The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1892-02-16

ClubhOuSeS, whore low people so on sunday
morning. averaging one person to a pew OF one
person to a half dozen pews, and leaving the
minister at night to sweat through a sermon
with here and there lone traveller, unless,
by a Sunday evening sacred concert. he can
get out an audience of respectable SIZE The
vast majority of the church membership
round the world puts forth no direct effort for
the salvation of men. Did l say there would
have to be change? I correct that and
say, there will be change. If there
be $4,000, 900 persons added every year to the
worlds population, then, there there will be
10000, 600 added to the church and 10000 900
and so, 600, 600 and GO, 00O, 900 How will it be
done? 1t will be done when the church Will
meet Christ on tho plain. Come down out OF
the mountain OF eXclusiveness. Como down
out of the mountain Of pride. Come down out
of the mountain of Journalism. Come down
out OF the mountain OF freezing indifference
Old DIR. Stephen II. Tying. great on earth and
in heaven once said to me: II am IN favor OF
a change. / do not know what is the best
way of doing things in the churches, but
know tho way we are doing now is not the best
way, or the world would be nearer its saliva
ton than it seems to be-" SO l feel: so we
all feel that there needs to be a change. The
point at which we all come short is not pre-
senting Christ on the PLAIN, Christ on the level
with all he worlds woes and wants and neces-
Stiles
The full, change will have to come from the
rising ministry. We now in the field are too
set in our ways. We are numbered up with
technicalitics. We have too many concord
ances and dictionaries and encyclopedias and
systems of theology on our head TO get down
on the plain. Our vocabulary is too frosted.
We arc too much under the nomination of
customs rcgnant for many centuries.
Come on, young men of the ministry. Take
this pulpit. take all the pulpits. and in the
language of tho street and the market place
and the family circle preach Christ on the
plain. AS soon as the church says by its atti.
tude. not necessarily by its words, "My one
mission is to help for this life and for the life
to come all the people, and it proves its ear
nes:ness in the matter, people on foot and on
horseback and in wagons and in carriages will
come to the churches in such numbers that
they will have to be met at the door by ush-
ers saying: "You were hero last Sunday
you cannot come in today. Gentlemen and
ladies, you must take your turn And, it
will be as i'll the Johnstown freShet and disas-
ter, when government station was
opened for the supply of bread, and it
took the officers Of the law to keep tho suffer
ers in line. because of the great rush for food.
When this famine-struck world realizes that
the church is a government station set up Ey
the government of the universe to provide the
bread of eternal lie Ior all the people, the
rush will be unprecedented and uninlagin-
able
Astronomers have been busy measuring
worlds and they have told us how great is the
circumference of this world and how great is
its diameter, yea, they have kept on until they
have weighed our planet and found its weight
to be six sextllion tons. But by no science
has tho weight of this worlds trouble been
weighed. Now, Christ standing on the level
of our humanity stands in sympathy with
every trouble. There are so many aching
heads His ached under the thorns There
are so many weary feet His were worn with
the long journey up and down the land that
received Him not. There are many perse-
cuted souls: Every hour OF His life was under
human outrage. The world had no better place
to receive Him than a cattle pen, and it's
farewell was a slap on His cheek and q spear
in His side SO intensely human was He that
there has not been in all our race q grief or in
trinity or exhaustion or pang that did not
touch Him once and that does not touch Him
now. The lepers the paraytics, The imbeclle,
the maniac, the courtesan, the repentant
brigand- one did He turn off, which one
did He not pity, which one did lie not help?
The universal trouble OF the world is bereave-
ment. One may escape all the other troubles,
but that no soul escapes. Out OF that bitter
cup every one must take a drink. For in
stance, in order that all might know how He
svmpathizes with those who have lost q
daughter Christ comes to the house of Jairus.
There is such big crowd around the door, lie
and His disciples have to push their way in.
From tho throng of people. conclude that
this girl must have been very popular; she
was one of those children whom every
body likes. After Christ GOT in the
house, there was such loud weeping
that tho ordinary tones of voice could not
be heard. | do not wonder. The dead
daughter was twelve years of age. 1t IS about
the happest time in most lives. Very little
children suffer many injustces because they
are children, and childhood is not desirable
part OF human eXstonce-they get whacked
or set on. But, at twelve years OF age, the
child has come to self-assertion and is apt to
make her rights known. And then, twelve
years OF age is too early for the cares and
anXietes of life. So this girl was | think,
the merriment Of the household. She fur
nislIed for them the milniCfy. and the harmless
mischief, and reused the gufaW that often
rang through that happy home. But now she
is dead, and the grief at her departure is as
violent as her presence had been viyaciOus
and inspirting Oh! the bereavement was so
sharp, so overwhelming! How could they
give her up / suspect that they blamed
themselves FOR this or for that. Oh! if they
had had some other doctor or taken some
other medicine, or had been more careful of
her health, or if they had not given her that
reproof some time when she had not really de-
served it. Oh if they had been more patient
with her hilarities and, instead of huShing her
play. had participates in it! You know there
are so many things that parents always blame
themselves for at such times. Only twelve
years of age! SO fair, so promising so full of
life few days ago. and now so Still! Oh, what
Is IL To nave ~ tittls,tttI uttu' L no ioOuI 10
full of folks, but yonder is the room where the
young sleeper is The crowd cannot SO in
there. Only six persons enter, five besides
Chrst-three friends and, of course, the
father and mother. They have the first right
to go in. The heaviest part of the grief was
theirs. All eyes in that room are on the face
of this girl. There lay the beautiful hand
white and finely shapen. but it was not lifted
in greeting to any of the group. Christ
stepped forward and took hold of that
hand, and said. with a tone and ac-
centuation charged with tenderness and COM
mand; 'Damsel, l say unto thee, arise"
And, without a moments delay, she arose, her
eyes wide open, her cheeks turning from white
lily to red rose, and the parents cry, "She
lives! She lives!" and in the next room they
take up the sound, "She lives! She lives!"
and the throng in front of the doorway repeat
it, "She lives! She lves" Will not all those
who have lost a daughter feel that such a
Christ that can sympathize?
On another occasion He showed how He felt
about the loss of son. Here are the obse-
ques. A long procession, a widowed mother
following her only son. [ know not how long
the husband and father had been gone, but
upon this son, who had now come to be a
young man, the leadership of that household
had fallen. l think he had got to be the
breadwinner. lie was proud of his mother,
and she should never lack anything as long as
he lived. And there is no grander spectacle
on earth than a young man standing
between want and a widowed mother