The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-10-22

time for the mining to begin, and the pick.
axes to plunge, and for this buried metal
to be brought out and put into the fur.
naces, and be turned into howitzers and
cnrbines for tie Lords host: The vast
majority OF Christians in this day are
useless. The most of the LORDS battalion
belong to the reserve corps. The most Of
the crew are asleep in the hammOcks. The
most Of the metal 10 under the hills. Oh,
Is it not time for the church Of God to
rouse up and understand that we want oil
the energies, all the talent and all the
wealth enlisted for Christ's sake? like
the nickname that the English soldiers
gave to Butcher, the commander. They
called him "Old Forwards" We have
had enough retreats in the church OF
Christ; let US have o glorious advance.
And I 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
tbc-sand troops heard him, crying out:
Forward, the whole lineF
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 die Of dyspepsia because they can
not get the right kind of food to eat, or get
ting the right kind are SO worried that they
take It down in chunks. They die of con-
sumption coming from early and late OK.
uosure. II novelist or historian publishes
one book year he is considered indus
trious. But every fruitful pastor must
originate enough Thought for three or four
volumes year. Ministersrecsi enough
calls In q year from men who have maps,
and medicines, and lightning rods, and
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 q
burden to bear. 1t 10 not hard study that
makes ministers look pale. It Is the in
finity of Interruptions and deliberations to
which they are subjected. II die before
my time, it will be at the hand Of commit-
tees that want an address or lecture. A
man called on me to give him lecture by
which he might pay the expenses
of his wedding trip. II there were
fifty hours in each day of the year, and
worked forty Of them, could not
do the work Of this one parish, and am
not behind most clergymen in disposition
to toll. Numerically too small, it Is no
moro the work OF the pulpit to convert and
save the world than it is the work of the
pew. II men go to ruin there will be as
much blood on your skirts as on mine.
Let us quit this grand farce Of trying to
save the world by few clergymen, and
let all hands lay hold of the work. Give
~ 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. A vast ma.
tority of churches are at their wits end
how to carry on q prayer.meetin, IL the
minister is not there, when there ought to
lie enough pent-up energy and religious
force to make meeting 90 on with such
power that the minister would never he
missed. The church stands working the
pumps Of few ministerial cisterns until
the buckets are dry and choked, lille
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
God, decide whether our children shall
grow up amid the accursed surround nss
Of vice anil shame or come to an in
heritance Of righteousness. Long, loud,
bitter will be tbs curse that scorches our
grave il, holding within tho church to.
day enough mon and wcmsn to save the
city, we act tbs 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 all the churches,
knowing nothing but Christ and desire
to bring all tn. world to him, we might
move upon the enemv's works. For lit.
tie while Heaven would not have trumpets
enough to celebrate the victory.
Again, Ilearn from this subject that
We sometimes do we'll to take advantage
of the worlds sharpening instruments.
These Israelites were reduced to q file
and so 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
1 read at the beginning of the service
that they hGd no other instruments now
with which to do this work, and the Is.
raelites did right when they went over to
the Philistines to use their grind stones.
Nv friends is it not right for Us to en-
ploy the worlds grindssones? II there be
art, il there be logic, il there be business
faculty on the other side, let US go over and
employ It for Christ's sake. The fact is, We
fight with too dull weapons, and We work
with too dull implements. We hack md
We maui when We ought 70 make keen
stroke. Let US go over among sharp BUSH
ness men, and among sharp literary men,
and find out what their tact is, and then
transfer | { to the cause Of Christ. II they
have science and art it will do us good to
ru against it.
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
sni We will borrow their
printing presses to publish our Bibles, and
we will borrow their rail trains tn carry
our Christi"n literature, and We will bor-
row their ships TO transport our mission
aries. That was what made Paul such a
m aster in his day. Henot only got nil the
lie could get of DR.. G amaliel, but
standing on Mars Hill, and in
thorouchfare, quoted their poetry.
and graspei their logic, and welded their
eloqucnce, and employed their my thology,
IN til Dionysius, the Areopagite, learned
in the schools of Athens and Heliopolis,
went down under his tremendous
powers. That was what gave
Chalmers his power
in his day. He conquered the worlds as.
and compelled it to ring out the
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