Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1893-11-02

and spend the second prayer, the long
| prayer" in wishing it were through
and spend the last prayer in preparing
to start for home. The most insignit-
cant part of every religious service is
the sermon. The more important parts
are the Scripture lesson and the prayer.
The sermon is only man talking to a
man. The Scripture lesson is God
talking to man. Prayer is man talk
ing to God. o, if we understood the
grandeur and pathos of this exercise of
prayer, instead of being dull exer.
/ else, we would imagine that the room
was full of divine and angelic appear.
ances.
But, my friends. the old style OF
church will not do the work. We
might as well now try to take al 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 viii have no patience with Sab
bath humdrum We have no objections
to bands and surplice, and all the para
phernalia Of clerical life; but there
things make no impression-make no
more impression on the great masses
Of the people than the ordinary BUSH
ness suit that you wear in Wall street
A tailor cannot make minister. Some
of the poorest preachers wear the best
clothes; and many a backwoodsman
has dismounted from the saddlebags,
and in his linen buster preached a ser
mon that shook earth and heaven with
its Christian eloquence. No new Cos
pei only the old gospel in way suited
TO the time. No new church, but a
church to be the asylum, the inspira'
ton. 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
this 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 ont of life. some go STUN
bling out of life. some go grooming out
of life, some go eursing out Of life. We
want to go singing, rising, rejoic-
ing. triumphing. We want half the
doors of the church set in that direc'
ton. 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 everlasting peace. We do not want
to stand doubling and shivering when
we 90 away from this world we want,
our anticipations aroused to the high
est pitch. We want to have the ex-
hilaration of dying child in England
the father telling me the story. When
he said to her, lis the path narrow"
she answered: 1.-THE path is narrow;
IL is so narrow that | cannot walk arm
in arm with Christ SO Jesus goes
ahead. and He says, Mary, fol
low" Through these church gates
set npANGnMdTu INV VI
friends and mine have gone? The last
time they were out of the house they
came to church. The earthly pilgrim.
age ended at the pillar of public wor-
shin. and then they marched out to
bigger and brighter assemblage. Some
of them were so old they could not
walk without cane or two crutches;
now they have eternal juvenescence.
Or they were so young they could not
walk except as the maternal hand
guided them; now they bound with
the hilarities celestial. The last time
we saw them they were wasted with
malaria or pulmonic disorder; but now
they have no fatigue, and no difficulty
of respiration in the pure air OF Heaven.
How / wonder when you and will
cross overl 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 II you got on the
other side, and had permission to come
back. you would not come. Though
Won were invited to come back and
ioin your friends on earth, you would
say: mo, let me tarry here till they
come; shall not risk going back; If
man reaches Heaven he had better
stay here. !"
O, join hands with you this morning
in that uplifted splendor.
When the shore is won at last
Who will count the pillows past'
In Freybourg Switzerland, there is
the trunk of tree four hundred years
old. That tree was planted to COM
memorate an event. About ten miles
from the city the Swiss conquered the
Burgundians, and a young man wanted
to take the tidings to the city. He took
a tree branch and ran with such speed
the ten miles, that when he reached
the city waving the tree branch, he had
only strength to cry '"Victory!" and
dropped dead. The tree branch that
he carried was planted and it grew to
be a great tree twenty feet in circum-
ference. and the remains of 1t are there
to this day. My nearer, when you
81 -.