The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1882-04-13


Oh could sound the glories forth.
That In my Savior shine?'
SUBJECT: 'INGERsoLL's LAST QUESTION
RELIGIOUS ANXIETIES."
TExT-Acts xvi, 30: "Sirs, what must
do to be saved?"
The last week the board fences, the
stone walls, the street cars of Brooklyn
and New York have had displayed on
them the subject of Mr.. IngersOlPs lee
ture: "Whst must | do to be saved?'
The celebrated infdel has asked the
question and answered it in his own
way. Of course, the allusiOn of the lee
ture was to the scene of my text, but L
warrant the facetiOus lecturer asked the
question in different mood from that in
which it was originally prOpOunded,
and the audience who heard the ques-
ton last week was very different from
the one which first heard it. The audi
ence who heard it last Tuesday and
Wednesday nights in Steinway Hall and
Academy of Music were comfortable i'll
elegant buildings, To which audience
room they had been admitted after pay
ing fifty or seventy-ive cents to hear
the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ de-
famed and ridiculed. | would rather
pay fifty cents for almost anything than
to hear Christ inSulted. | would rather
pay fifty cents to hear my dear brother
or sister or father or mother DETAINED
than to pay fifty cents to hear the reli-
giOn of Jesus Christ DETAINED. Fifty
cents is not much, but would that such
an entertainment was costing us too
much. There was an unimaglnable
difference between the scene at Stein
way Hall and the scene of the text. In
the cell of Phillipian dungeon, place
cold, dark, hideOus, unillumined save by
the torches of an official who comes to
see if they are alive yet, are two minis
ters of the Gospel, their feet fast in an
instrument of torture, their shoulders
dripping from the stroke of leathern
thongs, their mouths hot with intlamma-
tiOn of thirst, their heads faint because
they may not lie down. All the cOrrl-
dOrs of the prison are silent in the dark
ness, save as some murderer struggles
with his dream or some Tutlian turns
over in his chains, or you hear the cough
of some dying cOnsumptiye. In the
same building, but on comfortable
couch, ,,sleeps paid officer of the Govern
ment, whose business it is to supervise
the prisoners. / take it that the man
was respectable, or he would not have
been entrusted with such responsibility.
In the darkness God lays his hand on
that stOut-built penitentiary. At mid
night crash goes the prison wall and
Paul and Silas, the incarcerated clergy
men, are freed. The supervisor, though
for long while accustomed to the dark
ness and horrors that hover around dun
geOns, is startled beyond bounds and
Tushes in, fambeau in hand, amid the
falling walls, and throws himself down
before the Christian prisoners, crying:
What must | do to be saved?"
There must be hundreds of Christian
men and women in this house with more
or less earnestness asking the same ques-
tiOn. l meet you in the tremendous
crisis with a message from heaven.
There may be some here who could sur
pass me in strength of argument; many
who could draw upon larger resources
of knowledge, and dive in deeper pro-
Pounds of science. There are many be-
fore whom would be willing to bow as
the inferior to the superior; but in one
thing yield to none who are before me,
and that is the desire to have your souls
redeemed by the power Of the 0mnipOt-
ent Gospel, and with an all-cOnquering
desire that sometimes well nigh takes
away my utterance, | stand here to beg
your acceptance of life eternal. l pro-
ceed to characterize the question of the
agitated jail keeper: First, | remark,
1t was courteous question. He did not
you VagabOnds, what are you doing with
my prison? Go back to your places, you
desperadOes. have had enough trouble
with you. After destroying the peace of
our city with your infamous doctrines,
you are now trying to break Jail" No
such words did he utter. That word of
four letters, "Sirs," was equivalent to
Lords. 1t recognizes their manhood
and the honor of their mission. If we
come with a captious spirit to inquire
about the way to heaven we can expect
no light. If We begin by saying the
PROFESSORS of religion are hypOcrites and
the church is a fraud, and by making
inquiries about the mysterious
and inscrutable, saying, "COme, my wise
man, explain this and explain that" we
might better make no inquiry at all. 1t
was decent and gentlemanly and de-
terential mode Of address when the Jail
keeper cried out to his apostolic prison
ers, "Sirsr'
Again, it was practical question. He
might have asked his distinguished
prisoners why God let sin come into the
world, or how it was possible for the
Jesus of whom they preached to be both
God and man; or what they meant by
the DEGREES, or who Cain married, or
what was the cause of earthquakes. No.
He hurls one question hot from the heart
into the ear of the apostle, and that an
inquiry of present and everlasting safe
ty. Multitudes of men want to be Chris
tians, but they have five thousand ques-
tiOns to ask about the nom essential.
They search the Bible for queer things
and for contested things. They have all
their lives been fishing for swapping
turtles. What if man should have 50
many questions to ask about light and
heat that he should sit in a dark room
all his life instead of going out to see
the one and feel the OtheTP Yet there
are men in such indebtedness about
the chemistry of the Gospel that year
after year, they shut themselves in the
dungeon of their unbelief when God has
all the time been calling them to come
out into the noOntide light and warmth
of the sun of Righteousness. The ques-
tion you are most interested in is not
whether Calvin or Arminius was right,
not whether in holy ordinance hand
full Of water or baptistry is the better,
not whether fOreordination and free
agency can be recOnciled, but where are
you going to spend eternity.
Further, / characterize the question
of the jail-keeper as personal to himself
suppose he had hundreds of friends
some of them good, some bad. He die
not ask about them. / suppose there
were men in the wards of that prison
unfit to die, and if the wall during the