The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-05-27

| scene, 10y Nnecdote, by descriptive ges
ture, by representation urge your classes
to right action. We want in all our
schools and colleges and prayer meet
ings, and in all our attempts at reform,
and in all OR churches to have ,a5 of
the style didactic and more of the style
dramatic,
Fifty essays about the sorrows of the
poor could not affect me MS u little drama
of accident aud suffering saw one slip
perry morning in the streets of Philadel-
phia. just ahead of me was a lad,
wretched in apparel, his limb amputated
at the knee; from the pallor of the boys
cheek the amputation not long before
He had package of broken food under
his arm-food he had begged, suppose,
at the doors, AS he passed ~ over the
slippery pavement cautiously and care
fully, steadied him until his crutch
slipped and he fell, helped him up as
well as | could, gathered up the frag-
ments of the package as well as could
put them under one arm and the crutch
Under the other arm; but when saw
the blood run down his pale cheek was
completely overcome. Fifty essays about
the suffering of the poor could not touch
one like that little drama of accident
and suffering.
Oh, we want in all our different de.
partments of usefullness-and address
hundreds of people who are trying to do
good-we want more of the dramatic
al opl lasS Of tha ltloctin III,
tendency in this day is to drone religion.
to whine religion, to cant religion, L.
moan religion, to croak religion, to Sc
pulchrize religion, when we ought to
present it in animated and spectacular
manner.
Sabbath morning by Sabbath morning
| address many theological students who
are preparing for the ministry. They
come in here from the different institu-
tons. | say to them this morning: If
you will go home and look over the his
tory of the church you will find that
those men have brought most souls to
Christ who have been dramatic-Row-
land Hill, dramatic; Thomas Chalmers
dramatic; Thomas Guthrie, dramatic:
John Knox, dramatic; Robert McCheyne
dramatic; Christmas Evans, dramatic;
George Whitetield, dramatic; Robert
Hall, dramatic; Robert South. dramatic;
Fenelon, dramatic: John Mason, dra-
matte: DR.. Mott, dramatic. When you
get into the ministry, if you attempt to
culture that element and try to WELD it
for God you will meet with mighty re-
buff and caricature, and ecclesiastical
council will take your case in charge,
and they will try to put you down, but
the God who starts you will help you
through, and great will be the eternal
rewards for the assiduous and the
plucky.
GET OUT OF THE RUT.
What we want, ministers and laymen,
is to get our sermons, and our exhorta-
tons, and our prayers out of the old rut.
see great deal of discussion in the re-
ligious papers about why people do not
come to church They do not come be
cause they are not interested. The old
hackneyed religious phrases that come
moving down through the centuries will
HtNtI lItSb ullt uldSStSs w Udl we WduL
today, you in your sphere and | in my
sphere, is to freshen up. People do not
want in their sermons the sham flowers
bought at the millinery shop, but the
japonicas wet with the morning dew;
nor the heavy bones of extinct megathe-
rum " pt.et ..oOs, pots-tiIo ,iyiIfe, iIi.I
deer caught last August at the edge of
Schroon lake.
We want to drive out the drowsy, and
the prosaic, and the tedious, and the hum.
drum, and introduce the brightness and
vivacity, and the holy sarcasm, and the
sanctitied wit, and the epigrammatic
power, and the blood red earnestness, and
the fire of religious zeal, and | do not
know of any way of doing it as well as
through the dramatic Attention. Be-
hold! Hark! Selah!
Next speak of the Selah Of perpetu-
ity. The Targum, which is the Bible in
Chaldce, renders this word Of my text
forever" Many writers agree in be-
lieving and stating that one meaning of
this word is forever" In this very
verse from which | take my text Selah
means not only poetic significance and
intermission and emphasis but it means
eternal rberation-forever! Gods
government forever, Gods goodness for
ever, the gladness of the righteous for
ever. Of course you and have not
surveyors chain with enough links to
measure that domain of meaning, In
this world we must build everything on
small scale. A hundred years are a
great while. A tower five hundred feet
is a great height. A journey of four
thousand miles is very long. But eter-
nifty! If the archangel has not strength
of wing to fly across it, but fiutters and
drops like wounded seagull, there is
no need of our trying in the small
shallow of human thought to voyage
across it.
AN ELOQUENT PERoRATIoN.
A skeptic, desiring to show his con
tempt for the passing years and to show
that he could build enduringly had his
own sepulcher made of the finest and
the hardest marble, and then he had put
on the door the words, "For time and
for eternity, but it so happened that the
seed of tree somehow got into an un
seen crevice of the marble That seet
grew and enlarged until it became {
tree and split the marble to pieces
There can be no LIBERALIZATION of any
thing earthly. But forever Will yor
and l live as long as that? We are APP
to think of the grave as the terminus
We are apt to think of the hearse as on,
last vehicle. We are apt to think o
seventy or eighty or ninety years, ant
then cessation.
Intead of that we find the marble slal
|, of the tomb is only milestone, mark
ing the first mile, and that the grea
journey is beyond. We have only tim
enough in this world to put ON the san
, dals and to clasp our girdle and to picl
up our staff. We take our first ste
, from cradle to grave, and then we opel
the door and start-great God, whittier
, The clock strikes the passing away o
time, but not the passing away of etel
) nifty. Measureless, measureless! Thi