Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1889-04-15
THE LAST DECADES.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE EvANGBLlZATION
OF THB WORLD.
Now IS the Accepted TIms-MOney and Means for
the Great Work are at Hand-Rsy. DR.. T.
DEWITT Tslmags's Sermon in Brook
lyn Tabernacle Yesterday.
Special Tlegraa 70 tie Register.


when gOspelized.
Text: Revelations xix, 4: "Amen: ALE.
lula"
The Nineteenth century is departing
After it has taken few more steps, il
each year be step, it will be gone into
the eternities. In short time we shall
be in the last decade of this century,
which fact makes the sOlemnest book out.
side the Bible the almanac, and the mos,
suggestive and the most tremendous piece
Of machinery in all the earth, the clock.
The last decade Of this century upon which
we shall soon entsr will be the grandest,
mightiest and most decisive decade in all
the chrOnOlOgies. am glad it is not to
come immediately, tor we need by a new
baptism Of ths Holy Ghost to prepare for
It. That last ten years of the
Nineteenth century may we all
live to see them Does any one
say that this division of time is arbitrary ?
Oh, no; in other ages the divisions of time
may have been arbitrary, bus our years
date from Christ. Does any one say thht
the grouping Of ten together is an arrange
ment arbitrary Oh, no; next to the fig
ure seven ten is with God a favorite mum
ber. Abraham dwelt ten years in Canaan
Ten righteous msn wonld have saved
SOdOm. In the auci Mt tabernacle were
ten curtains, their pillars ten, aud their
sockets ten. In the ancient temple were
ten LAYERS and ten candlesticks and ten
tables aud a molten sea OF ten cubits And
the commandments written on the granite
OF Mount Sinai were ten, and the kingdom
OF God was likened TO ten virgins, and ten
men should lay hold of him that was a
Jew, and the reward OF the greatly faith
ful Is that they shall reign over ten cities,
aud in the effort to take the census of the
New Jerusalem the number ten swings
around the thousands, CRYING, "ten thou
sand times ten thousand" So come to
look toward the closing ten years of the
Nineteenth century with an intensity of
interest l can hardly describe
THE LAST DECADES.
l have also noticed that the favorite
time in my of the centuries for rest
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 consti-
tutional government to be we'll established
in America, the last years of the Eigh-
teenth century must achieve it, Were
three cities to be submerged by one pitch
Of scori;e, Herculsneum and Strsbia and
P0mp9ii in the latter part of the frs. CEN
tury must 30 under. The Fourth century
closed with the most sgitating ecclesissti-
cal war Of history, Urban the Sixth against
Clement the Seventh Alfred the Great
CLOSES the Ninth century and Ed
ward Ironsides the Eleventh CEN
tury with their re0ounding deeds
The Sixteenth century closed with
the establishment OF religious inde-
pendence in the United Netherlands
Aye, almost every century has bad it's
peTOration of ovsrtowering achievements.
As the closing years of the centuries
seem favOrite time for great scenes of
emancipation or disaster, and as the num-
her ten seems a favOrite number in the
Scriptures, written by divine direction,
and as We are soon to enter upon the last
ten years of the Nineteenth century, what
does the world propose? What does the
church Of Christ propose? What do re-
formers proposes know not; but now in
the presence of this consecratsd assembly
propose that we make ready, get all our
batteries planted and all our plans we'll
laid 10 what remains of this decade, aud
then in the last decade of the Nineteenth
century march mp and take this round
world for Col.
THE WORLDS REDEMPTION.
Is il audaciOus for me to propose il? Oh,
no; a 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 became
as fair a. q babe's And didn't Christ in
order to take the ophthslmia out OF the
eyes Of the blind man use a mixture of
spittle and dust? And who showed
Blucher a short cut for his army so that
instead Of taking the regular road by
which he would have come up too late, he
came mp in time TO save Waterloo and
Europe2 Was it not an unknown lad,
who perhaps could not write his own
name? And so I, who am less than the
least ofall saints," propose short cut to
victory and am willing to be the expectO-
ration on some blind eye and tell some OF
the brigadier generals of the Lord of host
how this leprosied world may in the final
decade Of the Nineteenth century have its
flesh come again as the flesh of little
child
The whole trouble is that we put off the
completion of the worlds redemption to
such long and indefinite distances. The
old prOverb that what is everybody's
business is nObody's business" might be
changed little and be made truthfully to
say what is the gospel business of all the
ages is the gospel business of no age. We
are 50 constituted we cannot get up much
enthusiasm about something five hundred
wears from now or a thousand years from
now. We are fighting at too long range.
That gun called the Swamp Angel wss
a nuisance. 1t shot six miles, but it
hardly ever hit any thing. 1t did its chief
destructive work when 1t burst and killed
those who were setting it off Short rsnge
ia the effective kind of work, whether it be
for worldly OF religions purpose. Some
man with his eyes half shut drones out to
me the Bible quotation: "a thousand
wears are as ons day." that ia, ten CEN
turies are not long for the Lord. Bu.
why do You not quote the previous sen
tepce which says that one day is with the
Lord as 3 thousand years? That is, he
conld do the work of ten centuries IN
twentv-four hours. The mightiest obsta-
Gle 10 Christian work is the impression
that the worlds evsngelizatiOn is away
of And We take the telescope and look
on and on through centuries until we see
two objects near each other, and We strain
onr vision and guess what they are, and
we cali great conventions TO guess what
thev are. and we get down our heaviest
theological works and balance our tele-
scons on the I'D and look and lock, and
finaIIv conclude that they are two beasts
that we see, and the one has
hair and the other has wool and
we euess it must be the lion and
the lamb lying down together In
that GREAT crsdle of pOstpOuement and
sompoleucs we rock the church as though
Il were an impatient child, and say,
"Husb. nv dear, don't be impatient;
Don,t get excited by revivslsl Don't cry !;
Your Fathers coming! Don't get uneasy .
He will be here in two or three OF zen OF
twenty thousand years" And we act as
though we thought that when Macaulsy 5
famous New Zsalander in in the far gisI-
spce il seated on the broken arcn OF Lon
don bridge sketehing the ruins OF 81 Fa1i n.s :
his grandchiid might break IN ana J9l' inS ms
Daneil by asking him if he thought the
d