching good in its place, but the central characters
tic force of religion Is TO be its beautiiulness
God in man makes him noble and beautiful
and is there anything that brings God nearer to you
than the thought of your mother of her patience,
her fathiulncss, her wisdom and her lover When
everything else fails you, when you are an oucast and
when your heart is broken, there is refuge Tor YOU
when you have deserved obloquy and IT has even
overaken you and you have gone down into very filth,
there is one altar where you be heard, and one
shrine whore you will be acceptable mean the heart
OF your mother; and is any mother as good as Cody
Yet mother love interprels God and brings him before
mems mind. Father mother and home are the trinity
words of the language, they express deep feeling
in more musical ways than any other three words
and they are the three words which are employed to
represent TO us the soul and government Of God.
The duty of making religion beautiful would seem to
be the command of this text, by which we are called
upon to let our light so SHINE before men that they
shall goodness and shall glorfy God | have
seen great many men who, beholdng the goodness
that in Christian people, cursed them have seen
men look upon the Church as they would upon snar
ing, quarrclling kennel Of hounds. l have
look upon Christians and say that If what they saw in
them was religion they did not want IT, and fear that
sometimes they felt justly. But If Christians were
obedient to this command men would ad-
mlre thcm, would be drawn toward them and
would desire TO be like them If the
church in every town and village were like n bride
adorned and waiting for the bridegroom, would be
attracted TO it, But churches ragged and
comey. They thousand times better than nothing
but, as compared with the divine thought and IDEAL
how low and poor they are. We are, then, to live
such lives cultivate such dispositions and form such
habits and associations that when look upon us
they shall wish TO be like us, because we are so
good and so beautiful are to make the Gospel known
by showing what II is The ideal of the New Testament
Is that in Christian life you fruitful under the
mer of the Divine Spirit and that the fruit which you
show is beautiful, fragrant and so desirable that
men, when they have once you, say y:-'Where
can get such rutlp But how many men who enter
the Christian life bear the fruits of the spirit to such
degree that men want to be like them Z?
TlE POWER RELIGION
as is defined in the New Testament to be the in
encc of individual who is inspired by the essential
spirit of the Gospel and not be influenced by IT, Faith
In God gives elevation 70 the life. This the print
tive power Of the Gospel Persons who what vic
given men say, III IL is such kilcare, II II Is such
means Of overcoming trouble, If IL is able
to tread down all suffering, II II can
make men, matter what their circumstances are,
happier and more glorious than kings aud priests, then
let have Il. " Now | say that hc who makes re
ligion unlovey Is inhdel II were To say Heaven
is all a myth; there is no hell except in the FOOLS
brains there is Trinity; there was no Lord Jesus
Christ and no atonement; there is no Holy Ghost;
there Is no Church and there are no
dinances how long could hold up my head
in society," | should be drummed out us an in
ide; But what would be denying except
certain dogmasy Yet there are men who
hold TO dogmas while they deny the nature
of God IN the human soul and the Importation by the
Holy Ghost Of divine dispositions TO men. They do
not deny baptism, nor ordinances, apostolic
churches the creed nor the catcchism, but they
deny the frut Of religion which these designed
be the Of and yet they do not think they
1ldels. Now say that every man who treads down
that which meant by the New Testament be the
wisdom OF God and the power Of God to salvation is
inhdel than he who denies the doctrine of Chris
tany. IL behooves us, therefore, to to II that we
have
OF TIM HEART