Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1892-04-01


that may be easily strained out; the
other is a great, sprawling and sleepy
eyed camel of the dry desert. In all
our Sabbath schools, in all our Bible
classes, in all our pulpits we need to
brighten up our religious message with
such Christ-lilSe vivacity as we find in
| the text.
take down from my library the BIZ
ographies of ministers and writers of
past ages, inspired and uninspired, who
have done the most to bring souls to
Jesus Christ, and find that without
a single exception they have conse-
Grated their wit and humor to Christ.
Elijah used it when he advised
the Baalites, as they could not
make their god respond; telling
them to call louder as their god
might be sound asleep or gone a hunt
ing. Job used it when he said to his
seli-conceited comforters, "Wisdom
will die with you" Chaist not only
used it in the text, but when he IRON
ically complimented the purified Phar-
isees, saying, "The whole need not a
physician" and when by one word he
described the cunning of Herod, saying
$50 We, and tell that fox. -
Matthew Henry's Commentaries from
the first page to the last cor
| uscated with humor as summer clouds
with heat lightning. John Bunyan's
writings are as full of humor as they
are of saving truth, and there is not
an aged man here who has ever read
| Pilgrims Progress who does not re-
member that while reading it he smiled
as often as he wept Chrysostom,
George Herbert, Robert South, John
Wesley, George Whitefeld, Jeremy
Taylor, Rowland Hill, Nettleton,
George G.. Finney, and all the men of
the past who greatly advanced
the kingdom of God consecrated
their wit and their humor to the cause
| of Christ. So it has been in all the
| ages, and i say to these young theologi-
cal students, who cluster in these serv-
ices Sabbath by Sabbath, sharpen your
wits as keen as scimitars, and then take
them into this holy war 1t is a very
short bridge between smile and q
tear, suspension bridge from eye to
| lip, and it is soon crossed over, and u
smile is sometimes just as sacred as d
| tear. There is as much religion, and
think little more, in spring morn
ing than in starless midnight. Re-
ligious work without any humor
or wit in it is a banquet with a
side of beef and that raw and no con-
diments and no dessert succeeding.
| People will not sit down at such ban
| quet. BY all means remove all frivolity
and all bathos and all lightness and
all vulgarity-strain them out through
the sieve OF holy discrimination; but,
on the other hand, beware of that
monster which overshadows the Chris
tian church to-day, conventionality,
coming up from the Great Sahara
Desert of Ecclesiasticism, having on
| its back a hump of sanctimonious
gloom-and vehemently refused to
| swallow that camel.
Oh, how particular q great many
people are about the infnitesimals
while they are quite reckless about the
J magnitudes What did Christ say? Did
he not excoriate the people in his time
| who were so careful to wash their
| hands before a meal, but did not wash
| their hearts? 1t is a bad thing to have
unclean hands; it is worse thing to
have an unclean heart. How many
people there are in our time who are
very anxious that after their death
| they shall be buried with their feet
toward the easel and not at all ANXIOUS
that during their whole life they should
| face in the right direction so that they
| shall come up in the resurrection of
the just whichever way they are
buried. How many there are chiefly
! anxious that a minister of the Gospel
shall come in the line of apostolic sue
cession, not caring so much whether he
comes from Apostle Paul or Apostle
Judas. They have way of measur-
ing gnat until it is larger than a
camel.
Again; My subject photographs all
those who are abhorrent of small sins
while they are reckless in regard to
magnificent thefts. You will find many
n merchant who, while he is so careful
that he would not take yard of cloth
or spool of cotton from the coun-
ter without paying for it, and who
if bank cashier should make mis-
take and send in roll of bills five
dollars too much would dispatch a
messenger in hot haste to return
the surplus, yet who will go into
stock company in which aftera while he
gets control of the stock, add then wa
ters the stock and make 500, 600 APP
pear like $500, 900. He only stole $780,
600 by the operation. Many of the men
of fortune made their wealth in that
way. One of those men, engaged in
such unrighteous acts, that evening,
the evening Of the very day when he
watered the stock, will find a wharf-rat
stealing an evening newspaper from
the basement doorway, and will go out
and catch the urchin by the collar, and
twist the collar so tightly the poor fell
low cannot say that it was thirst for
knowledge that led him to the dishon-
est act, but grip the collar tighter and
tighter, saying, II have been look
ing for you long while; you
stole my paper four or five