Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1892-05-26

gious audiences.
DRAMATIC SCRIPTURE scENEs
You Sabbath school teachers ought to
have more of the dramatic element in
your instructions. By graphic Scripture
scene, by apecdote, by descriptive gesture,
by impersonation, urge your classes to
| right action. We want In all our schools
and colleges and prayer meetings, and in
| all our attempts at reform, and in all our
| churches, to have less of the style didactc
and more of the style dramatic.
Fifty essays about the sorrows of the
poor could not affect me as a little drama
of accident and suffering | saw one slip
perry morning in the streets of Philadel-
phia. just ahead of me was a lad wretched
in apparel, his limb amputated at the knee;
| from the pallor of the boys cheek the am
| putation not long before. He had a pack
! age of broken food under his arm-food he
! had begged, | suppose, at the doors. AS
he passed on over the slippery pavement
cautiously and carefully, | steadied him
until his crutch slipped and he fell. |
| helped him up as well as | could, gathered
up the fragments of the package as well as
| | could, put them under one arm and the
crutch under the other arm, but when |
saw the blood run down his pale cheek
was completely overcome. Fifty essays
about the suffering of the poor could not
touch one like that little drama of accident
and suffering.
Oh we want in all our different depart
ments of ussfuness-and | address hun
dreds Of people who are trying to do good
we want more of the dramatic element
and less of the ddactc The tendency in
this day is to drone religion to whine re-
ligion, to cant religion, to moan religion,
L lttyin to lp ri "a ra gN IN
when we ought to present it in animated
and spectacular manner.
Sabbath morning by Sabbath morning I
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 Hail. 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
| If nc ha old mt 7 IL
great deal of discussion in the religious
papers about why people do not come &c
church. They do not come because they
are not interested. The old hackneyed re
ligious phrases that come moving dow1
through the centuries will never arrest the
masses. What we want today, you in youl
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
atherum of past ages, but the living
reindeer caught last August at the edge O.
SchroOn lake.
We want to drive out the drowsy, anC
the prosaic, and the tedious, and the hum
drum, and introduce the brightness anC
| vivacity, and the holy sarcasm, and the
sancticd wit, and the epigrammatic power
ana lne DlOOu req earnest ness, ana tle Drt
of religious zeal, and do not know of any
way of doing it as well as through the dra
matte. Attention! Behold! Hark! Selah
Next l 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 wore
| is "forever.' In this very verse from
which ! take my text Sclah means no
only poetic significance and intermssiol
and emphasis, but it means eternal rever
beration-foreverl Gods government for
ever, Gods goodness forever, the gladneS
of the righteous forever. OF course you
and | have not surveyors chain witt
enough links to measure that domain O
meaning.
In this world we must build everythin,
on a small scale. a hundred years are
great while. a tower five hundred feet i
IA great height. a journey OF four thou
sand miles is very long. But eternity! |
the archangel has not strength of win
to fly across ia but futters and drops lik
wounded seagull there is no need of on
trying in the small shallow of humal
thought to voyage across it.
FOR TIME AND ETERNITY.
A skeptic desiring to show his contcmp
for the passing years, and TO show that Ii
could build enduringly, had his own sepul
cher made of the finest and the hardes
marble, and then he had put on the doc
the words, For time and for eternity
but it so happened that the seed of tire
somehow got into an unseen crevice of tn
marble. That seed grew and enlarged III
til it became "A tree and split the marble {
pieces. There can be no eternalization q
anything earthly. But forever viii yol
and live rs long as that? We are apt t
think of the grave as the terminus. w
are apt to think of the hcarse as our las
vehicle. We are apt to think of sevent
or eighty or ninety years, and then a cessu
ton.
Instead of that we find the marble sla
of the tomb is only milestone, marllin
the first mile, and that the great iourne
is beyond. We have only time enough il
this world to put on the sandals and I
clasp our girdle and to pick mp our staff
We take our FIRST step from cradle t
grave, and then we open the door and star
great God, whittier; The clock strike
the passing away OF time, but not the pass