The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-04-04

evils to be combatted took with me two
elders of my church and a New York police
| commissioner and a policeman, and ex-
| plored, and reported the horrors that needed
removal and the allurements that endang
| cred our young men. There came upon me
an outburst Of assumed indignation that
! frightened almost everybody but myself.
That exploration put into my church thirty
or forty newspaper correspondents, from
north, south, east and west; which opened
for ms new avenues in which to preach the
gospel that otherwise would never have
been opened. Years passed on and preached
a series Of sermons on amusements, and
false report Of what l did say-and one Of
the sermons said TO have been preached by
me was not mine in a single word
reused a violence that threa tened me
with poison and dirk and pistol and other
forms of extinguishment, until the chief
of Brooklyn police, without any suRges-
tlon for me took possession of the church
with "A policemen to see that no harm
was done. That excitement opened many
doors which l entered for preaching the
gospel. After while came au ecclesias-
tical trial in whi CHI l was arraigned by peo-
pie who did not like the way | did things,
and although | was acquitted Of all the
charges, the contest shook the American
church. That battle made me more friends
than anything that ever happened and gave
ulc NuI lhLoll1Olu anu more IMAM OOIlhL61-
dom for my weekly audience. On the
demolition Of each church, we got better
and larger church. aud not disaster, not
caricature, not a persec ution, not an as
sault, during all these % years, but
turned out for our advantage, and ought l
not TO believe that "all things work together
for goodp Hosanna!
Another lesson l have learned during
these twenty-three years Is that it is not
necessary TO DFea n Or nfNE flo vvs in,
the old Bible IN order to get an audience
The old book without any fixing up is good
enough for me, and Higher Criticism as it
Is called, means Lower Religion. Higher
Criticism is another form Of infdelity, and
Its disciples will believe less and less, until
many Of them will land in Nowhere, and
become the wor5hipers Of au eternal Nv hat
is-it" The most Of these Higher Critics
seem to be seeking nOtoriety by pitching
into the Bible. 1t is such brave thing to
strike your grandmother The old gospel
put in modern phrase and without any of
the conventionalities, and adapted to all the
wants and woes of humanity. l have found
the mightiest magnet and we have never
lacked an audience. Next to the blessing
OF my own family | account the blessing
that have always had a great multitude
OF people to preach to. That old gospel l
have preached to you these twenty three
years Of my Brooklyn pastorete, and that
old gospel l will preach till l die, and
charge my son, who is on the way to the
ministry, TO preach it after me, for l re-
member Paul's thundsrbolt: If any man
preach any other gospel, let him be &C
cursed" And. now, as l stand here on my
twenty>third anniversary, | see two
audiences. The one is made up OF all those
who have worshiped with US in the past
but have been translated t. higher realms.
What ohildren-too fair and toosweet audtoo
lovely for earth, and the Lord took them,
but they seem present to-day. The Group
the pallor from the cheek, and they have
on them the health aud radiance of
heaven. Hail groups Of gloriaed chill
drenl How glad am to have you come
back 20 US to-day! And here sit those aged
ones who departed this life leaving an aw-
ful vacancy IN home and church. Where
are your staffs, and where are your gray
locks, ana where your STOPPING shoulders,
ye blessed old folksl 90" they say, I'VE
are all young again, and the bath in the
river from under the throne has made us
agile and bounding. In the place from
which we come they use no stats, but scep-
tersW Hail, fathers and mothers In Israel;
how glad we are 70 have you come back to
greet us. But the other audience / see in
Imagination is made up Of all those to whom
we have had opportunity as a church,
directly or indirectly, Of presenting the
gospel. Yea, all my parishes seem to come
back to-day. The people of my first charge
in Belleville, New Jersey. The people of
my second charge in Syracuse, New
York The people Of my third charge
in Philadelphia. And the people Of all
these three Brooklyn tabernacles Look at
them. aud all those whom, through the
printing press, we have invited to God and
heaven, now seeming to sit In galleries
above galleries, fifty galleries, a hundred
galleries, thousand galleries high. l greet
them all in your name and Christ's name,
all whom | have confronted from my first
sermon in my first village charge, where
my lips trembled aud my knees knocked to-
gether from alright, speaking from the
text, Jeremiah l., g. "Ah, Lord God, be-
hold l cannot speak, for l am childln
until the sermon l preach to-day from
Luke tx, So: "Let US make three
tabernacles," those Of the past.
the present, all gathered in imagination,
aud IL not in reality, all of us grateful to
God for past mercies, all Of us sorry for
misimproved opportunities, all hopeful for
eternal raptures. and, while the visible and
the invisible audiences OF the present and
the past commlngie, l give out, to be sung
by those who are here to-day, and to be
sung by those who shall read Of this scene
of "reminiscences and cougratulation, that
hymn which has been rolling on since Isaac
Watts started it one hundred and fifty years
ago:
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast.
Md 81 .lN