News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-06-18

Bible with no more respect or authen
ITCHY 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 railroad accident and
many are wounded and dying There
of casualty. All the doctors and drug
gists are needed, and needed right
away. Bandages, stimulants, anas-
thetics, medicines of all sorts. What
are the doctors and druggists doing2
Discussing the contents of some old
bottles on the top shelf-bottles of med
icine which some doctors and druggists
mixed two or three hundred years ago.
''Come, doctors" Come, druggistsl p
cry the people, land help these wound
ed and dying that are being brought
from beneath the timbers of the crushed
rail train. In little while it will be
too late. Come, for Gods sakei Come
right awayl" 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
campfire, and we must get this ques-
ton settled before we can attend to the
railroad accident"
And one doctor takes another doctor
by the collar and pushes him back
against the counter, and one of the
druggists says, IF you will not admit
that am right about that one bottle
will smash every bottle in your apOthe-
cary store, and he proceeds to smash.
Meanwhile, on the lower shelf, plainly
marked and within easy reach, are all
the medicines needed for the helping
of the sufferers by the accident, and in
that drawer, easily opened, are band
ages and splints, for the lack of which
fifty people are dying outside the drug
store Before | apply this thought,
every one sees its application. Here is
this old world, and it is off track. Sin
and sorrow have collided with it. The
groan of agony is fourteen hundred
million voiced.
God has opened for relief and cure
great sanitarium, great house of mer-
cy, and all its shelves are filed with
balsams, with catholicons, with help
glorious help, tremendous help, help so
easily administered that you need not
get upon any step ladder 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 dyingl 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 filed with holy mixtures, and un-
| til we get a revision of these old bottles
and find out whether we must take a
teaspoonful or a tablespoonful, and
whether before or after meals, let the
nations suffer and groan and die. Save
the bottles by all means, if you cannot
save anything elsel
Now, what part shall you and take
in this controversy which fills all Chris
tendon with clangor2 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 potion which is for the
soothing of all suffering. Two Gospel
bottlesl Christ mixed them out of his
own tears and blood. In them is no
human admixture. Spend no time on
the mysteriesl You, man only five
or ak feet high, ought not try to wade
an ocean thousand feet deep.
bly, own experience has been vivid.
l devoted the most of my time for
years in trying to understand Gods
eternal DEGREES, and | was determined
to find out why the Lord let sin come
into the world, and set out to explore
the doctrine of the Trinity, and with
yardstick to measure the throne of the
Infinite. AS with all my predecessors,
the attempt was a dead failure. For
the last thirty years l have not spent
two minutes in studying the contro-
verted points of theology, and if live
thirty years longer l will not spend the
thousandth part of second in such
exploration. know two things, and
these l will devote all the years of my
life in proclaiming: God will through
Jesus Christ pardon sin. and he will
comfort trouble.
TOO MUCH TALK OF CREEDS
Creeds have their uses, but Just
now the church is creeded to death.
The young men entering the ministry
are going to be launched in the thickest
fog that ever settled on the coasts. As
l 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
associates, keep out of the bewildering,
belittling, destroying and angry contro-
versies abroad. The questions our doc
tors 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 to fathom the unfathom-
able, when in five minutes in heaven
we will know all we want to know.
Wait till we get our throne Wait un.
til the light of eternity flashes upon our
newly assembled spirits.
1t is useless for ants on different sides
of mole hill to try to discuss the COM
parative heights of Mount Blanc and
Mount Washington. Let me say to all
young men about to enter the ministry
that soon the greatest novelty in the
world will be the unaduIterated relig-
ion of Jesus Christ. Preach that and
you Will have crowd. The world is
sick to reorganization with the modern
quacks in religion. The world has been
swinging off from the old Gospel, but it
Will SWING back, and by the time you
young men go into the pulpits the cry
will be coming up from all the millions
of mankind, "Give us the bread of life;
NA1