Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1889-09-26
"INDIVIDUAL WORK"
Able Address Delivered in st.
Louis by }. v. Williams.

st. LOUIS Repabttc, was delivered
in st. Louis last week by County
Clerk ]. V. Williams, before all
the Sunday School superlntend-
ents of st. Louis and vicinity. All
denominations were represented:
"The announcement of the sub
ject, upon which I am to address
you this evening, first reached me
at my home IN Mexico by mail yes
terday morning. 1t, together with
three petitions for public roads, a
half dozen questions on school
law, a request for a certified copy
of all the names of all the tax-pay-
ers in school district, were all
opened, and / made up my mind
at once that it would require indi-
vidual work and a good deal of it
to do all this, and comply with
your kind invitation-all in one
days time.
But, my dear friends, ! have the
honor to stand before you the rep
resentative of a county which is not
only first in matters of internal i'm
provements and educational inter-
ests, but first in Sunday School
work, 70 per cent. of her children
in the Sunday School, which makes
her the banner Sunday School coun-
ty in the great State of Missouri,
being made so by individual work.
Not by eloquent sermons from the
pulpit, not by able and earnest ad-
dresses from orators, not by the
work of our church officers, nor by
the Sunday School in it's varied de-
partments, but aided by all these
and the individual work OF Chris
tian matters around the consecrated
altar of home hearth-stones, and
the personal and persistent, pray
erful work of men, women and chill
dren, by the individual work of all
these forces, Audrain county is TO-
day the "White Star Sunday
School County of Grand Old Mis-
souri,"
individuality of character and
individual work carries with it in
dividual conviction, individual re-
sponse, and stamp it with individ-
ual success in every aim and voca-
ton in life, in religion, business
and politics. The old maxim, "In
union there is strength has crys-
talized into a truism that cannot be
doubted or denied, but there must
be individual willingness to work
before there can be any union in
that work.
The workers in the Sunday
School cause IN our State must be
united, individual workers and feel
Individually that the prize to be
won and the work to be done is
paramount to petty opinions of de-
nominational dogmas and differ
ences. The SIX hundred thousand
children in Missouri out of the
Sunday School are our children.
We must not regard them as chill.
dren of Baptists, of Methodists, OF
Presbyterians, or as children of the
members of any other denomina-
ton, but as children out of Sunday
School, out in the desert of SIN, out
and alone in a world of wickedness.
Baptists, get them if you can;
Methodists, Presbyterians, Episco-
pals, Congregationalists, go indi-
vidually to their rescue. If they
will not go to your Sunday School
get them to 60 to some other. I tel
you now that the church with
which I stand identified is usine
increased efforts and means to wiz
these dear wandering one into
our Sunday Schools by the indi
vidual work of four State Sunday
School evangelists, paid to wori
every day in the week and every
week III the year, and we helI
them by individual work, for oul
convictions are strong. But if they
Twill not go to our Sunday School,
urge them to go to some othel
Sunday School. Oh, the whitening
blasting effect of sectarianisn
upon the Sunday School work!
do pray God for the time when
with the spirit and the under
standing, we may all sing, and sins
fervently, and from the soul, tina
grand old song, "Blest be the til
that binds our hearts in Christian
love-"
Our interdenominatlonal meeting
here tonight, or at any other time
or place, should not interfere with
our own churches and Sunday
Schools. regret these differences
and pray to my Heavenly Father
in the language of my Savior
"That they may all be one as thou
Father, art in me, and / in thee
that they also may be one in us;
that the world may believe thai
thou hast sent me-"
/ That grand example of individ
uai work set by Hannah when sht
gave Samuel te the Lord, GENES
down through the ages like a sun
beam of light to the mothers o
Missouri and calls upon them indi
vidually to loan their boys to thu
Lord. Oh, what tower of strength
he was In Israel. How many indi
vidual workers did he set to work
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