The Brookhaven leader., 1891-06-25

stock of earth and hell, to leave the
Bible with no more respect or author
ity than an old almanac of 1922, which
told what would be the change of
weather six months ahead, and in what
quarter of the moon it is best to plant
turnips. In word, the effort is to
stop the evangelization of the world
1t seems to me very much like this:
| There has been a railway accident,
and many are wounded and dying
| There are several drug stores near the
scene of casualty. All the doctors
and druggists are needed, and
needed right away. Bandages, stimu.
lants, an8sthetics, medicines of all
sorts. What are the doctors and drug
| gists doing? Discussing the contents Of
some old bottles on the top shelf, bot
ties of medicine which some doctors
and druggists mixed two or three hun
dred years ago. Come doctorsw
''Come druggists cry the people, land
help these wounded and dying that are
being brought from beneath the tim
bers of the crushed rail train. In a
little while it will be too late. Come
for Gods sakc Come right away"
NO" says a doctor, mot until we have
settled whether the medicine on that
| top shelf was rightly mixed. | say
there were too many drops of laudanum
in it, and this other man says there were
| too many drops of camphor and we must
| get this question settled before we can
attend to the railroad accident" And one
doctor takes another doctor by the col
| 10 \ = H.,
counter, and one of the druggists says:
eff you will not admit that | am right
about that one bottle, | will smash
every bottle in your apothccarv store,
and he proceeds to smash. Meanwhile,
on the lower shelf plainly marked and
| within easy reach, are all the medi-
zines needed for the helping of the
sufferers by the accident, and in that
| drawer, easily opened, are the bandages
| and splints, for the lack of which fifty
people are dying outside the drug store.
Before | apply this thought, everyone
sees its application. Here is this old
world, and it is off track. Sin and sor-
row have collidcd with it. The groan of
agony is fourteen hundred million
| voiced. God has opened for relief
and cure great Sanitarium, a
great House of Mercy, and all its
| shelves are filled with balsams,
with catholicons, with help, glo-
rious help, tremendous help, help so
easily administered that you need no:
get upon any step-laddcr to reach it.
You can reach it on your knees, and
| then hand it to all the suffering and the
SHINING and the dying, Comfort for all
the troubled! Pardon for all the guilty!
Peace for all the dying, But while the
world is needing the relief and perish
| ing for lack of it, what of the church?
Why, it is full of fighting doctors. On
| the top shelf are some Old bottles, which
several hundred years ago Calvin or
Arminius, or the members Of the synod
of bort, or the formers of the Nicene
Creed, filled with holy mixtures, and
until we get a revision of these old bot
ties and find out whether we must take
a teaspoonful or tablespoonful, and
whether before or after meals let the
nations suffer and groan and die. Save
the bottles by ali means, if you can not
save anything else.
Now, what part shall you and take
III bii' NoitbicHNI w llltli ms ali Nlll
tendon with clangor? My advice is:
Take no part. In time of riot all
mayors of cities advise good citizens to
stay at home or in their places of bust
ness; and in this time of religious riot
advise you to go about your regular
work for God. Leave the bottles on
the higher shelves for others to fight
about and take the two bottles on the
shelf within easy reach, the two bottles
which are all this dying world needs;
the one filled with a potion which is
for the cleansing of all sin, the other
filed with a potion which is for the
soothing of all suffering Two Gospel
bottles! Christ mixed them out of His
own tears and blood. In them is no hui
man admiXture. Spend no time on the
mysteries! You, man only five or six
feet high, ought not try to wade
an ocean one thousand feet deep. MY
own experience has been vivid. | de-
voted the most of my time for years in
trying to understand Gods eternal de-
crees, and | was determined to find out
why the Lord let sin come into the
world, and | set ont to explore the
doctrine of the Trinity, and with a yard
stick to measure the throne of the In
finite. AS with all my predecessors,
the attempt was a dead failure. For
the last thirty years | have not spent
two minutes in studying the contro-
verified points of theology, and if live
thirty years longer I will not spend the
thousandth part of a second in such ex-
plOratiOn. | know two things, and
these | will devote all the years of my
life in proclaiming: God will through
Jesus Christ pardon sin and He will
comfort trouble.
Creeds have their uses, but Just now
the church is creeded to death. The
young men entering the ministry are
fog that ever settled on the coasts As
| am told that in all our services stu.
dents of Princeton and Union and Drew
and other theological seminaries are
present, and as these words will come
to thousands of young men who are
soon to enter the ministry, let me say
to such and through them to their asso-
ciates, keep ont of the bewildering, be-
lifting, destroying and angry contro-
versies abroad. The questions our
doctors of divinity are trying to settle
will not be settled until the day after
the day of judgment. 1t is
such a poor economy of time to
spend years and years in trying