The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-11-11

puuliC BulQu ltieS Vi lGc udy INC III o"o
and make them bite the dust. If human
eloquence were consecrated to the Lord
Jesus Christ it would in few years per-
suade this whole earth to surrender to
God. There is enough un developed energy
in this one church to bring all Brooklyn
to Christ-enough undeveloped Christian
energy in the city of Brooklyn to
bring all the United States to Christ
enough of undeveloped Christian
energy in the Unitei States to bring the
whole world to Christ; but 1t is buried I'M
der strata of indifference. and under
whole mountains of sloth. Now, is 1T not
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
carbines for the Lords host? The vast
majority OF Christians in this day are
useless. The most of the LORDS battalion
belong 10 the reserve corps. The most of
the crew are asleep in the hammotk' The
most of the metal is under the hills. Oh,
is it not time for the church of God to
rouse up and understand that we want all
| the energies, all the talent and all the
wealth enlisted for Christ's sakes / like
the nickname that the English solliers
gave TO Butcher, the commander They
| called him "Old Forwards" We have
had enough retreats in the church of
| Christ; let US have a glorious advance,
And say TO you as the General said
VIII en- his troops were affrighted; rising
up in his s.irrups, his hair flying in the
| wind, he lifted up his voice until twenty
thousand troops heard him, crying out:
"Forward, the whole line!"
We want all the laymen enlisted. Minis
tiers 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 ex.
| posture. If novelist or historian publishes
| one book a year he is considered indus
trious. But every fruitful pastor must
| originate enough thought for three or four
| volumes year. Ministers receive euoug h
calls in year from men who have maps,
and medicines, and lightning rods, md
pictures to sell, to exhaust their vitality.
They are bored with agents of oil 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 subjected. If l die before
my time, it will be at the hand of commit
tees that want an address or a lecture. A
man c'lled 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
l worked forty of them, l could not
do the work of this one parish, and am
not behind most clergymen in disposition
to toll. Numerically too small, it is nc
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 tt
save the world by a few clergy 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. Ii
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 enc
bow to carry on a prayer meeting if tn,
minister is not there, when there ought Il
be enough pent-up energy AMI religious
force to make meeting go on with sucf
power that the minister would never l.,
missed. The church stands working til,
pumps of few ministerial cisterns unit
the buckets are dry and choked, VIII il,
there are thousands of fountains from
} which there might be dipped up the waters
of eternal life! Before you and have tn,
sod pressing our eyelids we will, unde
II God, decide whether our children shall
grow up amid the accursed surrounding
of vice AMI shame or come to an in
heritance of righteousness. Long, loud
, bitter will be the curse that scorches gu
!; grave If, holding within the church to
, day enough men and women to save thu
city, we act the coward or the drone.
wish | could put enough moral explosive
, under the conventonalties and majesti
stup idities of the day TO blow them t.
atoms, and that then, with fifty thousan,
men and women from all the churches
knowing nothing but Christ and desir
to bring all the world to him, we nigh
move upon the enemy's works. For lit
tie while Heaven would not have trumpet
enough to celebrate the victory.
MY friends is it not right for US to EN-
, ploy the worlds grindstones? If there b
art, if there be logic, if there be bushes
faculty on the other side let us go over ant
, employ it for Christ's sake. The fact is, w
: fight with too dull W eapons, and we wor
with too drill implements. We hack an
we maui when we ought to make kee
! stroke. Let US go over among sharp bust
ness men, and among sharp literary men
and find out what their tact is, and the
transfer it to the cause of Christ. If the,
> have science and art it will do us good t
ru b against it.
a In other words, let US employ the world
. grindstone. We will listen to their music
and we will watch their acumen, and W
! will use their grindstone; and will borro,
t their philosophical apparatus to make on
experiments, and we will borrow thei
printing presses to publish our Bibles, an
: we will borrow their rail trains to carr
9 our Christian literature, and we will Dor
g row their ships to transport our mission
], aries. That was what made Paul such