Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1891-07-29

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, 81 literally
support the Gospel, and the church is
open and the Gospel is preached; all the
spiritual advantages are spread before
men, and if they want to be saved let
them come to be saved; have discharged
all my responsibility. All! is that the
Masters spirit? 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 in? What
would have become of you and me if
Christ had not come down off the hills
of Heaven, and if He had not come
through the door of the Bethlehem cara
vansary, and if He had not with the
crushed hand. of the crucifxion knocked
at the iron gate of the sepulcher of our
spiritual death, crying, Lazarus, come
forth?"
Oh, my Christian friends, this is no
time for inertia, when all the forces of
darkness seem to be in full blast; when
steam printing presses are publishing in
fidel tracts; when express railroad trains
are carrying messengers of sin; when
fast clippers are laden with opium and
rum; when the night air of our cities is
polluted with the laughter that breaks
up from the ten thousand saloons OF dis
sipatiOn and abandonment; when the
fires of the second death already are
kindled in the cheeks of some who, only
a little while ago, were incorrupt
Never since the curse fell upon the
earth has there been time when it was
such an unwise, such a cruel, such an
awful thing for the church to sleep! The
great audiences are gathered in temples
of sin-tearS of unutterable woe their
baptism, the blood Of crushed hearts the
awful wine of their sacrament, bias
phemies 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 [ am
amazed to see how SO many Christians
want only novelty in order to recommend
| a thing to their confidence; and so they
vacillate and swing to and fro, and they
are useless, and they are unhappy. New
plans-seculer, ethical, philosophical,
religious, cisatlantic. transatlantic. All,
my brother, do not adopt thing merely
because it is new. Try it by the realities
of a Judgment day.
But, on the other hand, do not adhere
to anything merely because it is old.
There is not single enterprise of the
church or the world but has sometimes
been scoffed at. There was a time when
men derided even Bible societies; and
when few young men met near hay
stack in Massachusetts and organized
the first missionary society ever organ
lied in this country, there went laughter
and ridicule all around the Christian
Church. They said the undertaking was
preposterous.
And so, also the work of Jesus Christ
was assailed. People cried out, "Who-
ever heard of such theories of ethics and
government? Whoever noticed such a
style of preaching as Jesus has?'
Ezekiel has talked of mysterious wings
and wheels. Here came man from
Capernaum and Gennesaret, and he drew
his illustrations FROM the lakes, from the
lilies, from the sand, from the ravine,
from the cornstalks. How the Pharisees
scoffedl How Herod derided! How
Caiaphas Kissed! And this Jesus they
plucked by the beard, and they spat in
His face, and they called Him, ''this fell
low!" All the great enterprises in and
out of the church have at times been
scoffed at, and there have been great
multitude who have thought that the
chariot of Gods truth would fall to
pieces if it once got out 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, 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. Oh, that the Church Of
God would wake up to an adaptability of
work. We must admit the simple fact
/ that the churches of Jesus Christ in this
day do not reach the great masses.
There are fifty thousand people in Edin-
burgh 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
truth and the Church of God in this day,
| instead of being a place full of living
eplstles, read and known of all men, is
more like s'dead letter" postof6ee.
''But," say the people, 1.-The world is
going to be converted; you must be pa
tient; the kingdoms Of this world are to
become the Kingdoms of Christ" Never,
unless the Church Of Jesus Christ puts
on more speed and energy. Instead of
the church converting the world, the
world is converting the charch. Here is
a great fortress. How shall it be taken?
An army comes and sits around about it,
cuts off the supplies, and says, Snow we
will just wait until from exhaustion and
starvation they will have to give up
Weeks and months, and perhaps year
pass along, and finally the fortress sur
renders through that starvation and eX-
haustion. But my friends, the fortresses
of sin are never to be taken in that way.
If they are taken for God it will be by
/ storm. You will have to bring up the
/ great siege guns of the gospel to the
very wall and wheel the flying artillery
into line, and when the armed infantry
of Heaven shall confront the battlements
you will have to give the quick COM
mand, Forward! Charger