The Forrest City times., 1892-04-08

| Tabernacle VIII pc yours huu pciohE | to vou and your children after you, and anything you see contrary to this you ! may nut down to the confirmed habit which some people have got Of mis- representing this church and they can | not stop When came to Brooklyn l | came to a small church and big in | debtedness.
 have preached here twenty-three | years. and I expect, if my life an | health are continued, to preach here | ,yenty-three years longer. although we will all do well to TO nem-
 Der that our breath is in our nostrils, and any hour we may be called to give
 an account of our stewardship. All we
 ask for the future is that you do your
 b,st. contributing all you can to tn | upport of our institutions. Our best
 days are yet to come; our greatest re- vivals of religion, and our migbtiest
 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 l came to live in Brooklyn, and l they have been to me eyentful years | It was prostrated church to which l | came, a church so flat down it could l drop no further. Through controver-
 sies which it would be useless to re- hearse It was well-nigh extinct, and
 Tor long while it had been without pastor But nineteen members could
 be mustered to sign call for my coming. As a committee was putting that call before me in an upper room
 In my house in Philadelphia, there were two other committees on similar errands from other churches in other
 rooms, whom my wife entertaining and
 keeping apart from unhappy collision. Inc auditorium of the Brooklyn church to which l came defied all the laws ot acoustics: the church had steeple that was the de-
 rlsion of the town, and a high box pull pit which shut in the preacher as though he were dangerous to be let loose, or it acted as a barricade that
 was unnecessary to keep back the peo-
 pie, for they were so few that a minis | ter of ordinary muscle could have kept
 back all who were there. My first
 Sabbath in Brooklyn was a 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 6
 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 tabernaclei What a stnpendous reminiscence. But if the Peter of my text had known what an undertaking it is to build two taber-
 naeles, he would not have proposed | two, to say nothing of three As an
 anniversary sermon must needs be
 somewhat autobiographical 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 published. | During that time, also. I was permitted | to discuss all the great questions of | the day in Cll the great cities of
 this continent, and in many of them
 many times, beside preaching and
 featuring ninety-six times in England. l Scotland, and Ireland, in ninety-four 1 days During all that time. as well as l since, l was engaged in editing reli- l gious newspaper, believing that such a | periodical was capable of great useful | ness, and l 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, I announced to
 my congregation that I would in few
 weeks visit the Holy Land, and that tho i officers of the church had consented to my going, and the wish of q lifetime was about to be fulfilled The next Sab- | bath morning, "a bout two o'clock or just
 after midnight, member of my house.
 hold awakened me by saying that | there was strange light in the sky. | A t"unucT-StOrln nau leIL the ar Iull
 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 --''1s69' and "1s92"-for
 those dates bound what raptures, what | griefs, what struggles, what triumphs.
 mention it as matter of gratitude to
 God that in these twenty-three
 years I 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, l
 start anew. l have in my memoran-
 dunn books analyses of more sermons
 than I have ever yet preached, and
 have preached, as near as I can tell.
 about 3,3s0. During these past years | l have learned two or three things. i 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 hell. Feeling called upon
 fifteen years ago to explore under | ground New York City life, that |