Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1892-03-03

e"NS0 oso AAUuy DuUUulSUS DIS hO01s
an Catholics; Professionals, 1876, OOO,-
900; Catholics, 195, 900, 900; Budd-
hists, 4OO,OOO,OOO. There are 49,
goo, 600; Mohamedans and 22O, OOO,-
200 Brahmins. Meanwhile, manyofthe
churches are only religious club houses,
where a few people go on Sunday
morning, averaging one person to q
pew or one person to q half dozen
pews, and leaving the minister at
night to sweat through sermon with
here and there lone traveller, unless,
by a Sunday evening sacred concert,
he can get out an audience of respect
able size.
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 technicalities.
We have too many concordances and
dictionaries and encyclopedias and
systems of theology ON our head to
get down on the plain. Our vocabu-
larry is too frosted. We are too much
under the domination of customs reg
nant for many centuries.
Come on, young men of the ministry.
Take this pulpit, take all the pulpits,
and in the language of the street and
the niarketplace and the family circle
preach Christ on the plain. AS soon
as the church says by it's attitude,
not necessarily by it's words, "My one
mission is to help for this life to come
all the people" and it proves it's
earnestness 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 dshers, saying: "You were
here last Sunday; you cannot come
in to-day. Gentleman and ladies,
you must take your turn" And, it
will be, as in the Johnstown freshet and
disaster, when a government station
was opened for the supply of bread,
and it took the officers OF the law to
keep the sufferers in line, because of
the great rush for food. When the
famine-struck world realizes that
the church is q government station
set up by the government OF the uni
verse to provide the bread OF eternal
life for all the people, the rush will
be unprecedented and unimaginable.
Astronomers have been busy meas.
uring worlds, and they have told us
how great is the circumference of this
world and how great is it's diameter,
yea, they have kept on until they
have weighed our planet and found it's
weight to be six sextillion tons. But
by no science has the 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 so many
prosecuted souls; every hour of His
life was under human outrage. The
world had no better place to receive
him than a cattle pen, and its farewell
was slap on his cheek and a spear
in his side. So intensely human was
he that there has not been in atfi our
race grief or infrmity or exhaustion
or pang that did not touch him .once
and that does not touch him now.
The lepers, the paralytic, theimbecile,
the maniac, the courtesan, the repent
ant brigand-which one did he turn
off, which one did he not pity, which
one did he not help? The universal
trouble OF the world is bereavement.
One may escape all the other troubles,
but that no soul escapes. Out of that
bitter cup every one must take a drink.
Christ on the plain. l care not from
what side you approach him, you can
touch him and getl his help. That
Christ is in sympathy with all who
have trouble with their eyes, and that
is becoming an almost universal
trouble through much reading in rail
cars, and the
OvER-PRESsURE OF STUDY
in the schools where children are ex-
pected to be philosophers at 10, boys
and girls at IA with specracles. say
with all such trouble Christ is in
sympathy. Witness blind Bartimeus.
Witness the two blind men in the
house. Witness the two blind men
near Jericho. Witness the man born
blind. Did he not turn their perpet-
ual midnight into midnoon, till they
ran up and down clapping their hands
and saying, 81 see! Isee!" That Christ
is in sympathy with those who STAN
mer, or have silenced ears, notice how
promptly be came to that man with
impeachment of speech and gave him
command of the tongue so that he
could speak with ease, and, putting
his fingers into the ears, returned the
tympanum. Is there q lack of circu-
lation in your arm, think of him who
cured the defective circulation and the
inactive muscles ola patient who had
lost the use OF hand and arm, by say
ing, 'Stretch forth thy hand!" and the
veins and nerves and muscles resumed
their offices, and though in doing so
the joints may have cracked from
long disuse, and there may have been
astrange sensation from elbow to fin
ger tip, he stretched it forth! And
nothing is the matter with you, but
you may appeal to a sympathetic
Christ. And if you feel yourself to be
a great sinner, hear what he said to
that repenting Magdalen, while with a
scalding sarcasm he dashed her hypo-
critical ni1rsIlerS