The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1891-07-30

u1eSfds, uIne l. going Icy 80 rapidly that
We cannot afford To be Idle.
y recent statisticisn says THAI human
life now has an average Of oaly thirty,
two years From these thirty-two
years you must Subtract ali the time
you take for sleep and the taking of
food and recreation; that will leave
you about sixteen years From those
sixteen years you must subtract all the
time you are necessarily engaged In the
earning OF livelihood; that VIII leave
you about eight years From those
eight years you must take all the days
and weeks and months-all the length
OF time that is passed In childhood and
sickness, leaving you about one year
in which to work for God Oh, my soul,
wake upl How darest thou sleep in
harvest time and with 80 few hours in
which to reapf So that state it as a
simple fact that all tho time that the
vast majority Of you will have for tho
exclusive service of God will be lees
than one yearl
THR EXCUSES OF LaZINESs
But, says some man, Il literally
support the Gospel, and tho church IL
open and the Gospel Is preached; all
the spiritual advantages are spread be-
fore men, and IL they want to ba saved
let them come to DO saved; lave dis
charged all my responsibility All! Ia
that the Masters spiriti Is there not
an old book somewhere that commands
US to go out into the highways and the
hedges and compel the people to come
in2 What would have become Of YOU
and me if Christ had not come down
off the hills of heaven, and il he had
not come through the door of the Beth
lehem caravansary, and if he had no:
with the crushed hand of tho cruc!ilx-
ion knocked at the iron gate of the
sepulcher of our spiritual death, crying,
Lazarus, come forthT'
Oh. my Christian friends, this is 40
time for inertia, when all the forces Of
darkness seem to be in full blast when
steam printing presses are Publishing
infldel tracts; when express railroad
trains are carrying messengers of sin;
when fast clippers are laden with opium
.-.ad r,'in: WIN .hn night oi- n ous
cities is polluted with the laughter that
breaks up from the tea thousand sa.
looms of dissipation and abandonment
when the fires of the second death al
ready are kindied in the cheeks of some
who, only a little while ago, were in
corrupt.
Never since the curse fell upon the
earth has there been a time when it
was such an unwise, such n cruel, such
an awful thing for the church to sIeepl
The great audiences are not gathered
in the Christian churches; the great
audiences are gathered In temples of sin
tears of unutterable woe their bap-
tism, the blood of crushed hearts the
awful wine of their sacrament, blos-
phemiee their litany, and the groans Of
the lost world the organ dirgc of their
worship
Again, If you want to be qualified to
meet the duties which this age de-
mands Of you, you must on the one
hand avoid reckless iconoclasm, and
on the other hand not stick too much
to things because they are old The
air Is full of new plans, new projects,
new theories of government, new the
olosies, and l am amazed to see bow
30 many Christians want only novelty
In order to recommend n thing to their
confidence; and so they vacilIatc and
swing to and fro, and they are useless,
and they arc unhappy. New plans
secular, ethical, philosophical, religious,
cisatlantic, transatlantic. All, my broth
er, do not adopt thing merely because
it is new. Try 1t by the realities OF a
judgment day.
PROGRESS THE LAW OF LIFE.
But, ON the other hand, do not ad-
here to anything merely because it Is
old. There is not q single enterprise Of
the church or the world bat has some
times been scoGed at There was a
time when inan derided even Bible 80
cieties; and when few Young men
met near haystack in Massachusetts,
and organized the first missionary 50.
| ciety ever organized in this country,
there went laughter and riAicuie all
around the Christian church. They said
the undertaking was preposterous
And b, also, the work Of Je-sus Christ
| was assailsi People cried cut. Who
ever heard Of such theories of ethics
| and govern.nenti Whoever noticed
such a style of preaching rs Jesus basf
Ezekiel had talked Of mysterious wings
| and wheels. Here camo man from ca
pernaum and Genncearct, AMI Ire drew
his illustrations from the lakes. from the
lilies, from the sand, from the ravine.
| from the cornstalks. How the pi.ariseee
scoffcdl How Herod G-,rided Hos
| Caiaphas hiasedl And this Jesus they
plucked by the beard, aud they spat in
hi: face, and they called him this fel.
lowr" ali the great enterprises in and
ou: OF tie church have at times been
scoffed at, and there have been a great
| multitude who have thought that the
chariot Of Gods truth would f.il to
pieces il it once got out of the old rut.
And SO there are those who have nc
patience With anything like improve
ment In church architecture. or with
anything like good. hearty, eernes.
church singing. and they deride any
form OF religious discussion which goes
down walking among everyday mer
rather than that which makes an ex
| cnrsiO; or, rhetorical sfilts Oh thai
the Church of God would wake up t1
CD adaptability of work. We must I'D
nit the simple fact that the churches
OF Jesus Christ In this day do not reach
the great massea There are fifty thou
sand people in Edinburgh who never
hear the Gospel There are one mil
IContinued on Second Page.