Connecticut western news., 1893-10-19

Guo III uedNGul lAcJ nav O no clocks, as they have no candles, but great pendulum of halleluiah swinging across heaven from eternity to eternity.
 Let those refuse to sing
 / Who never knew our God,
 But children of the heavenly king
 Should speak their joys abroad.
 THE DISCOURSE.
 Again 1 remark that sanctuary help ought to come from the sermon. Of a thousand people in this or any other audience, how many want sympathetic help? Do you guess a hundred? Do you guess 800? You have guessed wrong. will tell you just the proportion. Out of thousand people in this audience there are just 1000 who need sympa- thetic help. These young people want it just as much as the old. The old peo- pie sometimes seem to think they have a monopoly of the rheumatism, and the neuralgias, and the headaches, and the physical disorders of the world. But tell you there are no worse heartaches than are felt by some of these young people.
 Do you know that much of the work is done by the young? Raphael died at 37, Richard III at 33. Gustavus Adolphus mightiest influence at 37; Cortez con- quered Mexico at 30; Don John won Le- panto at 25; Grotius was attorney gen. eral at 24, and have noticed amid all classes of men that some of the severest battles and the toughest work comes be- fore 30. Therefore we must have our sermons and our exhortation in prayer meeting all sympathetic with the young.
 And so with these people further on iii life. What do these doctors and law yers and merchants and mechanics care about the distractions of religion? What they want is help to bear the whimsical ities of patients, the browbeating of le- gal opponents, the unfairness of cus- toners, who have plenty of fault finding for every imperfection of handiwork, but no praise for 20 excellences. What does that brain racked, hand blistered man care for Zwingle's Doctrine of Original Sin," or Augustine's "Anthropology?" You might as well go to a man who has the pleurisy and put on his side plaster made out of Dr. Paris "Treatise On Medical Jurisprudence"
 While all of sermon may not be help full alike to all if it be Christian ser mon preached by Christian man, there will be help for every one somewhere. We go into an apothecary store. We see others being waited on. We do not complain because we do not immediate ly get the medicine. We know our turn will come after awhile. And so, while all parts of 8 sermon may not be appro- priate to our case, if we wait prayerfully before the sermon is through we shall have the divine prescription. I say to these young men who come here Sabbath by Sabbath, and who are going to preach the gospel-these theological students say to them, we want in our sermons not more metaphysics, nor more imagi- nation, nor more logic, nor more pro- fundity.
 What we want in our sermons and Christian exhortations is more sympa- thy. When Father Taylor preached in the Sailors Bethel at Boston, the jack tars felt that they had help for their du- ties among the ratlines and the forecas- ties. When Richard Weaver preached to the operatives in Oldham, England, all the workingmen felt they had more grace for the spindles. When Dr. South preached to kings and princes and prin- cesses, all the mighty men and women who heard him felt preparation for their high station.
 NECESSITY FOR PRAYER.
 Again I remark that sanctuary help 4r !, %Io rf o11 the people. The door of the eternal storehouse is hung on one hinge-a gold hinge, the hinge of prayer-and when the whole audience lay hold of that door, it' must come open. There are here many people spending their first Sabbath after some great bereavement. What will your prayer do for them? How will it help the tomb in that mans heart? Here are people who have not been in church before for 10 years. What will your pray CT do for them by rolling over their soul holy memories?
 Here are people in crises of awful temp tation. They are on the verge of despair or wild blundering or theft or suicide. What will your prayer do for them this morning in the way of giving them strengthito resist9 Will you be chiefly anxious about the fit of the glove that you put, to your forehead while you prayed2 Will you be chiefly critical of the rhetoric of the pastors petition? No. No. A thousand people will feel, "That prayer is for me" and at every step of the prayer chains ought to drop off, and tenn pies of sin. ought to crush into dust, and jubilees of deliverance ought to brandish their trumpets. In most of our churches we have three prayers-the opening prayer, what is called the "long prayer" and the closing prayer.
 There are many people who spend. the first prayer in arranging their apparel after entrance, and spend the second prayer-the Hong prayer"-in wishing it were through, and spend the last prayer in preparing to start for home. The most insignificant part of every reli- gious service is the sermon. The more important parts are the Scripture les son and the prayer. The sermon is only 8 man talking to a man. The Scripture lesson is God talking to man. Prayer is man talking to God. Oh, if we under stood the grandeur and the pathos of this exercise of prayer, instead of being a dull exercise, we would imagine that the room was full of divine and angelic appearances.
 But, my friends, the old style of church will not do the work. We might as we'll now try to take all the passengers from New York to Buffalo by stage coach, or all the passengers from Albany to Buffa- To by canalboat, or'to doiall the battling of the world with bow. and arrow, as with the old style of church to meet the exigencies of this day. Unless the church in our day will adapt itself to, the time it will become extinct. The people read ing newspapers and books all the week, in alert, picturesque and resounding style, will have no patience with Sabbath humdrum.
 We have no objections to bands and surplice and all the paraphernalia of