The Hazel Green herald. [volume] (Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Ky.) 1885-19??, 1891-08-28

church of God is more Drawn of piety,
The century plant is wonderfully
suggestive and wonderfully beauti
full, but ! never look at il withou,
thinking of its parsimony. IL lets
whole generations go by before Il puts
forth one blossom: so have really moro
heartfelt admiration when | see the
dcwy tears in the blue eyes of the VIC.
lets, for they come every spring. My
Christian friends, time is going by So
rapidly that we can not afford TO he
Idle. A recent statistician saws that
human life now has an average of
only thirty-two years From these
thlrty-two years you must subtract
all the time you take for sleep and the
taking of food and recreation; that will
leave you about sixteen years. From
those sixteen years you must subtract
all the time you are necessarily en-
gagged in the earning of livelihood;
that will leave you about eight years
From those eight years you must take
all the days and weeks and mouths-all
the length of time that is passed in
childhood and sickness, leaving you
about one year in which TO work for
God. Oh, my soul, wake up How
darcSt thou sleep in harvest time, and
with so few hours in which TO reap? So
that state it as simple fact that all
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, II literally
support the Gospel, and the church is
open and the Gospel is preached; all
the spiritual advantages are spread be-
fore men, and if they want to be saved
let them come to be saved; have dis
charged all my responsibilities" All.
is that the Masters spirit? Is there
not an old book somewhere that COM
mands us TO go out into the highways
and hedges and compel the people to
come in? What would have become of
you and me IL Christ had not come
down off the hills of Heaven. and if He
had not come through the door of the
Bethlehem caravansary, and if He had
not with the crushed hand of the cruel
fiXion knocked at the iron gate of the
sepulcher OF our spiritual death, cry
ing, 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
infidcl tracts; when express railroad
trains are carrying messengers of sin;
when fast clippers are laden with opium
and t.am; when the night air of our
cities is polluted with the laughter that
breaks up from the 10000 saloons of
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 a time when it was
such an unwise, such cruel, such an
awful thing for the church to sleep. |
The great audiences are not gathered |
in the Christian churches, 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, |
their litany, and the groans
Of the lost world the organ dirge of
their worship Zhs ~
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 arc old The air is full of
new plans new projects, new theories
IF government new theologies; and I
am amazed to see how many Christians
want only novelty in order to recon-
mend thing to their condolences; and so
hey vacillate and swing to and fro, and
hey are useless, and they are unhappy.
New plans-secular, ethical, philoso-
Dhical, religious, cisatlantic transat-
antic. All, my brother, do not adopt
/ thing merely because it is new. Try it
by the realities Of Judgment Day.
But, on the other hand, do not adhere
% anything merely because it is old.
There is not single enterprise of the
,hurch or the world but has sometimes
been scoifed at. There was a time
when men dcrided even Bible societies;
md when a few young men met near a
lay-stack in Massachusetts and organ
zed the first missionary society ever
organized in this country. there went
aughter and ridicule all around the
,hristian Church. They said the under
aking was preposterous. And so also
he work OF Jesus Christ was i
ssailed People cried out. "Who
yer heard of such theories of ethics !
nd government? Who ever noticed
uch style of preaching as Jesus has?' J
Ezekiel had talked of mysterious wings
nd wheels. Here came a man from +,
apcrnaum and Gcnnesaret. and He I
rev his illustrations from the lakes, i
rom the sand, from the ravine, from {
he lilies. from the cornstallts How I