The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-04-17

| such terror in the Eighteenth century, but
look at the yellow fevers, and the choleras,
and the diphtherias and the scarlet fevers,
and the typhoids of our own time. Hear the
wailing of Memphis, and Shreveport, and New
Orleans and Jacksonville of the last few de
cades. From Hrrdwar, India, where every
twelfth year three million devotees congre-
gate the caravans brought the cholera, and
that one disease slew eighteen thousand in
eighteen days in BosSorah. Twelve thousand
in one summer slain by it in India and twen-
ty-five thousand in Egypt. Disasters cpl
| demic. Some of the finest monuments III
Greenwood and Laurel Hill and Mount Au-
burn are to doctors who lost their life bat
Ting with Southern epidemic.
But now turn the leaf in my subject, and
| I plant the white lilies and the palm tree
amid the night shade and the myrtle. This
| age no more characterized by wonders OF dis
| aster than by wonders of blessing. Blessing
! of longevity; the average of human life rap
| idly increasing. Forty years now worth four
! hundred years once. Now / can travel from
Manitoba to New York in three days and
three nights In other times it would have
taken three months. In other words three
DAYS and three nights now are worth three
months of other days. The average of human
! life practically greater now than when Noah
lived his $50 years and Methusaleh lived his
9f9 years. Blessings of intelligence: The
Salmon P. Chascs and the Abraham LincolnS
and the Henry Wilson's of the coming time
will not be required to learn to read by pine
knot lights, or seated on shocmaker's S
bench, nor will the Fergusons have
to study astronomy while watching the cat
tie. knowledge rolls its tides along every
poor mans door. and his children may go
down and hathe in them. If the philosophers
of the last century were called up to reclte
in class with our boys at the Polytechnic,
or our girls at the Packer, those cid philoso-
pliers would be sent down to the foot of the
class because they failed to answer the queS-
tions! Free libraries in all the important
towns and cities of the land. Historical alcoves
and poetical shelves and magazine tables for all
that desire to walk through them or sit down
at them. Blessings of quick information
Newspapers falling all around us thick as
leaves in q September equinoctial. News
three days old, rancid and stale. We see the
whole world twice day-through the news
paper at the breakfast table, and through
the newspaper at the tea table, with an "eX-
ira" here and there between.
Blessing of Gospel proclamation: "Do you
not know that nearly all the missionary
societies have been born in this century?
and nearly all the Bible societies and nearly
all the, great. philantihopic movements? ;l.s?
A secretary of one of the denominations
said to me the other day in Dakota:
''You were wrong when you said our
denomination averaged new church every
day of the year: they established nine III
one week, so you are far within the truth" :"
A clergyman of our own denomination said
IT have Just been out establishing five mis-
sion stations" I tell. you Christianity is on
the march while infidelity is dwindling into
imbeciity. While infdelity is thus dwin-
ding and dropping down into I'M
beciity and indecency, the wheel Of
Christianity is making about thou
sand revolutions in q minute. All the
copies of Shakespeare and Tennyson and Dis
raeli and of any ten of the most popular writ
ers of the day, less in number than the copies
of the Bible going out from our printing
presses A few years ago, in six weeks, more
than two million copies of the New IeSta-
nent purchased, not given away, but piir-
chased because the world will have it.
More Christian men in high official posi-
ton to-day in Great Britain and in the United
States than ever before Stop that falsehood
going through the newspapers have seen it
in twenty-that the Judges of the Supreme
Court of the United States are all infidels eN-
cept one. By personal acquaintance
know three of them to be old-fashioned
evangelical Christians, sitting at the
Holy Sacrament of our Lord Jesus
Christ and I suppose that the majority of
them are stanch believers in our Christian
religion And then hear the dying words OF
Judge Black, Il man who had been Attorney
General of the United States, and who had
been Secretary Of the United States, no
stronger lawyer of the century than
Judge Black-dying, his aged wife kneel-
that sublime and tender prayer: 80
Lord God, from whom l derived my existence,
in whom have always trusted take my spirit
to Thyself and let Thy richest blessing come
down upon my Mary" The most popular
book to-day is the Bible, and the mightiest
institution is the church, and the greatest
name among the nations, and more honored
than any other is the name OF Jesus.
Wonders of self sassifce: A clergyman
told me in the Northwest that for six years
he was missionary at the extreme North.
| living 400 miles from a postoffice, and some
times he slept out of doors in the winter, the
thermometer sixty and siNty-tive degrees
below zero, wrapped in rabbit skins
woven together. l said: us it posi-
BILE? You do not mean sixty and sixty-five
degrees below zero" He said: Il 90, ana
was happy" All for Christ. Where is there
any other being that will rally such enthus-
iasm? Mothers sewing their fingers off to
educate their boys for the Gospel ministry.
For nine years no luxury on the table until
| the course through grammar school and col,
lege and theological seminary be COM
pleted. Poor widow putting her mite into
the Lords treasury, the face of Emperor ol
| President impressed upon the coin not so con-
spicuous as the blood with which she earned
it. Millions of good inen and Women but
more women than men, to whom Christ !:
everything Christ first and Christ last ant
Christ forever.
Why. this age is not so characterized by
invention and scientific exploration as i
is by Gospel proclamation. You can ge
no idea of it unless you can ring al
the church bells in one chime. ant
sound all the organs in one diapason, ant
dom i'll one Gloria in ENce!sis
Mighty camp meetings. Might Ocean
Groves Mighty Chautauquas. Mighty con-
ventions of Christian works. Mighty gen
eral assemblies of the Presbyterian church
Mighty conferences of the Methodist church
Mighty associations of the Baptist church
Mighty conventions of the Episcopal church
I think before long the best investments vii
not be in railroad stock OF Western Union
but in trumpets and cymbals and
festal decorations. for We are on
the eve of victories wide and world
uplifting. There may be many years
of hard work yet before the consummation
but the signs are to me so encouraging that
would not be unbelieving if I saw the wing
of the apocalyptic angel spread for its last
triumphal flight in this days sunset; OF il
tomorrow morning the ocean cables should
thrill us with the news that Christ the Lord
had alighted on Mount Olivet or Mount Cal
vary to proclaim universal dominion.
Oh. you dead churches wake up. Throw
back the shutters of stiff ecclesiasticism and
let the light of the spring morning come in
Morning for the land. Morning for the sea
Morning of emancipation. Morning of light
and love and peace. Morning of day i'll
which there shall be no chains to break, no
sorrows to assuagc. no despotism to shatter,
no woes to compassionate. Christ, descend