Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1893-10-27

customers, who have plenty of fault finding
for every imperfection of handiwork, but nc
praise for twenty excellences. What does
that brain racked, hand blistered man care
for Zwingle's tDoctrine of Original Sim OF
Augustine's ''Anthropology?" You might az
we'll go to man who has the pleurisy and
put on his side plaster made out of DR..
PARIS "Treatise Cn Medical Jurisprudence
While all of a sermon may not be helpful
alike to all if il be a Christian sermon
preached by n 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 Immediately get the medicine. We
know our turn will come after awhile. And
So while all parts OF sermon may not be
appropriate to our case. If we wait prayer
fully before the sermon is through we shall
have the divine prescription. l say to these
young men who come here Sabbath by Sab
bath, an1 who are going to preach the gos-
pel-these theological students-I say to
them, we want in our sermons not more
metaphysics, nor more Imagination, nor
more logic. nor more prOfundity.
What we want in our sermons and Chris
tian exhortations is more sympathy When
Father Taylor preached in the Sailors Bethel
at Boston, the jack tars felt that they had
help for their duties among the ratiines anl
the fOrecastles. When Richard Weaver
preached to the operatives in Oldham. Eng
land. all the Workingmen felt they had moro
grace for the spindles. When DR.. South
preached TO kings and princes and princesses
all the mighty men who heard him felt prep
aration for their high station.
Again | remark that sanctuary help ought
to come through the prayers OF all the peo-
PIE. The door of the eternal StOrehOuse Is
hung on one hinge gold hin re. the ming"
of prayer and wnen the whole audience lay
hold OF that door. if must cone open. Thor !
ara hero many people spending their FIRST
Sabbath after so rne great bereavement. Wa:
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 be-
fore for ten years What will your prayer
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 strength TO resist?
Will you be chiefly anxious about the fit of
the glove that YOU put to your forehead
while you prayed? Will you be chiefly
critical of the rhetoric of the pastors
petition? No. No. A thousand people will
feel, ''Ihat prayer is for me" and at every
step of the prayer chains ought to drop off,
and temples of sin ought to crush into dust,
and jubilees of deliverance ought to brandish
their trumpots. In most of our churches we
have three prayers-the opening prayer,
what is called tho 'long prayer" and the
closing prayer.
There are many people who spend the first
prayer in arranging their apparel after en-
trance, and spend the second prayer-the
"long prayer'-iD wishing it were through.
and spend the last prayer in preparing to
start for home. The most insignificant part
of every religious service Is the sermon. The
more important parts are the Scriptural les
son and the prayer The sermon is only a
man talking to a man. The Scripture lesson
is God talking to man. Prayer is man talk
ing to God Oh. if we understood the grand
eur and the DathOS 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 paSSen-
gers from Albany to Buffalo by canalhoat, or
to 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 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 sur
plice and all the paraQhernalia of clerical
life, but these things make no impression
make no more impression on the great
masses of the people than the ordinary bus'-
ness suit that you wear in Wall street.
tailor cannot make a minister. Some OF the
poorest preachers wear the best clothes, and
many a backwOodsman has diSmOunted from
the saddlebags and in his linen duster
preached a sermon that shook earth and
heaven with its Christian elOquence. No new
gospel. only the old gospel IN way sulted
TO the time No new church, but church
TO be the asylum, the inspiration, the prac-
tical 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 Itarry 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 60 stumbling out OF life,
some 90 grOaning OFT of life, some go ours
| ip~ out of life. we want to go singing, ris
inc, rejoicing. 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 tC
| know how to get ashore from the tumult O
| this world into the land of everlasting peace
| Tre do not want to stand doubling and shIv
| erIng when we go away from this world. we
| want our anticipations aroused to the hlSh
est pitch.
| ing child in England, the father telling me
| the story. When he said to her, ''ls the patti
| narrov?' she answered: ''The path IS mar
| row. 1t is so narrow that cannot walk arm
in arm with Christ, SO Jesus goes ahead ant
He says, Mary, follow '" Through thes'
church gates set heavenward how many o
your friends and mine have gone? The las
time they were out of the house they cam
to church. The earthly pilgrimage ended a
the pillar of public worship, and then the.
marched out to a bigger and brighter assem-
blage. Some of them were so old they coult
not walk without cane or two crutches
| Now they have eternal juveneseence o
| cept as the maternsl hand guided them. Nov
they bound with the hilarites celestial.
| The last time We saw them they wer
wasted with malarial or pulmonic disorder
but now they have no fatigue and no diff
Guilty of respiration in the pure air OF HEAVIER
How 1 wonder when you and L Will eros
over! Some of YOU have had about enou1
of the humping and failing of this life:
draft from the fountains of heaven would q
you good. Complete release, you coui
stand very we'll. If you got on the othe
side and had permission to come back, XO