The Red Cloud chief., 1891-08-07
CHRISTIAN WORKERS.
DR.. Talmage Gives Some Good Ad.
vice to Church Laborers.
Aggressiveness In Soul Saving Necessary
Time For Work Brief u Be~t-We.k.
ness OF the Characterization En-
couraged 10 March on.

a recent sermon delivered to the
tauqua assembly at Madison, Wis,
H.. I. Dewitt Talmage ~discoursed
upon the necessity Of Christian workers
being aggressive. His text was Esther
iv. Il: "Who knoweth whether thou
art come to the kingdom for such a
time as thisT' DIR. Talmage said:
Esther, the beautiful, was the wife Of
Ahasuerus, the abominable. The time
had come for her to present a petition
TO her Infamous husband in behalf of
the 1sraeiitish nation, to which she had
once belonged. She was afraid TO un-
dertake the work, lest she should lose
her own life; but her uncle, Mordecai.
who had brought her up. encouraged
her with the suggestion that probably
she had been raised up of God for that
peculiar mission "Who knowest
whether thou art come TO the kingdom
for such a time as this?" Esther had
her God-appointed work; you and ] have
ours II is my business TO tell you
what style of people we ought
to he in order that we NAV
meet the demand of the age
in which God has cast our lot IL
you have come expecting to hear alb
stractions discussed, or dry technicaIi-
ties of religion glorified, you nave come
to the wrong place; but if you really
would like to know what this age has a
right TO expect of you as Christian men
and women, then l am ready. in the
Lords name, TO look you i'm the face.
When two armies nave rushed into bat
tie the officers of either army do not
want "a philosophical discussion about
the chemical properties Of human blood
or the nature OF gunpowder; they want
some one to man the batteries and
swab out h guns And now, when
all the forces of light and darkness, of
heaven and hell, have pluns ed into the
fight, ii is no time to give ourselves to
, the definitions and formulas and tech
nicalities and conventionalities Il re-
ligion- What we want is practical,
earnest, concentrated. enthusiastic and
triumphant help. What we need in the
east you in Wisconsin need.
In the first place, in order To meet the
special demand of this age, you need to
Toe an Enthusiastically aggressive Chris
tian. OF half-and-half Christians we do
not wan any more. The church of
Jesus Christ viii be better without ten
Thousand of them. They are the chief
obstacle 10 the church's advancement
] am speaking OF another kind of Chris
tian. All the appliances for your be-
coming an earnest Christian are at your
hand, and there is a straight path for you
into the broad daylight of Gods for
glvenesS You may have come here
to-day the bondsmen of the world, and
vet before You go out of these doors
you NAV become the princes of the
Lord God Almighty. You know what
excitement there is in this country
when a foreign prince comes to our
shores. Why? Because il is expected
that some day he will sit upon a throne.
hut what is all that honor compared
with the honor 10 which rod calls you
to bc sons and daughters of the Lord
Almighty: yea, to toe queens and kings
unto God? They shall reign with
Him forever and forever"
~. my friends, you need TO he ag-
elxive Christians, and not like those
Sspns who spend their lives in hug
their Christian graccs and Won
,tering why they do not make any
progress. How much Robustness of
health would a man have if he hid him
self in a dark closet? A great cal of
picty of the day is too exclusive. 1t
hides itself. 1t needs more fresh air,
more out door exercise. There are
many Christians who are giving their
entire life To self examination. They
are feeling their pulses to see what is
the condition of their spiritual health
How long would a man have robust
physical health if ne kept all the days
and weeks and months and years of his
life feeling his pulse instead of going
ont into active, earnest, everyday
work?
WIS once amid the wonderful, he
witching cactus growths of North Car
DINA. ! never was more bewiidcred
with the beauty of flowers, and yet
when ! would take up one of these cac-
fuses and pull the leaves apart, the
beauty was all gone. Iou could hardly
tell that il had ever beer a flower
And there are a great many Christian
people in this day just pulling apart
their Christian experiences to see VIA
there is in them, and there is nothing
attractive left This style of self-ex-
animation is a damage instead of an
advantage 10 their Christian character
/ remember when | was a boy l use In
have a small piece in the garden that i
called nv own. and | planted corn
there, and every few DAYS l would pull
il UP to see how fast ii was growing.
Now, there are n great many christian
people in these days whose self-exam-
ination merely to the pulling
up of that which they only yesterday or
the day before planted.
q. my friends, if you want to have a
stalwart Christian character plant II
right out Of doors in tho great field OF
Christian usefulness, and though storms
NAV come upon il, and though the hot
sun of trial NAV try TO consume 1t II
will thrive until il becomes a great
tree. in which the fowls of Heaven may
have their habitation- l have no pa
thence with these flower pot Christians
They keep themselves under shelter.
and all their Christian experience IN a
small exclusive circle, when they ought
la plant it in the great garden of the
Lord. So that the whole atmosphere
could be aromatic with their Christian
usefulness What we want IN the
church of God is more Drawn of piety.
The century plant is wonderfully sug-
gestive and wonderfully beautiful. but
] never look at it without thinking of
its p~arsimony. h lets whole genera
tions go 10y before il puts forth one
blossom: 50 | have really more heart
felt admiration when j see the dewy
tears in the blue yes of the ~violets, for
they come every spring. > My Christian
friends. time is going by so rapidly that
we cannot afford to be idle,
A recent statistician says that human
life now has an average of only thirty
two wears From these ~thirty-two years
YOU must subtract all the time you take
for sleep and the taking of food and
recreation; hat viii leave You about
S;x-aap ,-aarS Erom those sixteen 1