The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-07-16

| to reap! So that | state it as q simple fact
that all the time that the vast majority of
you will have for the exclusive service of
God will be less than one year.
"But," says one man, 81 literally sup
port the Gospel, and the Church is open
and the Gospel is preached; all the spirit
ual advantages are spread before men, and
if they want to be saved let them come to
be saved; l have discharged all my re-
sponsibility." All, is that the Masters
spirit? Is there not an old book somewhere
that commands US to go out into the high
ways and the hedges and compel the peo-
pie to come in? What would have become
of yoU and me if Christ had not come
down off the hills of Heaven and if he had
net come through the door of the Bethle-
hem caravansary, and if He had not with
the crushed hand of the crucifxion knocked
at the iron gate of the sepulcher OF
our spiritual death, crying: " Lazarus,
come forth?" o, my Christian friends,
this is no time for inertia when
all the forces of darkness seem
to be in full blast, when steam printing
presses are publishing infdel tracts,
when express railroad trains are carrying
messengers of sin, when fast clippers are
laden with opium and ruin, when the
night air of our cities is polluted with the
laughter that breaks up from the ten
thousand saloons of dissipation and aban-
donmont, when the fires of the second
death already are kindled in the cheeks OF
some who only little while ago were in
corrupt. Oh, never since the curse fell
upon the earth has there been a time when
it was such an unwise, such a cruel, such
an awful thing for the Church to sleep.
The great audiences are not gathered in
the Christian churches; the great audi
ences are gathered in temples of sin
tears of unutterable woe their baptism,
the blood of cherished hearts the awful
wine of their sacraments, blasphemies
their litany and the groans of the lost
world the organ dirge of their worship.
NOT vAcILLATIoN, BUT GROWTH.
Again, if you want to be qualified to
meet the duties which this age demands of
you you must, on the one hand, avoid reck-
less iconoclasm, and, on the other hand,
not stick too much to things because they
are old. The air is full of new plans, new
projects, new theories of government, new
theologies, and l am amazed to see how so
many Christians want only novelty in or
| der to recommend a thing to their conf
dence; and SO they vacillate and swing to
and fro, and they are useless and they are
unhappy. New plans - secular, ethical,
philosophical, religious, els Atlantic,
transatlanic-long enough to make line
reaching from the German universities to
great Salt Lake City.
There was a time when men derided
even Bible societies, and when few young
men met near a hay stack in Massachusetts,
and organized the first missionary society
ever organized in this country there went
laughter and ridicule all around the Chris
tian Church. They said the undertaking
was preposterous, and so, also, the work OF
Jesus Christ was assaulted. People cried
out: "Who ever heard of such theories OF
| ethics and government? Who ever noticed
| such style of preaching as Jesus has?''
| Ezekiel had talked of mysterious wings
and wheels. Here came a man from
Capernaum and Gennesaret, and he drew
his illustrations from the lakes, from the
sand, from the ravine, from the lilies
from the corn stalks. How the Pharisees
scoffed! How Herod derided! How Judas
Missed. And this Jesus they plucked by
the beard, and they spat in His face, and
they called Him ''this fellow
All the great enterprises in and
out of the Church have al
times thus been scoffed at, and
there have been a great multitu lie who
have thought that the chariot of Gods
truth would fall to pieces if it once got out
of the old rut. And 50 there are those who
have no patience with any thing like i'm
provement in church architecture, or with
any thing like good, hearty, earnest church
singing, and they deride any form of re-
ligious discussion which goes down walk.
ing among every day men rather than that
which makes an excursion on rhetorical
stills. Oh, that the Church of God would
wake up to an adaptability of work. We
must admit the simple fact that the
churches of Jesus Christ in this day do not
reach the great masses. There are fifty
thousand people in Edinburgh who never
hear the Gospel. There are million peo-
pie in London who never hear the Gospel.
There are at least three hundred thousand
souls in the city of Brooklyn who come not
under the immediate ministrations of
Christ's truth; and the Church of God in
this day, instead of being a place full of
living epistles, read and known of all men,
is more like "dead-letter" pcst-office.
THE WORLD CONVERTING THE CHURCH.
But" say people, "the world is going
to be converted; you must be patient; the
kingdoms of this world are to become the
kingdoms of Christ" Never: unless the
Church of Jesus Christ puts on more
speed and energy. Instead of the Church
converting the world, the world is con-
verting the Church. Here is a great fort.
ress. How shall it be taken? An army
comes and sits around about it, cuts off the
supplies, and says: 'Now we will lust
wait until from exhaustion and starvation
they will have to give up" Weeks and
months, and perhaps year, pass along.
and finally the fortress surrenders through
that starvation and exhaustion. But. NV
friends, the fortresses of sin are never to
be taken in that way. If they are taken
for God it will be by storm. You will have
to bring up the great siege guns of the
Gospel to the very wall and wheel the fiy-
ing artillery into line, and when the armed
infantry of Heaven shall confront the hat
Elements you will have to give the Quick
command: Forward charge!o