Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1888-02-03

in Rockingham and Augusta counties, but in
every county in Virginia. IT'S we'll to call at.
tention to this and similat cases. but when the
writer goes further and says: ''It does seem
that it would not be a bad plan, if both can
not be carried on successfully, to give the for
eign heather a vacation, and attend to the
one at our DOORS" we cannot but think that
he has made suggestion calculated to do IN
told harm. and as regards the true spirit of
Christianity, he has certainly missed the mark
by wide range. This suggestion, as every
pastor knows, is one which the weaker and
illiberal Christians will be eager to seize in de-
tense OF their ownstinginess, and will repeat
it as an excuse for not contributing of their
means to carry the Gospel into the regions
beyond.
There is another side to this statement
made by the criminal Whose fault was it
that he had never been to Sunday School,
never heard sermon, or prayer? At whose
door lies the blame ? | am not sufficiently
acquainted with the section where this man
lived to make a pos ti0e statement, but l am
not afraid to venture the assertion that within
SIX or eight miles of his home, at the most,
there is some evangelical church, and if not a
church, at least school house in which occa-
slonal preaching, services, prayer-meetings,
and Sunday Schools have been held. In fact,
the criminal himself is reported to have said:
| II have been around churches but never IN
one." AS friend suggests, a person can
| scarcely locate anywhere within the borders
! of Rockingham and Augusta counties, and
| not be within eight miles of some church.
Men will walk eight and even ten miles to
circus or an election or whiskey shop, and
| such distance need be no hindrance if they
| have desire to hear the Gospel. Not long
ago we were informed by Missionary in
! China that an old woman and her daughters
walked eighteen miles to hear the Gospel.
| Again, most if not all of 'the fourteen
Evangelical denominations in the Valley to
which the writer alluded, have in their en-
ploy many faithful colporteurs and bible
agents, who go from house to house to talk
with the unconverted about their SOULS saliva
ton. and pray with them, and if it happens
| that this man had been overlooked, he is
among a very small class. In addition to all
this, think of the wide circulation of the Bible
itself, copies of which can be obtained for a
few cents, and are even given away to those
too poor to buy, this word of truth which God
| In his mercy has made 50 plain that .''wayfar-
ing men, though fools, shall not err therein"
| What privileges then are these which this man
| had, as compared with the heather who have
| none at ALL not even the "blessed Bible to
give them the light" The simple fact is that
; this man, who seemed to have been STEPPED in
| vices and hardened in sin, had not availed
himself of the privileges and opportunities af-
|
| is like too many others in this Valley and all
over this country of ours, who are UNWILLING
to attend Sunday school, preaching of the
gospel, &C., that they might be blessed The
| two "public officers of Augusta county" re-
ferred to were right in saying that ''you could
find them in almost any part of the county"
Less than one week ago, healthy man of
| about fifty years of age said to me: 81 have
not been inside of church for fourteen years
| md T NJ he 81 two
hands the number of times 1 have been to
! church in the last thirty years" Yet this man
| has lived all this time within one mile of two
! churches, where the sound of the church bells
reaches his ear every Sabbath day. and more
| than this he was reared by parents who pro-
| fessed to be Christians. The writer of this
article can parallel this statement with anoth-
er even more appalling, VIZ, that IN a city of
| one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants,
| where churches Cab be counted by the hun
| dred, he met woman who said she had not
! been inside of church for twenty four years.
We have not written this article with view
| to justify any of our evangelical churches in
their failure of duty toward their fellow citi-
| zens for many churches as we'll as many iudi-
! vidual Christians have come far short of their
duty to the heather at their own doors"
There is without doubt abundant room for in
creased zeal in spreading the Gospel in our
own land, yea, in our own county if you
please But we do not like the suggestion of
| giving the foreign heather a vacation"
/ especially with the command before us, eco
into all the world and preach the Gospel to
| every creature" and also when in such a
vacation, hundreds and thousands without the
knowledge of salvation are dying every hour.
If the restitution at home calls for an increase
of labor and greater expenditure of money,
how much more the destitution abroad! If
there are dark spots in Christian land like
ours, what must be the horror of midnight
blackness in that part of the world where there
are eight hundred and fifty millions of souls
who have never heard of God, Christ, or
Bible. G. G.. NJ,
Pastor