The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1889-01-22
THE NEW CHRISTIANITY.

The Christian and moral element in
Sedalia is to be congratulated at the
present time upon the bountiful out.
pouring ofsthose opportunities which
lead the public from the grosser pur.
suits of humanity into the paths Of
morality and spiritual elevation. The
presence in our midst of such noble
and eloquent evangelists as Rev.
Percy Weber and Rev. Bliss, who
are sowing the plain words of truth
daily and nightly, has been supple
mented by the visit of Rev Sam Small,
whose sledge.hammer blows in behalf
of temperance and moral reform, and
altogether marks an epoch in the
moral and religious development of a
community already standing high in
such important attributes of modern,
moral, intellectual and religious
growth and progress. The attention
which has been attracted by these
apostles of new secular and religious
creed presents many features of in
terest to the student of our progress
In moral and social ethics. A few
years ago Sam Small and Sam Jones
would have hardly teen tolerated on
the lecture platform or in
the pulpit while the staid
doctrinal ecclesiastics would have
stood aghast at the Straightforward.
shoulder, practical sermons of evan
gelists like Weber and Bliss and
dozens of others who preach Jesus as
he was and is, and not Jesus as mask
ed by the dominos of an effete set of
canons, or handicapped and ham,
stringed by the captious doctrines of
. technical faculty of straight coats
who lived when men were children in
faith and toddlers in the path of
knowledge. There is disposition to
rend the veil and stand In
the presence of the Nszarene
who lived and suffered like man, and
the world is growing impatient with
teachers who repeat the lore of the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Capu-
chins, the Calvinists, the Puritens
and all the old isms, without one drol
of the eternal brotherhood of man
tingling through their cadaverous sys-
TENS. 1t is the same way in politics,
and In moral and social questions.
We are tired of the homilies and
learned expositions and interpreta-
tions of the past and We want
somebody to look straight into
our faces and talk to us
like men and brothers. Preachers
and lecturers should preach and lee
ture to and for the people now on
earth and not allow their talk to for
ever slop over the edge of This into
the unknown quantity of That. Teach
us how to live here and We shall be
fitted to enter the beyond without
hesitation. 1t is useless to talk to us
about the hereafter. There are as
many heavens and hells as there are
human minds and human fancies.
Modern agnosticism resolves
itself into a faith which
had its starting and its
stopping point in the breast of the in
dividual. We may think and dream
of the land beyond the twilight, but
we cannot pierce the gloom. We
NAV stretch forth our weary hands
and cry unto the loved and lost, but !
there comes no token from beyond
the tomb, no sign or answer from the !
pallid lips of the unreplying dead.
The teacher of to-day has need to
point to the examples of Jesus when
He showed the carpenters plane be-
side the sea of Galilee when He
drove the money changers out
of the temple of the living God, and
gave up his life on the slopes of Cal
vary. The apostle of Jesus should be
all this and teach all this to his charge