The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-05-01

toned. Divide up tie worlds evangelizssion
| among these determinations after they are
persuaded it can be done before the Nineteenth
century is dead, and the last Hottentot, the
last Turk, the last japanese, the last Ameri-
last African will see the salvation Of God be-
fore he sees the opening gate of the Twentieth
century.
Again, feel the whole world can be saved
in the time specified, because we have all
manner Of machinery requisite. It is not as
though we had to build the printing presses;
they are all built and running day and night,
those printing religious papers 1925 Of those
religious papers In this country, those
printing religious books. And thou
sands Of fprinting pressesnow in the service of
the devil could be brought and set to work in
the service of God, Why was the printing
press invented? To turn out billheads and cir
culars Of patent medicines and tell the news
which in three weeks Will be Of noimportance? {?
From the old-time Franklin printing press on
up to the Lord Stanhopes press and the
Washington press and the Victory press to
has been improving for Its best work and its
final work, namely, the publication of the
glad tidings Of great joy which shall be to oil
people We have the presses, or can have
them before the first of January when the
new decade is to begin, to put o Bible in the
hand of every son and daughter Of Adam and
Eve now living, and If such person cannot
read we can have a colporteur, an evangelist
or missionary to read it to him or her.
But this bringsme to the adjoining thought;
namely, we have the money to do the work.
mean the fifty million Of Christians have it.
Aye the two million seven hundred and fifty
four thousand Christians have it; and the
dam which is beginning TO leak will soon
break and there will be rushing
foods Of hundred and millions and
billions of dollars in holy contribution
when you persuade the wealthy men
Of the kingdom Of God that the speedy con-
version of the world is possibility and that
Isaiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and st. John
will not stand in the way of it but help 1t on.
1 have no sympathy with this bombardment
of rich men. We would each one be worth
five million dollars if we could, and by hard
persuasion might perhaps be. induced to take
fifteen million. Almost every paper I take
up tells of some wealthy man who has endowed
college or built a church or a hospital
or free library, and that thing is going to
multiply until the treasury of all our de-
nominations and reformatory organizations
will be overwhelmed with munifcence If we
can persuade our men Of wealth that the
worlds evangelization is possible and that
they may live to see it with their own eyes.
I have always cherished the idea that when
the world is converted we would be allowed
to come out on the battlements of heaven
and see the hammered procession and
the bonfres Of victory. But 1 would like to
see the procession closer by and just be per-
mitted myself to throw on a fagot for a big
ger bonfires. And if you persuade our men
Of wealth that there is a possibility for them
to join on earth in the universal glee of a re-
deemed planet instead of laborious beseech-
ing for funds and arguing and fattering in
order to get contribution for Christian
objects our man Of wealth will
stand in line as, at a postofice window or a
railroad ticket office, but in this case waiting
for their turn to make charitable deposit. The
Gentiles are not long going to allow them
who has just given forty million dollars for
schools in France Germany and Russia. Ire
joce that so much Of the wealth of the world
is coming into the possession Of Christian men
and women. And although the original
church was very poor, and its members were
fish dealers on the banks of Galilee, and had
only such stock on hand rs they could take in
their own net, to-day III the hands OF Chris
tian men and women there is enough money
to print Bibles and build churches and sup
port missionaries under God in ten years to
save the world.
Again, think that the worlds evangelical
ton can be achieved in the time specified be-
cause we have already the theological lnstl-
tutions necessary for this work. We do not
have to build them; they are built and they
are filed with tens of thousands Of young men
and there will be three sets OF students
who will graduate into the ministry
before the close OF this century, and once have
them understand that instead of preaching
thirty or forty years and taking into the king.
dom of God a few hundred souls, right before
them is the Sedan, is the Armagedtlon, and
these young men, instead Of entering tho
ministry timid and with apologetic air, will
feel like David who came up just rs
the armies were set in array and
he left his carriage and shouted
for the battle and cried: "Who is this IN
circumcised Philistine that he should defy the
armies of the living God?" and with five
gravel stones skillfully flung sent sprawling
the Dragging ten footer, his mouth into the
dust and his heels into the air.
Ny friends what but such consumma-
ton could be fit climax to this century?
You notice a tendency in history and all
about us to a climax. The creation week ris-
ing from herbs to fish and from fish to bird
and from to bird to quadruped and from
quadruped to immortal man. The New
Testament rising from quiet genealo-
gical table in Matthew to apocalyptic
doxology in Revelation. Now, what can be
an appropriate climax to this century, which
has heard the puff of the first steamer and the
throb of the first stethoscope and the click of
the first telegraph and the clatter of the first
sewing machine, and saw the fash OF the first
electric light and the revolution of the first
steam plow, and the law of storms was written,
and the American Bible society and American
Tract society were born; and instead of an
audience laughing down DR.. Carey for adyo-
eating foreign Missions as was done at North
ampton in England in the last century, now
all denominations vying with each other as to
who shall go the fllrtherest and the soonest
into the darkest of the New Hebrides;
and three hundred thousand souls have
been born to God in the South Sea
Islands, and Micronesia and Melanesia and
Malayan Polynesia have been set III the
crown of Christ, and David Livingstone has
unveiled Africa and the last bolted gate OF
barbaric nations has swung wide open to let
the Gospel in. What ask, with thousand
interrogation points uplifted, can be tit, an
appropriate and sufficient climax except it be
a world redeemed?
Yes, I believe it can be done if we get pre-
pared for it, because the whole air and the
whole heaven is full of willing help. Are
they not all ministering spirIs sent forthF'
We make an awful mistake if we calculate
only on the forces we can see The
mightiest army is in the air. Ny breth-
ern, so much Of selhshness and pride
and rivalry and bad motives of all kinds get
into our work here that we are hinaered.
But the mighty souls that have gone up to
the flying armies of the sky have left all
imperfection behind and these souls are
with us and without fault and with per-
feet natures are on our side. You cannot
make me believe that after tqiling
here for long years for the redemp-
ton of the world until from exhaustion some
of them fell into their graves they have ceased
their interest in the stupendous conflict now