The Brookhaven leader., 1886-10-21

the crew are asleep in the hammocks. The
most Of the metal Is under the hills. Oh,
| Is Il not time for the church Of God to
rouse up and understand that we want all
the energies, all the talent and ell the
wealth enlisted Tor Christ's sakef like
| the nickname that the English soldiers
gave to Butcher, the comma nder. They
called him "Old Forwards" We have
had enough retreats in the church of
| Christ; let US have q glorious advance.
An d say to you as the General said
| VIII en- his troops were affrighted; rising
up in his stirrups, his hair flying in the
wind, he lifted up his voice until twenty
| tho.sand troops heard him, crying out:
Forward, the whole linep
We want all the laymen enlisted. Minis
ters are numerically too small They do
the best they can. They are the most
overworked class on earth. Many Of
them of lie of dyspepsia because they can
not get the right kind of food to eat, or get
] ting the right kind are so worried thatthey
take II down in chunks. They die of con-
sumption coming from early and late ex-
posure. II a novelist or historian publishes
one book a year he Is considered indus
trious. But every fruitful pastor must
originate enough JnOupuI lot buTee Ut IbuT
volumes year. Ministersreceive enough
calls in a wear from men who have maps,
and medicines, and lightning rods, nd
pictures to sell, to exhaust their vitality.
They are bored with agents of all sorts.
They are set in draughts at funerals, and
poisoned by unventilated rooms or inval-
ids, and waited upon by committees who
want addresses made, until life becomes a
burden TO bear. II is not hard study that
makes ministers look pale. 1t is the in
fnity of Interruptions and deliberations 70
which they are bjec ted. If die before
my time, it will be at the hand of commits
tees that want an address or a lecture.
man lied on me to give him a lee ure by
which he might pay the expenses
of his welding trip. If there were
fifty hours in each day of the year, Lnd
/ worked forty of them, I could not
do the work OF this one parish. and am
not benin | most cler ymen in deposition
to toll. Numerically too small, it is no
more the work of the pulpit to convert and
save the world than it is the work of the
! pew. If men go to ruin there will be as
| Incch blood on your skirts as on mine.
! Let us quit this grand farce Of trying to
save the world by a few clergymen, and
let all hands lay hold of the work. Give
VS. in all our churches two or three aroused
and qualified men and women to help. In
most churches to-day five or ten men are
compelled to do all the work. vast ma
| jority of churches are at their wits end
| bow to carry on a prayer-meeting if the
minister is not there, when there ought to
! be enough pent-up energy anil religious
! force to make a meeting go on with such
| power that the minister would new lie
missed. The church stands working the
pumps of few ministerial ciSterns until
| the buckets are dry AMI choked, while
there are thousands of fountains from
which there might be dipped up the waters
of eternal life! Before you and have the
sod pressing our eyelids we will, under
! Tod, decide whether our children shall
| grow up amid the accurse1 surroun lin"s
! of vice anil shame or come to an in
heritance of righteousness. Long, loud,
/ bitter will be the curse that scorChes our
! grave if. holding within the church to-
/ day enough men AMI men to save the
city, we act the coward or the drone.
wish | could put enough moral explos ives
under the conventionalties and majestic
stup idities of the day TO blow them to
atoms, and that then, with fifty thousand
men and women from ell the churches,
knowing nothing but Christ ami desire
to bring all the world to him, we might
move upon the enemy's works. For lit.
tie while Heaven woull not have trumpets
enough to celebrate the victory.
Again, learn from this subject that
we sometimes do well to take advantage
of the worlds sharpening instruments.
These Israelites were reduced to q file,
and 50 they went over to the garrison OF
the Philistines to get their axes, and their
goads and their plows sharpened. The
Bible distinctly states 1.-THE text which
read at the beginning of tho service
that they had no other instruments now
with which to do this work, and the Is
raelites did right when they went over to
the PhIistines to use their grindsto |
NY friends is it not right for US to en-
ploy the wo dps grin lstones? If there be
art, if there be logic, if there be business
faculty on the other side, let us go over and |
employ it for Christ's sake. The fact is, we
fl hit with too dull W eapons, and we work
with too dull implements. We hack nd
we maui when we ought to make a keen
stroke. Let US go over among sharp bust
ness men, and among sharp literary men,
and find out what their tact is, and then
transfer 1t to the cause of Christ. If they
have science and art it will do us good to
rub against 1t.
In other words, let US employ the worlds
grindstone. We will listen to their music.
and we will watch their acumen, and we
will use their grindstone; and will borrow
their philosophical apparatus to make our
experiments, and we will borrow their
printing presses to publish our Bibles, and
we will borrow their rail trains to carry
our Christian literature, and we will bor-
row their ships to transport our mission
aries. That was what made Paul such
master in his day. Henot only got all the
learning he could get of DIR. q amaliel, but
afterward, standing on Mars Hill, and in
crowded thoroug hfare, quoted their poetry,
and graspe their logic, and welded their
eloquence and employed their my biology,
un til Dionysius, the Areopaglte, learned
in the schools of Athens and Heliopolis,
went down under his tremendous
powers. That was what gave
Thomas Chalmers his power
in his day. He conquered the worlds as
tronomy and compelled it to ring out the
wisdom nj greatness of the Lord, until
for the second time the morning stars
sang together, and all the sons of God
shouted for joy. That was what gave to
Jonathan Edwards his influence in his
day. He conquered the worlds meta
physics, and force it into the service of
God, until not only the old meeting house
at Northampton, Mass, but all Clristen-
dom, felt thrilled by his Christian power.