The New York herald., 1879-09-29
SOWING THE SEED
Crowded Churches and Freshly In
spired Preachers.
THE VALUE OF CHURCH GOING
Why There Should Be Eternal
Punishment.
CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH.

REV. DIR. ROBERT CoLLYER
''why need 1 go to church," the subject
chosen for his first sermon in his new church
yesterday by the eminent divine who has just come
to New York from Chicago. He was introduced to
his new congregation without formality by the Rev.
DR.. Farley. II glad when they said unto me
Let go into the house of the Lord was his text
The man who is touched by this fine emotion.
said the preacher. q statesman, a warrior and
. kng-a man Of grand intellect and an exquisite
genius. He had also great deal of work to do
week days. and might well have felt as If
he must be excused from attendance in the Lords
house on Sundays He does not want to be
cused any more than your healthy boy wants to be
excused from his Thanksgiving dinner, or the lover
from attendance the maid who has won his heart.
1t is time to go to the house OF the Lord. those
about him said and glad Of that he an
swered and went with them. None Of pleas in
Only reasons, not excuses. can keep the
man at home when the time comes for him to 60 to
the house of the Lord, and even fair reasons must
have taken the tnge Of misfortune if we are to judge
from what he tells The help he found there was
his hiding place from the storm his covert from the
tempest, and the shadow Of great rock In
weary land. He had learned the worth Of worship.
and that worship never hinders work. but helps it
bravey along. Nor did the feeling of shame stay his
glouueSS. he nau SkeloLOu IN Sucu
few men have. and the whole world knew Of it. 1t
woeful piece Of business and has survived all
these ages point the of the scor and brand
the with its inextinguishable shame. The
pain and shame Of it lay not lightly on his soul
time wore on, nor could he consent for an instant
to say that another must bear his burden and leave
him to walk with the saints. He was too honest to
ask for such easy terms of re- ease But he knew
that the true place the sinner in the sanctuary.
He could not afford to in the surmse that this
MAJ be only priests talk after all when some grand
10 1rIAAa inefa fra, ocain ffS
argue that il dirt is merely matter in the wrong
place in the moral kingdom it is in the material
you may cart it around o corner before you get
through and SO make the odds even. He too
honest to tolerate such refuge OF lies.
The Hebrews were tremendous meeting goers, the
very marrow of the Puritans in New England. It
Is there you first find the freless synagogue. no
matter about the weather and the cold bito they
would hardly for shame call dinner, and the
whole book of Deuteronomy catechism for the
children. You must not make hre. You must not
climb q tree pick up stick. After speaking of
some OF the excuses make he continued
We do not 60 to the house OF the Lord because we
do not want to go. It was the house of the Lord
and its services apart from its agencies which held
the mans heart in its glad thraldom. He does not
go for the sake of the priest or preacher but to
ship the Most high doubt whether he took
out his watch to see how long that prayer II Q
went not to hear the singing so much as to sing.
When praise floods the heart you not over
troubled the exact accordance Of the trumpet
snd Shawn whatever that may be) nor when you
make melody in your own heart unto God are you
troubled il your neighbor is singing with
mighty fervor through his nose. I sometimes have
to ask myself whether people go to the Lords house
to worship or to be amused.
THE WORDS THE THING
And II there was man there who had some word
to soy touching the life that is and that which
is to come-a man who could make Gods truth
luminous and penetrate the heart with 1t and leaven
the life. there would be no question of this mans
fitness to say that word were he as homely Abra-
ham Lincoln. or spake with voice untuneable as
John Fosters, or was ungraceful tumble Of
right angles. David was man with wonderfully
broad sympathy ana with instinct for the
tral thing which is always the bread and tho
did not fall into that habit which growing in
time. of saying there is need for to go to the
house OF the Lord; can worship him in my house,
IN the woods, on the waters, wherever may lift
up my heart. 1t is difficult and delicate matter to
touch such claim this adversely, because it wins
large sympathy from men and women who think
as we do, while some OF the divinest words our
Great Teacher said also edge that way and few
of the noblest mon we have ever known have taken
that stand and have seemed to make II good by the
beauty and purity Of their lives.
But may not ask this question Of the most of the
people who speak thus, What do you really do in
the woods and what does 1t all come to? Do the
thoughts that stir the heart to praise and prayer lift
your heart to deep and sure communion, or do you
not get entangled in the things of time and sensein
your business your pleasure, your ambition?
do not think overpass a fair Judgment when /
say that for great majority of those who profess to
be their own temple and their own priest, and to
need no other. such questions have to be answered
IN the negative. II they do manage to get as
far nature they stop there, and have such
sense Of the presence of God in the world and in
their lives as myriads of humble minded people
have, with pretension to their intellect, who go
into the house Of the Lord. Do not mistake me
when speak thus. Here, then, man has caught
something Of the true spirit who still stays alone,
but they few and far between, while the drift
to doubt and question, and the whole brood of
things that stay faith, as / understand faith, and
make hope burn dim and low and touch with par
aysis the nerve of any grand endeavor, while with
multitudes no man can number. this own temple
and own priest business is mere seeming, and the
dumb things that run and fly worship God more
truly than they do.
SPURIOUS WORSHIP.
1t Is gross materiallsm that looks higher than
the level of the eyes and lower than the pit OF the
stomach. There is one God to such natures and his
s that they got from their godfathers and god
mothers in their baptism; one supreme service and
you spell it with four letters 4 L f; grand
and that is to look after the first person
gular and one thing to which they look forward
when they get through, aud that is leap in the
dark.
Now this have taken for my instauce-this
warrior. statesman. king and poet possessed q su-
perb intellect II to judge OF his brain by its
momentum after three milleniums land know of
other way to it) websters hat would
have been to small for him. and Dickens has
exquisite glance for the purple glory of the noun
tains. nor did Wordsworth cast more loving eye
the meanest flower that grows, or Coleridge under
stand better how
lie lovcth who loveth bcst
All things both great and small
or Goethe takes it all into wider and sweeter SYM
pathy Read this mans nobler psalms and you read
his nobler heart and feel that II one lived who
could lind food for worship In nature here was the
nan. He heard Gods voice in the thunder and saw
His glance In the lightning, and saw Him come iy
ing all abroad, with cherubim and seraphim as the
cedars swung ana swayed in the mighty tempest.
and heard whisper of His presence in the breath
which first lifted the leaf on the slender spray lie
fronted the earthquake with steady eyes when
Lebanon was bowing to Carmel. because he knew
what hand held their sunless pillars deep in earth,
and kept the world steady and true through it
all Here, then, was man who, of all men. could
sfford to say the house OF the Lord every here
there Is no need TO wend me to tho congregation on
Zion; other mon may need such services / do not.
He had no such subtle foe to fight or had got it
under The old deep instinct for worship held good.
He had seen the good of 1t revealed thousand times
in his own experience, when he in sorrow or n
vast perplcxity or found his life like 'swoet bells
tangled out of tune and harsh"
FOR THE EXAMPLES SAKE.
Or he might be able to worship alone, but there
were some millions of people all about him who
must cleave to these things they would lose track
OF the better life; and because he human and
considerate he would help to maintain these things
one of the nobcst boons ho could confer on his
kind and the very drst element in such mai ntenance
was his own personal presence. For he might talk
OF the good OF such things for those who need them
till doomsday and pour out money like the prince he
was, yet IL he said go to church, not to church.