Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1889-10-18

NAAAAcuUOllS, Nv Tacoma
and Seattle, and all through the States
by almost every two proximate cities.
All cities, like individuals, have their
virtues and their vices. All our Ameri-
can cities should be our exultation.
What churches! What public Libraries!
What asyums of mercy! What acade-
mics OF music! What mighty men in
law and medicine and art and scholar
ship! What schools and colleges and
universities! What women radiant and
gracious and an improvement on all the
generations of women since Eve! What
philanthropists who do not feel satisfied
with their own charities until they get
into the hundreds of thousands and the
millions! What Gods acres" for the
dead, gardens of beauty and palaces of
marble Tor those who sleep the last
sleep! Now stop your Islander of Amer
lean cities. Do you say they are the
centers OF crime and political corrup-
ton! Please admit the fact that they
are centers OF intelligence and generos-
lty and the mightest patrons of archi-
lecture and sculpture and painting and
music and reservoirs of religious in
fuence for all the continent. It will be
we'll for the country districts to cease
talking against the cities, and it will be
we'll for the city of one locality to stop
talking against the cities of other To-
calities. New York will not get the
and Chicago will not get the Worlds
fair by bombarding New York.
Another suggestion concerning the
coming exposition; let not the matte
realistic ard monetary idea overpower
the moral and religious. During that
exposition, the first time in ali their
lives, there will be thousands of people
from other lands who will see coun-
try without state religion. Let us by
an increased harmony among all de-
nominations of religion, impress other
natlonalities, as they come here that
year, with the superior advantage of
having all denominations equal in the
chief men of Europe belong to the state
religion, whatever it may be. Although
our last two presidents have been Pres
byterians, the previous one was an
Episcopalian; and the two previous,
Methodists; and going further back in
that line of presidents, we find Martin
Van Buren, Dutch Reformed; and John
Quincy Adams Unitarian; and mans
religion in this country is neither hind
rance nor advantage in the matter of
political elevation. All Europe needs
that. All the world needs that. A mans
religion is something between himself
and his God, and it must not. directly
or indirectly, be interfered with.
Furtherm ore, during that exposition,
Christian civilization will confront
barbarism. We shall as nation have q
greater opportunity to make an evan
gelizing impression upon foreign ma
tionalities, than would otherwise be af-
forded us in a quarter of century. Let
the churches OF the city where the ex-
position is held be open every day, and
| prayers be offered and sermons preached
and doxologies sung. In the less than
three years between this and that
world convocation, let us geta baptism
of the Holy Ghost, SO that the six
months of that worlds fair shall be fifty
Pentecosts in one, and instead of three
thousand converted, as in the former
Pentecost, hundreds of thousands will
be converted. You must remember that
the Pentecost mentioned in the Bible
| occurred when there was no printing
press, no books, no Christian pamph-
let's, he religious newspapers, and yet
the influence was tremendous. How
mano nationalities were touched? The
account says: "Parthians and Modes
and Elamites, that is, people from the
eastern countries;r Phryg aandlP amphy
lia," that is, the western countries;
"Cyene and strangers of Rome, Cretes
and Arabians," that is, the southern
countries; but they We're all moved by
the mighty spectacle. Instead Of the
ported ut that Pentecost, all the chief
nations of Europe and Asia, North and
South America, will be represented al
our worlds fair in 1892, and Pentecost
| here and then would mean the salvation
of the round world. ...o
But, YOU say, We may have at that fair
the people of all lands and all the ma
chinery for gospelization, the religious
printing presses and the churches, but
all that would not make Pentecost; we
must have God, Well, you can have
him. Has he not been graciously wait.
ing? and nothing stands in the way but
our own unbelief and Incidence and sin
May God break down the barriers! The
grandest opportunity for the evangeli
cation of all nations since Jesus Chris
died on the cross will be the Worlds ex
position of 1892. God may take us GU
Of the harvest field before that, but LEI
it be known throughout Christendon
that this year between May and Novem
Der, will be the mountain of Christian
advantage, the Alpine and Himalayal
height of opportunity overlapping nj
others for salvation. Instead of th'
slow process of having to send the Cos
pei to other lands by our own American
missionaries, who have difficult toll il
acquiring the foreign language and the1
must content with foreign prejudices
what grand thing to have able and in
fential foreigners converted during thei
| visit in America and then have them re-
turn to their native lands with thu
glorious tidings! Oh, for an overwhelm
ing work of grace for the year 1892, tina
work beginning in the autumn of 1889
Another opportunity, if our public
men see it, and it is the duty of pulpit
and printing press to help them to Set
it, will be the calling at that time ant
place of great peace congress for al
nations. The convention Of represen
tatives from the governments of Nortl
and South America, now ut Washington
is only type of what We may have on
vast and world wide scale at the inter
national exposition of 1892. By on
stroke the gorgon of war might be slail
and buried so deep that neither trumpe
of human dispute or of archangel'
blowing could resurrect it. When tn,
last Napoleon called such a congress Of
nations many did not respond, and thos'
that did respond gathered wonderin!
what trap that willy destroyer of tn