The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1889-04-20
THE CLOSING CENTURY.
Christians Exhorted to Good Deeds
During the Next Decade.
United Christian Work Sure to Result in
the Worlds S~alvation-The Lord Ready
to Assist-The Power of Prayer
The Next Ten Years Work.

The Next Ten Years Work.
In alate sermon at Brooklyn Rev. I. Dc
Witt Talmage took his text from Revela-
lions xix. 4. amen; Alleluia." He
said:
Inc nineteenth century is departing.
After 1t has taken a few more steps, il
each year be a step, it shall be gone into
Che eternlties. In n short time we shall be
In the last decade of this century, which
TACT makes the solemnest book outside the
Bible the almanac, and the most suggest
I've and the most tremendous piece OF
machinery in the earth the clock. The
last decade of this century upon which we
shall soon enter will be the ~grandest,
mightiest and most decisive decade in all
chronologies. l am glad it is not to come
Immediately, for weneed by a new baptism
OF the Holy Ghost to prepare for it. The
last ten years of the nineteenth century,
may we all live to see them! Does any
one say that this division of time is arbi-
trary? Oh, no; in other ages the divisions
of time may nave been arbitrary, but
our years date from Christ. Does any one
say that the grouping of ten together is
an arrangement arbitrary? o, no; next
~ NV h6uAo oNCu, Sh Is 4 uOu q
favorite number. Abraham dwelt ten
years in Canaan. Ten righteous men
would nave saved Sodom. In the ancient
tabernacles were ten curtains, their pillars
ten and their sockets ten. In the ancient
temple were ten LAYERS and ten candle-
sticks, and ten tables and a molten sea of
ten cubits. And the commandments
written on the granite of Mount Sinai
were ten, and the kingdom of God was
to ten virgins, and ten men should
lay hold of him that was n jew, and the
reward of the greatly faithful is that they
shall reign over ten cities, and in the eff
fort to take the census of the New Jeru-
salem the number ten swings around the
thousands, crying ten thousand times
ten thousand" So l come to look toward
the closing ten years of the nineteenth
century with an intensity of interest 1 can
hardly describe.
1 have also noticed that the favorite time
in many of the centuries for great events
was the closing fragment of the century.
Is America to be discovered it must be in
the last decade of the fifteenth century,
namely, 1892. Was free constitutional
Government to be well established In
America, the last years of the eighteenth
century must achieve 1t. Were three
CAoACo w 10 III kcu ny Ouo pllCu VI
scori@, Herculaneum and StrabiD and
Pompeii in the latter part of the first GEN.
tuary must go under. The fourth century
closed with the most agitating ecclesias-
tical war of history, Urban the Sixth
against Clement the Seventh. Alfred the
Great closes the ninth century and
Edmund Ironsides the tenth century
with their ~resounding deeds. The six
teenth century closed with the establish
ment of religious independence in the
United Netherlands. Aye, almost every
century has had its peroration of overflow
ering achievements. As the closing years
OF the centuries seem n favorite time for
great scenes Of emancipation or disaster,
md as the number ten seems n favorite
number IN the Scriptures written by divine
direction, and as we are soon to enter up
on the last ten years of the nineteenth
century, what does the world propose?
What does the Church of Christ propose?
What do reformers propose? l know not;
but now In the presence of thisc onsecrated
assembly l propose that we make ready,
get all our batteries planted aud all our
plans we'll laid in what remains of this
decade and then In the last decade of the
nineteenth century, march up and take
thisr round world for God
When l say We mean tie Al ni<&8
million Christians <f1 "a
many e ti<s2 W.
to 5[ Ezt naay Of Them
Nef: the Fight stuff and he
pr zSsu Z military order saying:
r3fhosoeveris fearful and afraid let him
reinrn and depart early from Gilead," and
80 arkrr-tuya fhnroo nd ,yara afraf1 ~ rat
ting hurt and went home and only ten
thousand were left and God told them that
even this reduced number was too large a
number, for they might think they had
triumphed Independently of divine help,
and so the number must be still further re-
duced and only those should be kept in the
ranks who In passing the river should be
so In haste for victory over their enemies
that, though very thirsty, they would
without stopping a second just scoop up
the water in the palm of their right hand
and scoop up the water in the palm of
their left hand, and only three hundred
men did that, and those three hundred men
with the battle shout, THE sword of the
Lord and of Gideon" scattered the Mid
ianites like caves in an equinox.
So out of the five hundred million NOM
inal Christians of to-day let all unbeliev-
ers and towards go home and get out of
the way.
Il 1t audacious for me to propose it? o.,
mo-; q captive servant in the kitchen of
Naaman told the commander-in-chief
where he could get rid Of the blotches of
his awful leprosy and his complexion be-
came as fair as a babes. . .
And so l. "who am less than the least of
all saints" propose a short cut to victory
and am willing to be the expectoration on
some blind eye and tell some of the brig
adler-generals of the Lord of hosts how
this leprosied world may in the inal de-
cade OF the nineteenth century ave its
flesh come again as the flesh of a little
child.
Il there any thing in prophecy to hinder
this speedy contamination? No. Some
n begins to quote from Daniel about
shines, time and a half time," and takes
from Revelations the seven trumpets,
blowing them all at once in my ear. But
with utmost reverence | take up all the
prophecies and hold them toward heaven
and say God never will stop consecrated
effort and holy determination and mag
nifcent resolve, and that il the Church of
God will rise up to its full work it can
make Daniels time twenty years and his
half time ten years.
In one sense God never changes His
mind. being the same yesterday, to-day
and forever. But in another sense He does
change His mind and times without num-
Der every day, and that is when His people
pray. Didn't He change His mind about
Ninevehi By Gods command Jonah, al
the top of his voice, while standing on the
steps of the merchants exchange and the
paiatial residences of that city, cried out:
yet forty days and Nineveh shall he
overthrow" Was it overthrown in forty
daysi No. The people gave up their sine
and cried for mercy, and though Jonah got
mad becanse his whole course of sermon
mad been spoiled and weat into q disgrace
full pouting, we have the record so sublime
! can not read it without feeling a nervous
chill run through me: "God saw their
works and they turned from their evil way
and God repented OF the evil that He had
said He would do unto them and He did 1t
not" God is a father, and some OF Us
know what that means, and some time
when we have promised chastisement and
the child has deserved it, tue little darling
has put her arms around our neck and ex-
pressed such sorrow and such promises Of
doing better that her tears landed on the
lips of our kiss, and we held her a
half hour after on our knee and would as
soon think of slapping an angel in the face
as Of even striking her with the weight of
our little finger. God is a father, and
while He has promised this world scourg-
ings, though they were to be for q thou
years or five thousand years, he
would, IL the world repented, substitute
benediction and divine caress. God
changed His mind about Sodom six times.
The whole trouble is that we put off the
completion OF the worlds redemption to
such long and indefinite distances. The