The Baptist headlight., 1893-11-01

thousand people in this or any otner
audience. how many want sympathetlc
helm DO YOU guess hundred! DO you
guess 500? You have guessed wrong.
[ will tell you just the proportlon; OuI
of a thousand people IN TINS auulence
there are just 1000 who need symPa-
thetic help. These young people want
it lust as much as the old. Inc ola peo-
pie sometimes seem TO th1nK Iney nase
a monopoly of the rheumatism ana 1he
nauralpias. and the headaches, ana lne
nbvsica1 disorders of the world. But |
| tell YOU there are no worse heartaches
| than are felt by some of these young
neonle. Do YOU know how much OF the
| work is done by the young! Rapnael
| died at 81, Richard Ill at 33. Gustavus
| Adolphus died at 3S: Innocent III. came
to his mightiest influence at 81; Cortez
| conouered Mexico at 30; Don John won
| T T,ananto at %: Grotius was Attorney
| General at "a and | have noticed amid
all classes of men that some OF the
severest battles and the toughest work
comes before 80. Therefore we must
have our sermons and our eXhOrtatlon
in PRAYER meeting all sympathetic with
the young.
And so with these people further on
in life. What do these doctors ana
LAWYERS and mechanics care about the
distractions of religion? w nat tney
want is help to bear the whlmslca!ltles
of patients, the browbeatlng OF legal
opponents, the unfairness OF customers,
who have plenty of fault hndlng Tor
every imperfectiOn of handlwork, but
no praise for twenty excellences.
What does that brain racked, hand
blistered man care for Zwingle s Doc
~ or
"Anthropology?" You might as well
90 to a man who has the pleurisy and
but on his side plaster made out OF
DR.. PARIS Treatise on the Medical
jurisprudence" What we want In
our sermons and Christian exhortions
is more sympathy. When Father Tay-
lor preached in the Sailors Bethal at
Boston. the Jack tars felt that they
,. had help for their duties among the
ratlines and the forecastles. When
,, Richard Weaver preached to the OPP
eratives in Oldham, England, all the
workingmen felt they hadmore grace
for the spindles. When DR.. South
preached to kings and and princes and
nrincesses. all the mighty men and
women who heard him felt preparation
for their high station.
Necessity for Prayer.
| Again l remark that sanctnt~ !. y clip
ought to come through the prayers OF
: all the people. The door of the eternal
: storehouse is hung on one h1nge-a
gold hinge, the hinge of prayer-and
t when the whole audience lay hold OF
: that door, it must comeOpen. There
1 are here many people spending their
Y first Sabbath after some great bereave-
: ment. What will your prayer do for
r them? How will it help the tomb In
n that mans heart? Here are people
: who have not been in church before
4 for ten years. What will your prayer
do for them by rolling over their SOU
holy memories?
~ Here are people in crises OF aWfu
= = temptation. They are ON the verge o.
), despair or wild laundering or theft OF
: suicide What will your prayer do fol
them this morning in the way of Civ
. ing them strength to resist? Will yor
7 be chiefly anxious about the fit of the
>, glove that you put to your forehead
h while you prayed? Will you be chiefly
r critical of the rhetoric of the pastor
= petition? No. No. A thousand peo-
4 pie will feel, THAT prayer is for me,
;, and at every step of the prayer chains
7 ought to drop off, and temples of sir
: ought to crush into dust. and jubileet
= of deliverance ought to brandish theil
: trumpets. In most of our churches We
a have three prayers-the opening
. prayer, what is called the ''lone
# prayer" and the closing prayer
: There are many people who spend
o. the first prayer in arranging their ap
= parel after entrance. and spend the
a second prayer-the 'long prayer"-ii
n wishing it were through, and spend
the last prayer in preparing to star
+ for home. The most insignificant par
,s of every religious service is the ser
4 mon. The more important parts are
- the Scripture lesson and the prayer
n The sermon is only man talking to
i man. The Scripture lesson is Coz
IF talking to man. Prayer is man talking
"a to God. Oh. if we understood the
II grandeur and the pathos of this exer
a. else of prayer, instead of being dul
is exercise, we would imagine that tn
- room was full of divine and angeli
, appearances.
If But, my friends, the old style o
w church will not do the work. w
% might as well try to take all the pas
"a sengers from New York to Buffalo b.
20 stage coach, or all the passengers fron
* Albany to Buffalo by canal boat, or L
1s do all the battling of the world wit
bow and arrow, as with the old style q
NJ church to meet the exigencics of thi
I day Unless the church in our day vii
n adapt itself to the time it will becom
,s extinct. The people reading newspa
10 pers and books all the week. in alert
W picturesque and resounding style, vii
n have no patience with Sabbath hum
a drum.
h We have no objections To bands an
n surplice and all the paraphernalia Z
b. clerical life, but these things make n
er impression-make no more impressio