Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1892-04-07

/
days are yet to come; our greatest re-
vivals of religion, and our mightiest
outpourings of the Holy Ghost. We
have got through Red Sea and stand to.
day on the other bank clapping the
symbals of victory.
Yes, twenty-three years have passed
since / came to live in Brooklyn, and
they have been to me eventful years.
1t was a Frustrated church to which |
came, church SO fiat down it could
drop no further. Through controver-
sizes which it would be useless to re-
hearse it was well-nigh extinct, and
for long while it had been without a
pastor. But nineteen members could
be mustered to sign a call for my
coming. As committee was putting
that call before me in an upper room
in my house in Philadelphia, there
were two other committees on similar
errauds from other churches in other
rooms, whom my wife entertaining and
keeping apart from unhappy collision.
The auditorium of the Brooklyn church
to which / came defied all the laws
of acoustics; the church had
a steeple that was the de-
rision of the town, and high box pull
| pit which shut in the preacher as
though he were dangerous to be let
loose, or it acted as barricade that
was unnecessary to keep back the peo
| pie, for they were SO few that minis
| ter of ordinary muscle could have kept
back all who were there. My first
Sabbath in Brooklyn was sad day, for
| / did not realize how far the church
was down until then, and on the even.
ing of that day my own brother,
through whose pocket l entered the
ministry, died, and the tidings OF
his decease reached me at G
o'clock in the evening, and l was
to preach at half-past seven.
But from that day the blessing of God
was on us, and in three months we be.
gan the enlargement of the building.
Before the close of that year, we
| resolved to construct the first Taber-
nacle, and the first Tabernacle was the
| result.
That second tabernacle! What a
stupendous "reminiscences! But if the
Peter of my text had known what an
undertaking it is to build two taber-
nacles, he would not have proposed
two, to say nothing of three. AS an
anniversary sermon must needs be
somewhat photographed let me say
/ have not been idle. During the
standing of those to tabernacles fifty-
two hooks, under as many titles, made
up from my writings, were publishe |.
During that time, also, was permitted
to discuss all the great questions of
the day in all the great cities of
this continent, and in many of them
many times, beside preaching and
| lecturing ninety-six times in England,
Scotland, and Ireland, in ninety-four
days. During all that time, as we'll as
since, was engaged in editing reli-
gious newspaper, believing that such a
periodical was capable of great useful
ness, and have been constant con-
tributor to newspapers and periodicals.
Meanwhile all things had become easy
| in the Brooklyn Tabernacle. On Sab
bath in October, 1889, announced to
my congregation that would in a few
weeks visit the Holy Land, and that the
officers of the church had consented to
| my going, and the wish of a lifetime was
| about to be fulfilled. The next Sab
bath morning, about two o'clock or lust
after midnight, member of my house
hold awakened me by saying that
there was strange light in the sky.
A thunderstorm had left the air full
OF electricity, and from horizon to
horizon everything seemed to blaze.
| But that did not disturb me, until an
observation taken from the cupola OF
my house declared that the second
Tabernacle was putting On red wings
In three hours it was in ashes.
How suggestive to many of us are
| the words spelled out in flowers above
the pulpit 1850" and "Is92"-for
those dates bound what raptures, what
griefs, what struggles, what triumphs.
mention 1t as matter of gratitude to
| God that in these twenty three
years | have missed but one Sabbath
through physical indisposition, and
but three in the thirty six
years OF my ministry. And, now,
| having reached this 23d milestone, |
start anew. l have in my memoran-
dunn books analyses of more sermons
than | have ever yet preached, and /
| have preached, as near as / can tell.
about $3.50. During these past years
have learned two or three things.
Among others, have learned that ''all
things work together for good" My
positive mode of preaching has some
times seemed to stir the hostilities of
all earth and he'll. Feeling called upon
fifteen years ago to explore under
ground New York City life, that |
might report the evils to be com.
batted l took with me two elders of
my church and New York Police
| Commissioner and policeman, and /
explored and reported the horrors that
needed removal and the allure.
ments that endangered our young
men. There came upon me an
out-burst of assumed indigna.
ton that frightened almost every.
body but myself. That exploration pnt
into my church thirty or forty news
paper correspondents, from north,
south, east and west; which opened
for me new avenues in which to preach
the gospel that otherwise would never
have been opened. Years passed on
and | preached series of sermons on
amusements, and false report of what
did say-and one of the sermons said
to have been preached by me was not
mine in single word-roused viol-
enee that threatened me with poison
and dirk and pistol and other forms
OF extinguishment, until the Chief of
Brooklyn Police, without any sugges-
ton from me. took possession of the
church with twenty-four policemen to
see that no harm was done That
excitement opened many doors which
| entered for preaching the gospel.
After awhile came an ecclesiastical
trial, in which / was arraigned by peo-
pie who did not like the way / did