The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1891-07-29

From these thirty-two years you must
substract all the time you take for
sleep and the taking Of food and recrea.
ton; that win leave you about sixteen
years. From those sixteen years you
must substract all the time you are nee
essarily engaged in the earning Of a
livelihood; that will 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, leav-
ing you about one year in which TO
work for God o, my soul, wake up!
How darest thou sleep In harvest time
and with so few hours In which to reap?
So that / state It as q simple fact that
all the time that the vast majority of
you will have for the exclusive service
Of God will be less than one year!
But" says some man, IT literally
support the gospel, and the church Is
open and the gospel Is preached; all the
spiritual advantages are spread before
men, and II they want 70 be saved let
them come TO be saved; / have dis
charged all my responsibility" Ahl Is
that the Masters spiritP Is there not
IN old book somewhere that commands
US TO 60 out into the highways and the
hedges and compel them 10 come In?
What would have become Of you and
me II Christ had not come down of
the hills Of heaven, aud II he had
not come through the door Of the
bethlehem caravansary, and ifhe had
not with the crushed hand Of the cruel
fxion knocked At the iron gate Of the
sepulcher of our spiritual death, crying.
Lazarus, come forth2' o, my Chris
tirp friends, this Is no time for
ipprtis, whom ali the forces Of
derl5uess seem 10 be- IN full blast;
whcn steam printing presses are pub
li5hinR madol tracts; whom express rail-
road Trains are carrying tuessengers Of
sip; whom fast clippers are laden with
opium and rhm; when the night air Of
our cities is polluted with the laughter
that breaks up from the ten thousand
saloons Of dissipation and abandon
ment; when the fires Of thes esecoud death
already are kindled in the cheeks of
some who, only little while ago, were
incorrupt Never since the curse fell
upon the earth has there been time
when IL was such an unwise, such q
cruel, such, an awful thing for the
church TO sleep The great audiences
are not gathered in the Christian
churches, the great audiences are gath
cred In temples Of sin-tears Of unutter-
able woe their baptism, the blood OF
crushed hearts the awful wine of their
sacrament, blasphcmies their litany,
and the groans of the lost world the
organ dirge Of their worship.
Again, If you want TO be qualified TO
meet the duties which this age demands
Of you, you must on the one hand avoid
reckless iconoclasm. and on the other
hand not stick too much to things be
cause they are old The air is full Of
new plans, new projects, new theories
Of government, new theologies, and I
am amazed TO see how many Christians
want only novelty IN order to recon-
mend a thing to their confidence; and SO
they vacillate and swing TO and fro, and
they are useless, and they are unhappy.
New plans secular. ethical, philosophi-
cal, religious, cisatlantic, transatlantic.
An, my brother, do not adopt thing
merely because 1t is new. Try IL by the
realities Of Judgment day.
But, on the other hand do not adhere
TO anything merely because it is old.
There is not a single enterprise of the
church or the world but has sometimes
been scoffed at There was time
when men derided even Bible societies,
and when few young men met near
hay stack in Massachusetts, and organ
lied the first missionary society ever
organized in this country, there went
laughter and ridicule all around the
Christian church. They said the under
taking was preposterous. And so also
the work OF Jesus Christ was assailed
People cried out, whoever heard OF
such theories Of ethics and government?
Who ever noticed such a style OF
preaching as Jesus has?" Ezekiel had
talked Of mysterious wings ana wheels
Here came a man from Capernaum and
Gennesaret and He drew his illustra-
trations from the lakes from the sand,
from the ravine, from the lilies, from
the cornstallSs. How the Pharisees
scoffedl How Herod deridedl How
Caiaphas hissedl And this Jesus they
plucked by the beard, aad they spat in
His face, and they called Him this fell
lowl" All the great enterprises in and
out OF the church have at times been
scoffed at, and there have been a great
multitude who have thought that the
chariot 81 Gods truth would fall to
pieces II IL once got ont OF the old rut
And SO there are those who have no
patience with anything like improve
ment In church architecture, or with
anything like good, hearty, honest,
earnest church singing, and they deride
any form Of religious discussion which
goes down walking among everyday
men rather than that which. makes an
excursion on rhetorical stills. o, that
the church of God would wake up 10 an
adaptability of work. We must admit
the simple fact that the churches
of Jesus Christ in this day do
not reach the great massea There are
fifty thousand people In Edinburgh who
never hear the gospel There are one
million people in London who never
hear the gospel There are at least
three hundred thousand souls In the city
OF Brooklyn who come not under the
immediate ministrations of Christ's