The leader., 1889-10-12

law and medicine and art and scholarship
What schools and colleges and universities!
What women radiant and gracious, and an
improvement on all the generations of women
since Eve! What philanthropists who dc
not feel satisfied with their own charities
until they get into the hundreds of thousands
and the millionsI What Goods acres" for
the dead, gardens of beauty and palaces OF
marble for those who sleep the last sleep!
Now stop your SANDER of American cities.
Do you say they are the centres of crime
and political corruption? Please ad-
NIT the fact that they are centers of intelli-
gence and generosity and the mightiest pa
irons of architecture and sculpture and paint
ing and music and reservoirs of religious in.
fluence for all the continent. 1t will be well
for the country districts to cease talking
against the cities, and it will be well for the
city of one locality to stop talking against
the cities of other localities. New York will
not get the Worlds Fair by depreciating
Chicago, and Chicago will not get the
Worlds Fair by bombarding New York.
Another suggestion concerning the coming
exposition: let not the materialistic and
monetary idea overpower the moral and reli-
glouS During that exposition, the first time
in all their lives, there will be thousands of
people from other lands who will see coun-
try without a state religion. Let us, by an
increased harmony among all denominations
of religion, impress other nationalitles, as
they come here that year, with the superior
advantage of having all denominations
equal in the sight of government. All the
rulers and chief men of Europe belong
to the state religion, whatever it may
oe. Although our last two Presidents have
been PreSbyterians, the previous one was an
Episcopalian; and the two previous Metho-
dists; and going further back in that line of
Presidents, we find Martin Van Buren, a
Dutch Reformed; and John Quincy Adams
a Unitarian. and mans rnlipiOn this
country is neither hindrance nor advantage
i'll the matter of political elevation All
Europe needs that. All the world needs that.
A mans religion is something between him
self and his God, and it must not directly or
indirectly be interfered with.
Furthermore during that exposition,
Christian civilization will confront bar
barism. We shall as a nation have a
greater opportunity to make an evange-
lzing impression upon foreign nation
alities tl,an would otherwise be afforded
us in quarter OF a century. Let
the churches of the city where the
exposition is held be open every day,
and prayers be offered and sermons
preached and doxologies sung. In the
less than three years between this and
that worlds convocation, let us get bap-
tism of the Holy Ghost, so that the six
months of that worlds fair shall be fifty
PentecOsts in one, and instead of three thou
sand converted, as in the former Pentecost,
hundreds of thousands will be converted.
You must remember that the Pentecost
mentioned in the Bible occurred when there
was no printing press no books, no Chris
tian pamphlets, no religious newspapers,
and yet the influence was tire
mendous. How many nationalities
were touched? The account says:
''Parthians and Medes and Elamites,"
that is, people from the eastern countries:
{ D. IL IL
ern countries; "Cyrene and strangers of
Rome, Cretes and Arabians," that is, the
southern countries but they were all moved
by the mighty spectacle. Instead of the
sixteen or eighteen tribes of people reported
at that Pentecost. all the chief nations of
Europe and Asia, North and South America,
will be represented at our worlds fair in
1892, and Pentecost here and then would
mean the salvation of the round world.
But, you say, we may have at that fair the
people of all lands and all the machinery for
gospelization, the religious printing presses
and the churches, but all that would not
make PentecOst; we must have God. Well,
you can have Him. Has He not been gra-
ciously waiting and nothing stands in the
way but our own unbelief and Incidence anu
sin. May God break down the barriers! The
grandest opportunity for the evangel-
ization of all nations since Jesus
Christ died on the cross will
be the worlds exposition of
1892 God may take us out of the harvest
field before that, but let it be known through
put Christendom that that year, between
May and November, will be the mountain
of Christian advantage, the Alpine and
Himalayan height of opportunity overtop-
ping all others for salvation. Instead of the
slow process of having to send the
Gospel to other land by our own Ameri-
can missionaries, who have difficult
toll in acquiring the foreign language and
then must contend with foreign prejudices,
what grand thing to have able and infiu-
ential foreigners converted during their visit
in America and then have them return to
their native lands with the glorious tidings!
Oh, for an overwhelming work of grace for
the year 1892 that work beginning in the
autumn of 1887
Another opportunity, if our public men
see it, and it is the duty of pulpit and print
ing press tc nelp them to see it, will be the
calling at that time and place of legal
peace congress for all nations. The conven
tion of representatives from the Govern
ments of North and South America, now at
Washington, is only type of what we may
have on vast and world wide scale at
the international exposition of 1892.
By one stroke the gorgon of war might
be slaiE and buried SO deep that neither
trumpet or human dispute or or arcn-angeIs
blowing could resurrect it. When the last
Napoleon called such congress of nations
many did not respond. and those that did re-
spond gathered wondering what trap that
willy destroyer of the French Republic and
the builder of French monarchy might
spring on them But what if the most popu-
lar government on earth-I mean the United
States Government-should practically say
to all nations: On the American continent,
in 1892, we will hold a worlds fair,
and all nations will send to it specimens of
their products, their manufactures and their
arts, and we invite all the Governments of
Europe, Asia and Africa to send representa-
tives to peace convention that shall be held
at the same time and place, and that shall
establish an international arbitration commits
sion to whom shall be referred all controver-
sizes between nation and nation, their decision
to be final, and so all nations would be re-