The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1886-10-14

wind, he lifted up his voice until 20, 600 troops
heard him crying out: HForward, the whole
Incl"
We want all the Iaymen enlisted Minis
ters are numerically too small. They do the
best they can. They are the most overworked
class on earth. Many of them die of dyspep-
sia because they cannot get the right kind of
food to eat, or getting the right kind are so
worried that they take it down in chunks
They die from consumption coming from
early and late exposure. If novelist or a
historian publishes one book year he is con-
sidered industrious. But every faithful pas
tor must originate enough thought for three
or four volumes year.
Ministers receive enough calls in year
from men who have maps, and medicines,
and lightning rods, and pictures to sell to e1-
haust their vitality They are bored with
agents of all sorts. They are set in draughts
at funerals, and poisoned by the unventilated
rooms of invalids and waited upon by COM
mittees who want addresses made, until life
becomes a burden to bear. It is not hard
study that makes ministers look pale 1t is
the infinity of Interruptions and deliberations
to which they nre subjected. If 1 die
before my time, it win be at the
hand of committees that want an address or
a lecture. A man called ON me to give him
lecture by which he might pay the expenses
of his wedding trip. If there were fifty
hours in each day of the year, and worked
forty of them, I could not do the work of this
one parish, and l am not behind most clergy
men in disposition to toll Numerically too
small. 1t 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
-
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 majority of churches are at their
wits end how to carry on q prayer meeting
if the minister is not there, when there
ought to be enough pent up energy
and religious force to make a meet
ing go on with such power that the
minister would never be missed. The church
stands working the pumps of a few ministerial
cisterns until the buckets are dry and choked,
while there are thousands of fountains from
which might be dipped up the waters of
eternal lifel Before you and have the sod
pressing our eyelids we viii, under God, de-
eide whether our children shall grow up amid
the accursed surroundings of vice and shame
or come to an inheritance of righteousness
Long, loud, bitter viii be the curse that
scorches our grave if, holding within
the church to-day enough men and wo-
men to save the city, we act the
coward or the drone. l wish I could put
enough moral explosives under the conven-
tionalities 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
little while Heaven would not have trumpets
enough to celebrate the victories
III. Again, learn from this subject that
we sometimes do well 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
plnWs sharpened. The Bible distinctly states
1.-THE text which read at the beginning of
the services-that they had no other instru-
ments now with which to do this work, and
the Israelites did right when they went over
to the Philistines to use their grindstones
Ny friends, is it not right for US to employ the
worlds grindstonesl 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
Ghrist's sake. The fact is, we fight with too
duh weapons and we work with too dull i'm
plements We hack and we maui when we
ought to make keen stroke. Let US go over
among sharp business men and among sharp
literary men and find out what their tact is,
and then transfer it to the cause of Christ.
If they have science and art it viii do us good
to rub against it.
In other words, let us employ the worlds
grindstone We win listen to their music,
and we will watch their acumen, and we will
use their grindstones, and will borrow their
philosophical apparatus to make our expert
ments, and we VIII borrow their printing
presses to publish our Bibles, and we will
borrow their rail trains to carry our Chris
tan literature, and we viii borrow their
ships to transport our missionaries. That was
what made Paul such master in his day. He
not only got all the learning he could
get of DIR. Gamaliel, but afterward,
Standing on Mars hill and in crowded
thoroughfare, quoted their poetry, and
grasped their logic, and welded their
eloquenoe, and employed their mythology un-
til Dionysius, the Areopagite, 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 astronomy
and compelled it to ring out the wisdom and
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
God, until not enly the old meeting
house at Northampton, Massachusetts,,
but oil Christendom felt thrilled by his
Christian power. Well, now, my friends, we
all have tools of Christian power. Do not let
them lose their edges. We want no rusty
blades in this fight We want no coulter
that cannot rip up the glebe. We want no
ak that cannot fell the trees, We want nc
goad that cannot start the lazy team. Let
US get the very best grindstones we can find,
though they may be in possession OF the
Philistines, compelling them to turn the
crank while we bear down with all our might
on the swift revolving wheel, until all our
energies and faculties shall be brought up to
a bright keen. sharp, glitterlng edge.
". Again, my subject teaches US on what
a small allowance Philistine iniquity puts
man. Yes; these Philistines shut up the mines,
and then they took the spears and the
swords: then they took the blacksmiths,
then they took the grindstones, and they
took everything but file. oh, that IS the
way sin works; it grabs everythingi 1t be-
gins with robbery and ends with robbery.
1t despoils this faculty and that faculty, and
keeps on until the whole nature Is gone.
Was the man eloquent before, it gen
orally thickens his tongue. Was he
fine In personal appearance, it mars his yis-
age. Was he afiusnt, it sends the sheriff to
sell him out Was he influential, it destroys
his popularity. Was he placid, and genial,
and loving, it makes him splenetic and cross;
and 50 utterly is he changed that you can see
he is sarcastic and rasping, and that the Phil
istines have left him nothing but file.
Oh, "the way of the transgressor is hard!"
His cup is bitter. His night is dark. His
pangs are deep. BIS end is terrific. Philis-
tine iniauity says to that man; ::;;Now, surren7
der to me, and 1 viii give you all you want
music for the dance, swift steeds for the race,
imperial couch to slumber on, and you shall
be refreshed with the rarest fruits in baskets
of golden filagree.p He lies, The music
turns out to be groan. The fruits burst the
rind with rank poison. The filagree is made
up of twisted reptiles The couch is grave.
Small allowance of rest, small allowance of
peace, small allowance Of comfort. Cold,
hard, rough-nothing but a file. So it was
with Voltaire, the most applauded man of his
day.
r1, cs,-;,,+,.e, SIC Saet Iooly bo