The Brookhaven leader., 1890-12-11

not sleep. / was repeating the
part which / was to take in q
public performance. The hour was
past midnight Indeed, IL was coming
near to the dawn when l heard low
tones proceeding from q private room
whore the President slept The door
was partly open. / instinctively walked
in and there l saw q sight which shall
never forget 1t was the President
kneeling before an open Bible. The
light was turned low in the room. His
back turned toward me; for .
moment l was silent as stood
looking in amusement and wonder.
Then he cried out in tones so pitt
full and sorrowful: "Oh, thou God that
heard Solomon in the night when he
prayed for wisdom, hear me! 1 can not
lead this people, can not guide the
affairs of this Nation without Thy help.
l am poor and weak and sinful. Oh
God, who didst hear Solomon when he
cried for wisdom, hear me and save the
Nationr You see, we don't need to 60
back to Bible times for evidence that
prayer is heard and answered.
Dul, SOlll0 OuCs was ~
that Christ, coming to save the world,
should spend so much of His time on
and around so solitary place as Lake
Galilee? There is only one city OF any
size on its beach, and both the western
and eastern shores are solitude, broken
only by the sounds coming from the
mud novels of the degraded. Why did
not Christ begin at Babylon the
mighty, at Athens the learned, at
Cairo the historic, at Thebes the hun
dred-gated, at Rome the triumphant?
II Christ was going to save the
world, why not go whore the worlds
people dwell? Would man, wishing TO
revolutionize for good the American
continent, pass his time amid the fish.
ing huts on the shores OF Newfound-
land?" My friends, Galilee was the
hub of the wheel of civilization and art,
and the center of population that
staggers realization. On the shore Of
the lake we sail to-day stood nine great
cities, Scythopolis, Tariche, Hippos,
Gamala, Chorazin, Capernaum, Beth
saida, Magdala, Tiberias-and many
villages, the smallest of which had
fifteen thousand inhabitants, according
toJosephus, and reaching from the beach
back into the country in all directions
Palaces, temples, coliseums, gym
nasiums, amphitheaters, towers, gar
dens terraced on the hillsides, fount-
aims, bewildering with sunlight baths,
upon whose mosaic floors Kings trod;
while this lake from where the Jordan
enters it to where the Jordan leaves it,
was beautiful with all styles of shallop,
or dreadful with all kinds of war gal
leon. Four thousand ships, history
says, were at one time upon these
waters. Battles were fought there,
which shocked all nations with their
consequences.
Here mingling blood with pure and spark.
ling foam,
In her last throes Judea fought with Rome
Upon those sea-fghts looked Vespa-
sian, and Titus and Trajan, and whole
empires. From one of these naval en-
counters SO many of the dead foated to
the beach, they could not soon enough be
entombed, and plague was threatened.
Twenty hundred soldiers escaping from
these vessels were one day massacred
in the amphitheater at TiberiaS. For
three hundred years that almost con-
tinous city encircling Lake Gallilee was
the metropolis of our planet. 1t was to
the very heart of the world that Jesus
came to soothe its sorrows, and pardon
its sins, and heal its sick, and emanci-
pate its enslaved, and reanimate its
dead.
And let the Church and the world
take the suggestion. While the soli-
tary places are not to be neglected, we
must strike for the great cities, if this
world is ever to be taken for Christ
Evangelize all the earth except the
cities, and in one year the cities would
corrupt the earth. But bring the cities,
and all the world will come.
Bring London, and England will
come. Bring Paris, and France
will come. Bring Berlin, and Ger
many will come. Bring st. Petersburg,
and Russia will come. Bring Vienna,
and Austria will come. Bring Cairo,
and Egypt will come. Bring the near
three million people in this cluster OF
cities on the Atlantic coast, and all
America will soon see the salvation Of
God. Ministers of religion let US in
tensify our evangelism. Editors ana pub
fishers! purify your printing presses!
Asylums of mercy! enlarge your plans
of endeavor. And instead of this alb
surdand belittling and wicked rivalry
among our cities as to which happens
to have the most men and women and
children, not realizing that the more
useless and bad people a city has the
worse it is off, and that city which
has ten thousand good people is more
to be admired than city with one
hundred thousand bad people; let us
take a moral census and see how many
good men and good women are leading
forth how large a generation of good
children who will consecrate them
selves and consecrate the round world
to holiness and to God. Oh, thou
blessed Christ who didst come to the
mighty cities encircling Lake Galilee!
come in mercy to all our great cities OF
to-day. Thou who didst put Thy hand
on the white name of the foaming bill
lows of Gennesaret, and make them lie
down at Thy feet, hush all the raging
passions of the world! Oh thou
blessed Christ who on the night
when tho disciples were trying
to cross this lake and 1.-The wind
was contrary" after nine hours
of rowing had made only three miles,
didst come stepping on water that at
the touch of Thy foot hardened into