The Globe-republican., 1892-04-18

How suggestive to many Of rs are the
words spelled out in flowers above the
pulpit-''1S69" and ''lS9e'-for those
dates bound what raptures. what griefs,
what struggles, what triumphs! 1 mem
tion it as a matter Of gratitude to God
that In these twenty-three years 1 have
missed but one Sabbath through physical
indisposition, and but three in the thirty
six years Of my ministry. And now.
having reached this twenty-third mile
stone, I start anew. have In my
memorandum books analyses Of more
sermons than have ever preached, and
have preached, as near as l can tell.
about three thousand, three hundred
and eighty.
During these past years have learned
two or three things. Among others l
have learned that ''all things work to-
gether for good" My positive mode Of
preaching has sometimes seemed to stir
the hOstilities of all earth and hell.
Feeling called upon fifteen years ago to
explore underground New York city life,
that might report the evils to be COM
batted, / took with me two elders OF my
church and New York Police COmmis-
sioner and policeman, and explored
and reported the horrors that needed re-
moval, and the allurements that endan-
gered our young men. There came
upon me an outburst of assumed indig-
nation 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 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 q false
report of what 1 did say-and one of the
sermons said to have been preached by
me was not mine in q single word
reused violence that threatened me
with poison and dirk and pistol and
other forms of extinguishment until the
chief of Brooklyn police, without any
suggestion 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 1 was arraigned by people
who did not like the way l did things,
and although was acquitted Of all the
charges, the contest shook the American
church. The battle made me more
friends than anything that ever hap
pened and gave me Christendom and
more than Christendom for my weekly
audience, On the demolition Of each
church we got better and larger
church, and not disaster, not a carica-
ture, not persecution, not an assault,
during all these twenty-three years but
turned out for our advantage, and ought
not to believe that ''all things work to-
gether for good9" Hosannah.
Another lesson have learned during
these twenty-three years is that it is not
necessary to preach error or pick flaws
in the old Bible in oroer to get an audi
ence; the old Book without any fixing up
is good enough for me, and higher criti-
ciSm, as it is called, means lower re-
l;gion. Higher criticism is another form
of infdelity, and its disciples will be-
lleve less and less, until many Of them
will land in Nowhere, and become the
worshipers of an eternal "What is it?"
The most of these higher critics seem to
be seeking notOriety by pitching into
the Bible. II is such a brave thing to
strike your grandmother. The old Cos
pei put in modern phrase, and without
any OF the conventionalities and adapted
to all the wants and woes of humanity,
have found the mightiest magnet, and
we have never lacked an audience.
Next to the blessing of my own family
I account the blessing that l have al
ways had a great multitude of people to
preach to. That old Gospel l have
preached to you these twenty-three
years of my Brooklyn pastorate. and
that old Gospel l will preach till die,
and charge my son, who Is on the way to
the ministry, to preach it after me, for
l remember Paul's thunderbOlt, 'if any
man preach any other Gospel, let him be
accursed' And now, as l stand here
on my twenty-third anniversary, see
two audiences. The one is made mp of
all those who have worshiped with us in
the past, but have been translated to
higher realms.
What groups of children-too fair and
too sweet and too lovely for earth, and
the Lord took them, but they seem
present to-day. The Group has gone out
of the swollen throat, and the pallor
from the cheek, and they have on them
the health and radiance of Heaven.
Hail. groups of glOrfied children! How
glad am to have you come to US to-day!
And here sit those aged ones who de-
parted this life leaving an awful va
cancy in home and church. Where are
your stats, and where are your gray
locks. and where your STOPPING shoul-
ders, ye blessed old folks? ''Oh," they
say, 1--WE 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 scepters!' Hail,
fathers and mothers in Israel. How
glad we are to have you come back to
greet US!
But the other audience see in imagi-
nation is made up OF all those to whom
we have had opportunity as church.
directly or indirectly, Of representing
the Gospel. Yea, all my parishes seem
to come back to-day. The people of my
first charge in Belleville, N. j. The
people of my second charge in Syracuse,
n. Y. The people Of my third charge
in Philadelphia And the people Of all
these three Brooklyn Tabernacles. Look
at them, and all those whom through the
printing press we have invited to God
and Hoayon n0v saonino IN sit in Gal.