Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1888-06-21
ADDRESS OF WELCOME

ADDRESS OF WELCOME
By J. N. Basket to the Delegates
in Attendance at the late
8. 8. Convention.
hr. President and Gentlemen Of the State sun
day School Convention
/ am before you to-day as the
voice of welcome from the Christ
ian people of this city. We feel
thatwe have much to bid you well
come for. Surely, to US at least,
this is no ordinary occasion. When
the organized Sunday School effort
of q great State concentrates itself
for q few days in one small city
its influence should certainly be
felt. What power for good to any
people such meeting should
prove. You viii therefore take
our hospitality none the less pleas
antly, we trust, if we bring along
with it our gratitude for your pres
ence, and selfishly say we are glad
to see you because we know you
will do us good.
Our little city talks much of
what 1t needs, and We subscribe
large sums to this and that in the
hope that, by outside influence, we
may in some way be benefited.
Surely, when an institution like
yours rests for only short time in
our midst, overshadowlng us with
an umbrage that stimulates us to
growth in good, we can spare you
the morsel of a few days entertain
ment and the mite of a hearty
greeting. IF, then, for no other
.reason--and we trust we have other
reasons-we hail you gladly, and
extend to you our good cheer be-
cause we expect to get back your
good will, your good example and
the good stimulus of your pres
ence. What a helpful thing it
would be if I'VE could get more of
this And what joyous calling
yours would be if you could al
ways go about converting some
thing from beef and potatoes, bed
quilts and easy chairs, along with
CHEEKY welcomes, into all these
holy influences!
The demands of the material
world are inventions that convert
the raw products of the country in
to commercial and consumptive
commodities, and we laud highly
those who increase the country's
wealth in this direction. We hail
you, then, with your beneficent or
ganization, as ethical correlatives
of these great material inventors,
and bid you remember, as you en-
joy our bread and butter, seasoned
with the salt of our hospitality,
that while they may be only brain
and Drawn to you they are in
censed to us with all the qualities
of love and charity. You ma
terialize to us the words that che
that receiveth righteous man in
the name of a righteous man shall
have a righteous mans reward. %
We welcome you because of the
vast Importance of your work. A
heavy responsibility is resting on
the Sunday School and greater de-
mands for its extension are rising
every day. Substituted, as it is,
largely for the cateehism, it stands
to-day almost alone, and especially
to the young,as the teacher Of Gods
word. The church is devotional,
the church is evangelical, the
church is paramount, if you please,
but how many pulpits of to-day are
to any great extent expository?
Recently St. Louis reporter, in
order to get at the modern methods
of sermon building, obtained from
the prominent preachers of that
city their respective plans of
preaching. Among them all there
was not mode that was purely
expository-they were all either
topical or textual. Read the great
sermons of to-day; think ofthe dis
courses you hear, and how many of
them take up any portion of Gods
|, word, thought after thought, and
expound it in the divine sequence
and setting? Listen to Talmage,
as he breaches volumes on the
marriage ring" or the "privi-
1eges and prerogatives of woman"
listen to many of the modern
evangelists, as with impudence inn
puted as righteousness and buff
foonery as "the milk of the
word" they prostitute portions OF
scripture to the source of jest or
the base of vituperation; listen to
these more polished efforts, bril-
liant with elegance of thought,
charming with the graces of diction,
but headed only with a theme
and threaded only with fragments
from the holy book as though il
were nothing but a repository Of
texts or q table Of catch-words;
listen to all these and then, if you
will, remember that in Peters SER
mon at Pentecost, Stevens at the
stake and Philips to the Ethi-
opian, you can glimpse the whole
plan of Gods love from Ur of the
Chaldees to Calvary, you will see