News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-04-27
TWENTY-F0UR YEARS
DR.. rALMAGE'S ELOQUENT ANNlVER-
SARY SERMON.

Brooklyn Pre-eminently Intellectual
Center-How Those Shrewd and Talent
ed Newspaper Men Spread the Gospel
Even While Aiming at Their Own Aggr
BROOKLYN, April 23-Rev. DIR. Tai
mage today preached his twenty-fourth
anniversary sermon. Subject, ga Brook
lyn Passionate" The occasion was an
unusually interesting one, and the great
audience was visibly impressed during
the services. Over the pulpit in flowers
were the figures 1889" and 1888" The
text was Revelation iv, 4, "And round
about the throne were four and twenty
seats, and upon the seats I saw four and
twenty elders"
This text l choose chiefly for the nu-
merals it mentions-namely, four and
twenty. That was the number of elders
seated around the throne of God, but
that is the number of years seated
around my Brooklyn ministry, and ev-
cry pulpit is throne of blessing or blast
ing, a throne of good or evil. And today
in this my twenty-fourth anniversary
sermon "a years come and sit around
me, and they speak out in a Renaissance
VI SlddACoo anu lColos "CIlUJ -1Oul
years ago l arrived in this city to shep-
herd such flock as might come, and
that day carried in on my arms the in
FAINT son who in two weeks from today
will help ordain TO the gospel ministry,
hoping that he will be preaching long
after my poor work is done.
MARVELLOUS WORK.
We have received into our membership
over 5000 souls, but they, l think, are
only small portion of the multitudes
who, coming from all parts of the earth,
have in our house of God been blessed and
saved. Although we have as church
raised 81, 100, 900 for religious purposes,
vet we are in the strange position of not
knowing whether in two or three months
weshall have any church at all, and with
audiences of 5000 or 1000 people crowd
ed into this room and the adjoining
rooms we are confronted with the ques-
ton whether shall go on with my work
here or go to some other field. What an
awful necessity that we should have been
obliged to build three immense churches,
two of them destroyed by fire.
4 misdpprehension is abroad that the
financial erigency of this church is past.
Through journalistic and personal
friends breathing spell has been afford
ed as, but before as get are financial OBJ
legations aultich must promptly be met, or
speedily this house of God aUiH go into
trorldly uses and become thedter or q
concert hall The So, 900 raised cannot
cancel a floating debt of $4,000.
Through the kindness of those to achons
sce are indebted $50, 600 acould set as for
euer free. 1 dm glad to sag that the case
is not hopeless We are daily in receipt
of touching evidences of practical sympd-
ting Crom all Glasses of the community and
from all sections of the country, and it
scas but yesterday that by n1y Oacn hand
sent for contributions gratefully receiUed
nearly so Acknowledgements east, acest,
north and south.
Our trust is in the Lord who divided
the Red sea and made the mountains
skip like lambs" With this p--lgraph l
dismiss the financial subject and return
to the spiritual. This morning the great
ness of Gods kindness obliterates every
thing. and if ! wanted to build groan
do not know in what forest l would
hew 10 timber, or from what quarry
would dig the foundation stone, or who
would constructs for me an organ with a
tremolo for the only STOP And so this
morning occupy my time in building
one great, massive, high, deep, broad,
heaven piercing halleluiah. In the re-
view of the last "a years l think it may
be useful to consider some of the char
acteristics of Brooklyn pastorate.
DEMANDS OF A BROOKLYN PASTORATE.
In the first place | remark that
Brooklyn pastorate is always difficult
pastorate. No city under the sun has a
grander array of pulpit talent than
Brooklyn. The Methodists, the Bap-
fists. the Congregationalists, the Epis-
copalians, all the denominations send
their brightest lights here. He who
stands in any pulpit in Brooklyn preach
ing may know that he stands within Is
minutes walk of sermons which Sau-
rim, and Bourdaloue, and a John M.
Mason, and a George Whitefeld would
not be ashamed of. No city under the
sun where poor sermon is such drug
on the market.
For forty years Brooklyn has been sur
charged with homiletics. an electricity
of eloquence that struck every time it
flashed from the old pulpits which
qual5ed with the powers of a Bethune,
and Cox, and a Spencer, and Spear,
Rnd Vinton, and Farley, and Beech
fr, not mentioning the names of the mag
nificent men now manning the Brooklyn
pulpits. So during all the time there
has been something to appeal to every
mans taste and to crafty every mans
preference.
Now, let me say to all ministers of the
gospel who are amb! tious for Brooklyn
pulpit that it is always a difficult pas
torate. If a man shall come and stand
before any audience in almost any church
in Brooklyn, he will find before him men
who have heard the mightiest themes
discussed in the mightiest way. You
will have before you, if you fail i'll an ar
Eument, so logicians in fidget. If you
make slip in the use of a commercial
figure of speech, there will be 500 mer-
chants who will notice it. If you throw
out an anchor or furl sail in the wrong
way, there will be ship captains right off
who will wonder if you are as ignorant
of theology as you are of navigation! So
it will be a place of hard study. If you
are going to maintain yourself, you will
find Brooklyn pastorate difficult pas
torate.
THOSE TALENTED JOURNALISTS.
remark still further, Brooklyn pas
torate is always a conspicuous pastorate.
The printing press of the country has no
greater force than that ON the seacoast.
Every pulpit word, good or bad, wise or
ignorant, kind or mean, is watched. The
reportorial corps of these cities is an or
ganized army. Many of them have col
iegiate education and large culture, ami
they are able to weigh Grafton or address
or sermon. IF you say silly thing, you
will never hear the end of it, and if you
say wise thing it will go into perpetual
multiplication. There is no need of de-
crying that fact. Men whose influence
has been built by the printing press
spend the rest of their lives in denounc-
ing newspapers. The newspaper is the
pulpit on the wing. More preaching done
ON Monday than on Sunday The ON
nivorous all eyed printing press is ever
vigilant.
Besides that, Brooklyn pastorate is
always conspicuous in the fact that ev-
erybody comes here. Brooklyn is New
York in its better mood. Strangers have
not seen New York until they have seen
Brooklyn. The East river is the chasm
In which our merchants drop their cares,
and their anxieties, and their business
troubles, and by the time they have
greeted their families in the home circle
they have forgotten all about Wall street
and broadway and the shambles. If
L