The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1892-05-25
when we ought to present it in animated
and spectacular manner

when we ought to present 1T 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 institutions | say
to them this morning. If you will go home
and look over the history of the church
you will find that those men have brought
most souls To Christ who have been dra-
matte. Rowland Hill, dramatic; Thomas
Chalmers, dramatic; Thomas Guthrie,
dramatic; John Knox, dramatic; Robert
McCheyne, dramatic; Christmas Evans,
dramatic; George Whitefield, dramatic;
Robert Hall, dramatic; Robert South, dra-
matte; Fenelon, dramatic; John Mason,
dramatic; DIR. 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 rebuff
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 assidu-
Gus and the plucky.
GET OUT OF THE RUT.
What we want, ministers and laymen, is
to get our sermons and our exhortations
and our prayers out of the old rut. / see
great deal Of discussion in the religious
papers about why people do not come to
church. The do not come because they
are not interested. The old hackneyed re
Hgious phrases that come moving down
through the CENTURIES will never arrest the
masses. WhaJ we want 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 meg
atherium of past ages, but the living
reindeer 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 TIE
sanctified 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 dra-
matte. Attention! Behold! Harkl Selahl
Next | speak Of the Selah of perpetuity.
The Targum, which is the Bible in Chal-
dee, renders this word of my text for
ever" Many writers agree in believing
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 rever-
beration-foreverl Gods government for
ever, Gods goodness forever, the gladness
of the righteous forever 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 a small scale. A hundred years are a
great while. A tower five hundred feet is
hosrr of fotr,- 49,,
sand miles is very long. But eternityl If
the archangel has not strength of wing
to fly across it, but flutters and drops like
wounded seagull, there is no need of our
trying in the small shallow of human
thought to voyage across it.
FOR TIME AND ETERNITY.
A skeptic desiring to show his contempt
for the passing years, and to show that be
could build ehduringly, had his own sepul-
cher 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 a tres
somehow got into an unseen crevice of the
marble. That seed grew and enlarged I'M
til it became tree and split the marble to
pieces. There can be no Generalization of
anything earthly. But foreverl Will you
and live as long as that? We are apt %
think of the grave the terminus. We
are apt to think of the hearSe as our last
vehicle. We are apt to think of seventy
or eighty or ninety years, and then a cessa-
tion.
Instead Of that we find the marble slab
of the tomb IS only milestone, marking
the first mile, and that the great journey
is beyond. We have only time enough n
this world u put on the sandals and to
clasp our girdle and to pick up our staff.
We take our first step from cradle to
grave, and then we open the door and start
great God, whittier? The clock strikes
the passing away of time, but not the pass
ing away of eternity. Measureless! meas
urelessl This Selab of perpetuity makes
earthly inequalities so insignificant, the
difference between scepter and needle, be
tween Alhambra and hut, between chariot
and cart, between throne and curbstone
between Administer and bare floor, be-
tween satin and sackcloth, very trivial.
This Selah Of perpetuity makes our get
ting ready so important. For such pro
longation Of travel what outfit of guide
books, of passports and of escort3 Are we
putting out on desert, simeon swept and
ghoul haunted, or into regions of sun
lighted and spray sprinkled gardens? Will
il be ElySiull or Gehenna? Once started
in that world we cannot stop. The cur
rent is so swift that once in no oar can re-
sst it, no helm can steer out Of it, no her
culean or titanic arm can battle it. Hank
to the long resounding echo forever"
Oh, wake up to the interest of your death
less spirit! Strike out for heaven. Rouse
We, men and women for whom Jesus died
Selahl SelahI Foreyer Foreverl
LnnrN