Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-21
atmosphere do not realize how bad 1t 10.
But one who comes in from outside does
What Makes the Agitation,

atmosphere do not realize how bad 1t ID.
But one who comes in from outside does.
What Makes the Agitation.
Micah came in from outside and he real
lied what things meant. And between his
visits to the great city he kept up a vigor-
GUS thinking and praying; probably talked
Strange it is, how the same sight affects diff
ferent people differently! At last it gets
through some mans eyes into his heart, and
therestands up an agitator, a reformer, a
revolutionist
They called Micah all manner of hard
names-no doubt of it. He walked along
the streets of Moresheth, with head down
and hands clenched, thinking wild thoughts
And people pointed at him, and talked
about him at the dinner table. Out he came
at last from Moresheth and took up his resi-
dence in Jerusalem, and became a street
preacher. Every day he got crowd about
him somewhere and preached to them with
the curbstone for a pulpit. Every day the
sally attracted. Who is this? they began to
ask. A radical, revolutionist, wild an
archist, man who is denouncing the aris-
tocracy and the Church. Day after day, in
the Hyde Park of Jerusalem, Micah spoke
hard words; spoke hard words, as Christ
did afterward, against the rich and the rit-
ualists.
Effect of Revolutionary Sermons.
And what did they do? They listened.
They listened and needed for a little while,
and tried to do better. There was dim
recognition that this voice out of More
sheth was somehow voice out of heaven.
There was a national reformation. The
preaching had effect, but things went back
again, it seems, even in the preachers day,
and were as bad as before, perhaps worse.
Yet some good was done, anyhow.
These are the sermons which compose the
book of Micah. Here are the speeches
made 2, 500 years ago in the streets of a
great city by man of the people against
the 'avarice of the wealthy and the formal
ism of the religious. You would not expect
to find them very elaborate or exhaustive
treatises these street-corner speeches, these
revolutionary sermons. And they are not.
Indeed, we seem to have here a collection
Of fragments, paragraphs out of various
speeches set together. This, perhaps, is the
best we can do toward finding some logical
order in the book: At the head of chapter
one we may write, prologue of Denuncia-
tion." The preacher is emphasizing the
anger of God Put together the second
and third chapter and entitle that section,
'The Punishment of God-Why7" The
prophet tells why plainly enough. Then
make another section out of the next two
chapters and call that "The Punishment of
oGod-But." You will always find that
blessed distinctive conjunction "but"
Behind Every Declaration
of the punishment Of God. If 1t isn't
written out in plain letters, it is always
ynoont m ho understood ie fhara
Jonah learned that when he went to Nine
vah and preached sermon about fire from
heaven, and left that saving conjunction
out. yet 40 days and Ninevah shall be
destroyedp"- "but" there. But the
people repented, ,and the fortieth day passed
into the forty-frst, and no fire fell at all.
That little word had grown into a great
shield and covered the whole city over.
That is the divine conjunction.
God never promises punishment without
an accompanying promise of release from
punishment if the criminal wins release.
We can be perfectly sure that God is never
going to punish anybody one second longer
than he deserves or needs it. 'These shall
go away into death everlasting" That is
long word-"everlasting. But this little
sharp word "but," this edge of the sword of
God, can cut that long word in two, any
time. You know what Dante saw written
over the gate of he'll, about the abandonment
of hope. That is good inscription for the
outside door. But believe that inside, all
floor, is printed this word "but," meaning
that the very instant one soul in that place
of torment turns to God, God turns to him
and
Hell Is No More Hell.
Finally, take the last two chapters and
entitle them the "Epilogn of Disap-
pointment." After all the sermon is for
gotten. The reformation has run its course.
All things seem to have gone back to the
old way. That is not an unusual expert
ence. After almost every effort to set the
cause of righteousness forward the reformer
may well write an epilogue of disappoint-
ment. But God sees clearer than the re-
formers.
There are two passages in the sermons of
Micah which are especially notable. Here
is one of them: "But thou, Bethlehem
Ephratah, which art little to be among the
thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one
come forth unto me that is to be ruler in
Israel; whose goings forth are from of old,
from everlasting" Anybody who reads
the prophets, looking for minute predic-
tion, making prophecy sort of history
before the time" as Prof Briggs says,
"and looking anxiously for the fu1fllment
of the details of Biblical prediction" is 60
ing to be disappointed. The prophets were
preachers. They were
EmphatiealIy Men of the Present.
They looked forward, IS all good men
who believe in God must do, to q final
victory of righteousness. But they were
not soothsayers. And yet here are these
strange words, the words which guided the
Chaldean astronomers to Bethlehem, mar
velously fulfilled: worth thinking about.
The other passage is this: "Wherewith
shall 1 come before the Lord, and bow
myself before the high God? Shall 1 come
before him with burnt offerings, with calves
of year old? will the Lord be pleased with
thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of
rivers of oil? Shall give my first born for
my transgression, the fruit of my body for
the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee,
o man, what is good; and what doth the
Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God?" t'I will have mercy and not sac
rifce," God said, first brotherliness, and
only after that ceremonial; first Goodness
and then religion. GEORGE HODGES.
Troy Hill Excitement Over.
4 u