The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1892-09-12
PATHos OF HUMAN LIFE.

The Churches Are Drifting Away from
tho Masses-The Power That Awakens.
If were young again would strive
to be, not in the low, vulgar, selfish
sense, but in the high, self forgetful
sense, popular preacher. would toll
for this as l would for virtue itself. If
g1aces of speech would make me such,
would cultivate these. If useful enthu-
siasm would draw men to me, would
keep my heart fresh and young for a
hundred years. If simplicity Of style
/ and manner would effect it would prac-
tice the seyerest simplicity.
/ If going among the people would help
me would fling aside all conventional
ties and recluse habits and go from shop
/ to shop and tenement to tenement till
my soul was saturated with the thoughts
and feelings of lowly men. II n new bap-
4 tism of power were needed would plead
4 for that till / received the fresh anoint-
ing, would exhaust all possibilities
that might win the scattered, listless
i multitudes to listen to the Gospel | was
ordained to preach.
There are many people l am never
/ tempted TO envy, l envy not the rich,
the titled or the proud, but l do envy
! the man who stands, not in the chancel
Of q great cathedral, but in the pulpit of
great tabernacle. Before him all
sorts and conditions of men, filling the
seats tier after tier, filing the galleries
ono above the other, growing the aisles,
looking in from the vestibules and lin
ing the platform. What place what
an hour! what an opportunity Before
him the people, their souls, as Billy
Dawson would say, "sitting in their
eyes," behind him the eternal God; in
his hand the message of salvation; on
his lips the words of truth and grace;
among his hearers the abiding spirit
that convinces men of sin, of righteous
ness, of judgment to come, and as the
holy message flows from his lips, mark
where the arrow strikesl
Obdurate hearts subdued and melted
penitential tears flowing from many an
eye; many face glowing with the
radiance of a new hope, and the whole
congregation lifted by divine magic into
higher region of aspiration and pur.
pose. All, this spower-power seraph
might coyet, The power that awakens
sregenerates and saves.
But the preacher should be followed
by church membership that goes fol-
the crowd. It is unutterably painful to
note how, in the populous centers, the
churches are drifting away from the
masses. When the favored classes fold
up their tents and move on to better
: quarters, the churches fold up theirs and
follow in the march, leaving their hap,
less brothers and sisters to tester and
rot and perish in their squalor and
their sin.
Would that noble laymen might BIZ
found with enough of the Christlike
:, spirit osay otheir pastors: go into the
dense centers, and We will follow you
! We will erect your pulpit; we will build
your tabernacle; we will stand by yor
= with our intelligence, our money, oul
influence, and you shall have the un
speakable privilege of initiating YOU
!, Master in preaching the Gospel to th'
poor" This spirit will come upon u
when we have sounded the fathomlest
pathos Of human life.--BiRhop w. X
Ninde.
Wanamafter's EvangeIIstic Work
CAPE May, n. j., Sept. 12.-Postnlai
= ter General Wanamaker successful
completed his evangelistic itenary wof
among the churches of lower Cape Nd,
q where he made stirring appeals to moi
. church go6is 70 give heed to the claim
of Christ upon their lives, and to pr,
, Tossing CHRISTIANS to closer living and
j nswor and better methods of spreadir
the gospel. Mr.. Wanamaker was o
/, isted by Professor Sweeney and cho
y choir of male singers, and Or. I. !
: Fernley, Mr.. john d. Love, Rev. job
10 B. Hgines. These remarkable meeting
IN enuea az the ritsl A1celOuist illecep
e, church last night with an audience e