Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-10-21

IuOBb u OuE OhCb VO hoNC shASS
prayers-the opening prayer, what Is
called the 'long prayer.'a the closing
prayer There are many people who
spend the first prayer in arranging their
apparel after entrance, and spend the
second prayer, the long prayer" in
wishing it were though, and spend the
last prayer in preparing to start for
home. The most insignificant part Of
every religious service is the sermon.
The most important parts are the
Scripture lesson and the prayer The
sermon is only man talking to man.
The Scripture lesson is God talking to
man. Prayer is man talking to God.
Oh, If we understood the grandeur and
the pathos of this exercise of prayer,
instead of being 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 us we'll now try to take all the
passengers from New York to Buffalo
by stage-coach, or all the passengers
from Albany to Buffalo by canal-boat,
or do all 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 be-
come extinct. The people reading
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 sur
plice, and all the paraphernalia of cler-
ical life; but these things make no inn
pression-male no more impression on
the great masses of the people than
the ordinary business suit that you
wear in Wall street A tailor cannot
make minister. Some of the poorest
preachers wear the best clothes; and
many backwoodsman has dis
mounted from the saddle-bags, and in
his linen buster preached sermon
that shook earth and Heaven with its
Christian eloquence. No new gospel,
only the old gospel in way suited to
the time. No new church, but church
to be the asylum, the inspiration, the
practical sympathy and the eternal
help of the people.
But while half of the doors of the
church are to be set open toward this
world, the other half of the doors of
the church must be set open toward
the next. You and tarry here only
brief space. We want somebody to
teach us how to get out of this life at
the right time and in the right way.
Some fall out of life, some go stumb-
ling out of life, some go grooming out
of life, some go cursing out of life. We
want to go singing, rising, rejoicing,
triumphing. We want half the doors
of the church set in that direction. We
want half the prayers that way, half
the sermons that way. We want to
know how to get ashore from the tumult
Of this world into the land of everlast-
ing peace. We do not want to stand
doubling aud shivering when we
go away from this world; we want our
anticipations aroused to the highest
pitch We want to have the exhilara-
tion of a dying child in England, the
father telling me the story. When he
said to her: us the path narrow"
she answered: 1.-The path is narrow; 1t
is so narrow that cannot walk arm in
arm with Christ, so Jesus goes ahead
and He says. Mary, follow" Through
these church gates set heavenward how
many of your friends and mine have
gone? The last time they were out OF
the house they came to church. The
earthly pilgrimage ended ut the pillar
of public worship, and then they
marched out to bigger and brighter
Some of them were so old
they could not walk without a cane or
two crutches; now they have eternal
juvenescence. Or they were so young
they could not walk except as the ma
ternal hand guided them; now they
bound with the hilarities celestial
The last time we saw them they were
wasted with malarial or pulmonic dis
order; but now they have no fatigue,
and no difficulty of respiration in the
pure air of Heaven. How / wonder
when you and ! will cross over! Some
of you have had about enough of the
humping and failing of this life. A
draught from the fountains of Heaven
would do you good. Complete release
you could stand very we'll. If you got
on the other side, and had permission
to come back, you would not come.
you were invited to come back
and join your friends on earth, you
would say: "No, let me tarry here un-
til they come; shall not risk going
back; If man reaches Heaven he had
better stay here"
Oh, join hands with you this morn
ing in that uplifted splendor
When the shore Is won at last,
Who will count the pillows pasti
In Freybourg, Switzerland, there 10
the trunk of q tree 400 years old. That |
tree was planted to commemorate an