The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1889-04-04
SERMON.
Fle Weekly Discourse Of ths Great
Brooklyn Pre-, aaa.,
subjects "The Moonlight
Ride"

Ride"
TEXT; "Iaea oent up Ia he niaht bp
the brook, Gad tie,eed The traN and tarnea
back, and entered bg the este of the valley
ND so returned, Mcdonald H., is.
a dead city is more suggestive than a liv.
az city-past Rome than present Rome
ruins rather than newly frescoed cathedral
But the best time to visit ruin is by moon.
light The Coliseum Is far more fascinating
60 the raveler after shutdown than before.
You may stand by daylight amid the monas.
tio ruins OF Melross Abbey, and study
shafted oriel, and rosetted stone and mullion.
but they throw their strongest witchery by
moonlight Some Of you remember what
the enchsnter OF Scotland said in the clay
OF the Last Minstreln
Wouldst thou view fair Melrose Alright,
Go visit II by the pale moonlight
Washington Irving describes the Anda.
Eusian moonlight upon the Alhambra ruins
as amounting TO an entertainments My text
Nressnts you Jerusalem in ruins The tower
own, The gates down. The walls down,
everything down, Nehemiah on horseback,
Oy moonlight looking upon the ruins. While
- rides, there are some friends on foot going
nth him, for they do not want the many
orses to disturb the suspicious Of
the secret Of NohemiahSs heart but they are
going as sort Of body guard | hear the
nicking hoot of the horse on which Nehe.
niah rides, us he guides 1t this way and that,
INTO tins gate and out of that winding
SWoogh that gate amid the debris of once
g'eat Jerusalem, Now the horse comes to a
cad halt at the tumbled masonry where he
aannot pass. Now he SHES Off at the charred
timbers. Now he comes along where the wa.
Ter under the moonlight flashes from the
Isouth of the brazen dragon after which the
g.ts was named Heavy hearted Nehemiah
AIDING aud l,, al
desolated, now by the defaced temple, now
nmid the scars of the city that had gone
down under batterng ram and conflagra-
ION. The escortug party knows not what
Nehemiah means. Is he getting crazyl Have
DIS own personal sorrows, added to the sor-
rows OF the nation, unbalanced his intellect
Still the midnight exploration goes on.
Nehemiah on horseback rides through the
tish gate, by the tower of the furnaces, by
the Kings pool by the dragon well, in and
out, in and out, until the midnight ride is
completed, and Nehemiah dismounts from
dis horse, and to the amazed and COMPOUNDED
and incredulous body guard, declares the
dead secret of his heart when he SAYS;
NCome, now, let us build Jerusalem
w nat, Nehemiah, have you any moneym
No." Have you any kingly au-
ehorityT No" Have you any elo-
quenceT mo" Yet that midnight, moon.
ight ride of Nehemiah resulted in the glori.
Gus rebuilding OF the city of Jerusalem, The
people knew not how the thing was TO be
done, but with great enthusiasm they cried
Snut: Let us rise up now and build the city,"
ZONE people laughed and said it could not be
done. Some people were infuriate and Of
f fs physical violence, saying the
thing should not be done But the
Nyorkmen went right on, standing
On the wall. trowel in one hand
word in the other, until the work was
gloriously completed At that very time, in
Greece; Aenophon was writing q history,
and Plato was making philosophy and
Demosthenes was ratting his rhetorical
thunder but all of them together did not DO
70 much for the world as this midnight,
moonlight ride Of praying courageous. home
wick, close-mouthed Nehemiah
My subject first impresses ne with the idea
what an intense thing is church affection
Seize the bride OF that horse and stop Nehe-
miah Why are you risking your life here
in the night! Your horse will stumble over
these ruins and fall on you. Stop this use
less exposure Of your life. No; Nehemiah
will not stop. He at last tells us the whole
story. de let's us know he was an exile in a
far distant land, and he was servant, a cup
bearer in the palace Of Artaxerxes Longi-
manus, and one day, while he was handing
the cup of wine to the King, the King said
% him: What is the matter with you' You
are not sick. L know you must have some
great trouble. What is the matter with
youF Then he told the King how that be-
loved Jerusalem was broken down;
how that his fathers tomb had
been desecrated; how that the Temple had
been dishonored and defaced how that the
walls were scattered and broken. WELL"
lays King Arta2erxes, "what do you want?"
~ want to go home. | want to fix up
the grave of my father | want to re-
store the beauty of the Temple. | want
TO rebuild the masonry of the city. wall.
Besides, want passports so that ] shall
not be hindered lii my Journey And be-
sides that, as you will find in tho context
VI want an order on the man who keeps your
forest for just so much timber as may need
for the rebuilding of the city" 'How long
shall you be gomez said the King. The
time of absence is arranged. In hot
to sse era tss sse@ an n text comes
find him on horseback, in the midnight.
riding around the ruins II is through tho
spectacles Of this scene that we discover the
ardent AT achmert OF Nehemiah for sacrad
Jerusalem, which in all ages has heen
Che type of the church of Col, our
Jerusalem, which we love Just as much
as Nehemiah loved lis ,Jerusae en-
{The fact is that you love the chutch OF God
30 much that there is 10 o5 on earth so
sacred, unless it is your own frasila The
church has been to you 81 much comfort and
Imagination ton that there is nothing that
against. If there have been times when you
have been carried into captivity BY
sickness. you longed for tie church,
our holy Jerusalem, just as much as
Nehemiah longei for his Jerusalem, and the
tirst day You came out you came to tho
house Of the Lord. When the Temple was
in ruins as ours was years ago, like Nehe-
miah, you walked around and looked at it.
and in the moonlight you stood listening il
you could not hear the voice of the dead
organ, the psalm of the expired Sab.
baths What Jerusalem was to Nehe-
miah, the church of God is to you.
Skeptlcs and in1dels may scott at the church
as an obsolete affair, as a relic of the dark
ages, as convention Of goody goody people,
but all the impression they have ever made
on on your mini against the church Of God is
sacrifices for it to-day than for any
other institution and If it were need
full you would die in its defence.
You can take the words Of the kingly poet
as he said: IF forget thee, 0 Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget her cunning" You
understand in your own experience the
patho', the honasicl;ness, the courage the
holy enthusiasm of Nehemiah in his mid
night moonlight ride around the ruins of
bis beloved jerusalem.
Again, my text impressss me with the fact
that before reconstruction there must be an
exploration OF ruins. Why was not Nehe-
miah asleep under the covers' Why was not
his horse stabbed in the miinightl Let the
police of the city arrest this midnight RIDER
out on some mischief No. Nehemiah
IS going to rebuild the city, AMI
he is mafinr he prelim,erv ~
ploration. In this gate, out that gate.
east, west, norti, south. All through
tho rhine The ruins must be explored be.
fore the work OF reconstruction can Begin
The reason that so many people in this
day, apparently converted do not stay
converted is because they dill not first
explore the ruins of their own heart The
reason that there are SO many profes sed
Christians who in this day lie and forge
and steal, and commit adultery, and 90 to
the pententiary, is because they first do not
learn the ruin oftheir own heart They have
not found out that "the heart is deceiGcul
above all things, and desperately wicked. !"
They had an idea that they were almost right,
and TROY built religion IS sort OF extension,
as an ornamental cupola. There was super
structure of religion huilt on sub.
stratum of unrepented sins The
trouble with a good deal of modern
theology is that instead of building Oh the
right foundation it builds On the debris of
an unrsgon rated nature. They attempt to
rebuild Jerusalem before, in the midnight of
conviction, they have seen the ghastilinsss of
the ruin. Thsy have such a poor founda.