Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-16
BROKE In THE ROOF.
How the Friends of the Paralytic
Got Him Before the Savior.
ALL OF THE FIVE HAD FAITH.
Every Barrier Should be Broken to Get
Men Into the Church,
THE WORK OF THE SALVATION ARMY
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPArcH.i

And behold, they brought to him a man
sick of the palsy, lying on a bed. And
Jesus. seeing their faith, said unto the sick
of the palsy, Son, be OF good cheer, thy sins
be forgiven thee"
They wanted to get this man into the pres
ence Of Christ. He was sick man, and
they were mis- friends, and they wanted him
to be made well man, They had heard Of
the wonderful works which our Lord had
done. And they believed that the surest
and speediest way to bring back strength
into this palsied body was to carry the man
into the presence OF the Master Healer.
That is true to-day. The way to get help
for men is to bring them where they can
look into the face of Jesus Christ. Christ is
the supreme uplifting influence. And what
people who are down need is to know Him.
That will help them. That will heal their
spiritual maladies. If we can but play the
part Of these four friends, and bring men
into the presence Of Christ, we shall do well.
That is, we need to teach men more and
more, by word and bv example, that Christ
is the heart of the Christian religion, that
to believe in Him is the essence of the
Christian creed, and to follow Him is the
ideal of Christian conduct. We need to
care less for articles of faith which do not
center about Him, and to care more for the
shaping of our lives according to the meas
ure of His example. We need to empha-
size the supreme pre-eminerce of Christ
That is what I mean by bringing people
into Christ's presence. And you can see at
once what healing that would bring to the
spiritual malady of doubt, and to the spirit
ual malady of sin.
OVERCOMING ORSTACIEs
The men were wise who wanted to get
their afflicted friend into the presence of the
Master. But what shall they do? The
house where the Master sits is full, and
even the street before the door is crowded.
Here they come along the Capernaum road,
Fastening with their burden, four men are
at each corner and the sick man borne upon
his bed between them. And here is this
great crowd. What shall they do?
You remember what they did do. They
hurried up the outside staircase to the fiat
roof, and broke great hole in the midst of
it, and let the man down through. There
was the Master teaching, and the people all
about Him listening; and of sudden there
was q noise of trampling feet over their
heads, and a sound of breaking timbers
Down falls rain of chips and splinters
over the shoulders of the congregation. And
then the bed comes, let down by the four
corners, like the sheet of the apostles Wis
ion, and the man with the palsy lies at the
feet of Christ.
That was a most irregular proceeding.
That was not at all the conventional way of
doing things Nevertheless Christ ap-
proved of it. He commended the men. He
recognized the faith and the earnestness
which inspired this extraordinary act of
theirs. He knew what they meant by it.
And it pleased Him.
After all, the great thing is to get men into
Christ's presence. Sometimes it is well to
break through roof to do that. Sometimes
it is rubric which needs breaking Re-
ligion is always in danger of being conven-
tionalized, of being so thronged with
crowds of conservatives, and so rooted over
with precedents and orderly procedures,
that it becomes absolutely necessary to
break something before men can get in
where Christ is.
WORK OF IKE SALVATION ARMY.
The Salvation Army are breaking in the
roof, but they are bringing men into the
presence of Christ that way, and we ought
to applaud them for it, as doubt not,
Christ applauds them. ANY way to uplift
men, any way to teach men the truth of
God. II ritual will do that, let US have all
the ritual we can. II revivals will do it,
let US have revivals. Let us be on guard
ourselves against conventionalism in re-
ligion. And let US welcome any innova-
tion, any method, any breaking of the roof,
which will bring men in where they can see
the face OF Christ.
Christ helped this man, thus uncermon-
iously thrust into His presence, because He
saw in this act an evidence of faith. He
saw "their faith" Whose faith? The faith
of the four stout men who let the paralytic
down, or the faith of all five of them,
counting the paralytic in. You can read
the record either way, but would say the
faith Of five.
If there are five men and four are good,
that does not make the fifth good. Indeed,
as things go in this disordered world, there
is fully as much likelihood that the fifth will
make the four bad as that they will make a
saint of him. The faith of our friends will
not save US. Every one of Us stands alone,
face to face with God. We must answer for
our ownselves.
Some people have queer, materialistic
notion about Heaven. That it is fine place
somewhere, with high gold wall about it
and big gate in the front of it, and that if
they can get through that gate they will be
saved. And thev think that because they
have good father and mother, or a devout
wife, or belong to a religious parish, they
Will somehow get IN along Win the others
in crowd. Heaven may be place. but it
is good deal more truly state OF heart.
Nobody will find himself in any heaven
after he dies who has not been living in
heaven right here on this earth. Life goes
straight on through the gate of death.
Nothing which belongs to character is left
behind. The next life follows this as to-
morrow follows to-day. Heaven is largely
A MATTER OF APPRECIATION,
of ability to appreciate heavenly pleasures,
and 10 think heavenly thoughts. Whoever
units himself here for appreciating Heaven
cannot possibly appreciate Heaven. And
that is equivalent in the language Of theol-
ogy to being in hell. And, as nobody can
live our own life, nor think our own
thoughts, but our own selves, nobody can
answer ior US. If we are the fifth among O
sanity four, it will make no difference with
us. When they let the paralytic down and
Jesus saw 'their faith" 1 think He saw the
faith of five; and very probably the para
lytic's faith was the strongest Of them all.
You remember what He said: "Son, be of
good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." Was
that what the man with the palsy wanted?
Was it for this they had borne HIM between
four and broken in the root?
God knows what we need better than we
do. And you remember that Christ came to
reveal God to us. The most comforting, the
most beautiful, the worthiest thought
which we can have of God is that God is
like Christ. The Christlikeness of God is