Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-30

tipn Of the land. They were part Jews and
part heather. When the people of the
Northern Kingdom had been carried away
captive, colonists from the East had been
brought in, and the Jews who remained had
intermarried with them, and the Samari-
tans were their descendants. And the
| Samaritans wanted to help with the good
work Of building the national church.
That raised hard question. What should
be done? On one side was the pride Of
race, Of pure blood, of high descent and
the pride Of religion-aristocracy and or
thodoxy; two great arguments, one repre-
sented by the word society, the other by
the word church. On the other side were
two great needs-one was the Jews need Of
the Samaritans' strength and money, and
the other was the Samaritans' need of the
privilege of giving their money and their
strength.
THE sAMARITANs SHUT OUT.
This last, perhaps, the Jealous church
builders did not think of. They did not
consider, perhaps, that one way to help
people is to let them help And, anyhow,
it is pretty sure that they had no great de-
sire to help the Samaritans at all They
were orthodox, and they proposed to have
the orthodox build the orthodox church.
They were the aristocracy, counting back
their ancestors generation after generation,
and they wanted no intermingling of baser
blood. This, at least is certain, that they
said "No'' to the Samaritans, and said il
both forcibly and disagreeably.
1t was the mistake, which has been many
times repeated, of misunderstanding the use
Of truth. Truth, privilege, possession is d
trust The man, OF company of men, that
H., :, = fbo;- io.kI kIn.
have hold it, in the intention of God, for
their neighbors' benefit. We are to be good
stewards.of the mysteries of God. And a
steward is not policeman nor a soldier.
His work is not so much to guard as to give.
He is a dispenser.
HAGGAI's FIRST SERMON.
At last, one day in September, in the year
$40 B. c., probably on the occasion of some
religious festival, when great crowds of peo-
pie were gathered on the Temple hill, this
old man Haggai got up on big piece Of
broken stone and made speech. They all
knew Haggai, one of the few old men among
them; quiet man, fonder of writing than Of
speaking, of repute among them as a COM
piler of their national history, and of some
fame as poet. Some think that he wrote
part of the book called Ezra, and a dozen
Psalms are marked with his name and Zach
eriah's. An old man, gray hair flowing over
his shoulders and down his breast; when
they saw him everybody gave attention.
The Prince Zerubbabel was theresand Joshua
his right hand, and great company of
priests and people. So Haggai preached his
first sermon.
Some OF you say, he began, that 1t isn't
time yet to build the house of God; but I
notics that you are building your own
houses fast enough. Is that right? Shall
the people dwell in handsome palaces, while
the temple of God is heap of broken stone2
Consider your ways.
That was well said. The house of God,
the Church, stands in every community as
sign of mans regard for God. 1t is not
the very best sign, not by any means an
adequate sign, but it is, nevertheless, one
of the ways of estimating how much the
people care about religion. At least, if the
house of God is conspicuously meaner than
the houses in which the majority of the
people live, something is pretty surely the
matter with the peoples religion. That is
what Haggai thought
EFFECT OF THE SERMON.
And Haggai's speech made an impression.
It was one of those sermons which the lis
teners could get hold of and act upon. At
once they set to work. They began to order
stone and wood. They began to clear away
the rubbish from the temple hill. The
good effects of sermon sometimes last a
long time; but more often, 1 am afraid, they
last short time. Anyhow, it seems to be
considered desirable thing to have a new
sermon, and even two new sermons, every
Sunday.
Haggai's sermon stayed In the minds Of
the congregation just about two weeks.
Then the enthusiasm wore away. It began
to be seen that the task was an immense
one. suppose that the plan of the unbuiIt
temple looked about as large in the eyes of
the workers as that great sanctuary which
Ezekial sketched in exile, so big that it
covered the whole country from the Jordan
to the sea, and from the peaks of Lebanon
to the desert of the South. It seemed too
much to undertake And, beside the
splendid church they had before, how could
So work was stopped. The rubbish had
been about half cleared away. Not stone
had been laid upon a stone. Everybody
was discouraged.
REASONS BY WHAT u uEFr.
So q month passed, and then Haggi
preached again. Don't be discouraged, he
said. 1t is true that the new temple cannot
equal the old to-day: perhaps, in some ways,
never. But do the best you can; that is ali
God asks. Some people woa't give any
thing because they can't give $500. They
fail to realize the value of the little. The
two richest churches in this country to-day
are the Roman Catholic and the Methodist.
They are both of them churches of the poor
The secret of it is that everybody helps.
Give what you can. God measures the gift,
not by what is given, but by what is left.
God will bless you, said Haggai. And
he looked far ahead into the future, and
saw the nations of the heather bringing
their riches to adorn this temple, and God
Himself giving peace in the midst of it.
And ahead we look, past Haggai's time, and
on and on, till the Christ comes, and the
temple becomes but symbol of the uni
versal church, and the old prophecy is real
lied beyond the prophets brightest dreams.
FORGOT THE SERMON AGAIN.
So the people were encouraged and went
to work again; and the effect of this second
sermon seems to have lasted a whole month,
or perhaps six weeks And then everything
stopped again. It is so much easier to get
things started than it is to keep them up
after they are startedI Now it was Decem-
Der, and again there was a great gathering
of the people to celebrate the Hebrew
Christmas, and again the prophet lifted up
his voice. He asked two questions Of the
priesta Suppose man carries holy dish,
q sacred vessel of the altar, and his dress |
touches somebody else; is that person made |
holy? Ne. But suppose man who is |
ceremonially unclean from touching dead |
body touch somebody else; is that person |
then clean or unclean? Unclean.
It was statement, put in q way which |
everybody could understand, of that sorry |
fact of life that the evil is more pervasive |
than the oood Health ia not contaoious