The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1886-10-21


the crew are asleep in the hammocks. TIL,
most Of the metal is under the hills. Oh
is it not time for the church Of God Il
rouse up and understand that we want al
the energies, all the talent and all tn,
wealth enlisted for Christ's sake2 l like
the nickname that the English soldiers
gave to Blucher, the commander. They
called him "Old Forwards" We have
had enough retreats in the church o.
Christ; let us have a glorious advance
An say to you as the General said
VIII EN- his troops were afRrighted; rising
up in his stirrups, his hair flying in the
wind, he lifted up his voice until twenty
thousand troops heard him, crying out:
"Forward, the whole linep
We want all the laymen enlisted. Minis.
ters are numerically. too small. They dc
the best they can. They arc the mos
overworked class on earth. Mon OF
them of die of dyspepsia 1ecause til can
not get tho right kind of food sFSat, or get.
ting the right kind are 30 Jrrie1 that they
take 1t 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
o"iginate enough thought for three or four
tunes year. Ministersr enough
calls in 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 a
burden to bear. 1t is not hard study that
makes ministers look pale. 1t is the in :
finity of Interruptions and deliberations to
which they are subjec ted. If die before
my time, 1t will be at the hand of commits
tees that want an address or lecture. A
man called on me to give him a lecture by
which he might pay the expenses
of his wedding trip. If there were
fifty hours in each day of the year, and
l worked forty of them, could not
do the work Of this one parish, and 1 am
not behind most clergymen in disposition
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
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
US 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
jority of churches are at their wits end
how to carry ON q prayer meeting IL the
minister is not there, when there ought to
be enough pent-up energy and religious
force to make meeting go on with such
power that the minister would never be
missed. The church stands working the
pumps of few ministerial cisterns until
the buckets are dry and 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
God, decide whether our children shall
grow up amid the accursed surroundings
of vice and 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 and wCmen to save the
city, we act the coward OF the drone. |
wish l could put enough moral explos ives
under the conventionalties and majestic
stupidities 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 the world to him, we might
move upon the enemy's works. For lit
tie while Heaven would no5 have trumpets
enough to celebrate the victory.
Again, learn from this subject that
we sometimes do we'll to take advantage
of the worlds sharpening instruments.
These Israelites were reduced to a 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 had 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 grindstones.
ploy the worlds grindstonesi If there be
art, If there be logic, if there be business
faculty on the other side, let us go over and
employ itfor Christ's sake. The fact Is, we
fight with too dull weapons, and we work
with too dull implements. We hack and
we maui when we ought to make keen
stroke. Let us go over among sharp busi-
o1, 10,
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 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
experiments, and we viii 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. G amaliel, but
afterward, standing on Mars Hill, and In
crowded thoroughfare, quoted their poetry,
and grasped their logic, and welded their
eloquence, and employed their my thology,
un til Dionysius, the Areopagits, 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 nd 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 forced it into the service Of
eod, until not only the old meeting house
IA NN.aA.S a