The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1893-04-29

P, u" 'oLilhS pdiitlnb flBnG OH
5000 miles of Atlantic ocean before
anybody else has had a chance to
breathe it! All through the city Il So
ciety of kind, genial, generous, sympa-
thetic people.
In such a city | have been permitted
to have twenty-four years of p~astorate.
During these years how many heart
breaks, how many losses, how man
bereavements! Hardly a family of the
church that has not been struck with
sorrow! But God has sustained you in
the past and he will sustain you in the
future. | eXhort you to be of good
cheer, oh thou of the broken heart.
weeping may endure for a night, but
joy cometh in the morning" | wish
over every door of this church we might
have written the word "Sympathy."
sympathy for all the young.
We must crowd them in here by
thousands, and propose II radiant gospel
that they will take on the spot. We
must make this place so attractive for
the young that a young nan will come
here on Sabbath morning, put down
his hat, brush his hair back from his
forehead, unbutton his o%vercoat, and
look around wondering if he has not by
mistake got into Heaven.
Yes, sympathy for the old. They
have their aches and pains and dis
~tresses. They canno hear OF walk or
see as well as they used to. We must
be reverential in their presence. On
dark days we must help them through
the aisle, and help them find the place
in the hymn-book.
Sympathy for business men. Twenty
four years of commercial life in New
York and Brooklyn are enough to tear
ones nerves to pieces. We want to
make our Sabbath service mere a rescue
for all these martyrs of traffic, a fore
taste of that land where they have no
rents to pay, and there are no business
rivalries, and where riches, instead of
taking wings to fly away, brood over
other riches.
Sympathy for the fallen, remember
ing that they ought to be pitied as
much as q man run over with a rail-
train. The fact is that, in the tempta-
tations and misfortunes of life, they
get run over. You and l, in the same
circumstances, would have done as bad
Iy, We Siioulu nave uolC WcloC, pCl-
haps.
We want in this church to lave sym
pathy for the worst man, remembering
he is a brother, sympathy for the worst
woman, remembering she is a sister.
If that is not the gospel, l do not know
what the gospel is. All! yes; sympathy
for all the troubled; for the orphans in
their exposure; for widowhood with its
weak arm fighting for bread; for the
household which erst resounded with
merry voices and pattering feet, now
awfully still-broad-winged sympathy,
like the feathers of the Almighty
warm-blooded sympathy, everlasting
sympathy-sympathy which shows it,
self in the grasp of the hand, in the
glittering tear of the eye, in the consol-
ing word of the mouth-sympathy of
blankets for the cold, Of bread for the
hungry, of medicine for the sick, Of
rescue for the lost. Sympathy!
Let it thrill in every sermon. Let it
tremble in every song. Let it CLEAN in
every tear and in every light. Sympa-
thy! Men and women are signing for
sympathy, groaning for sympathy, dy-
ing for sympathy, tumbling off into un-
cleanliness and crime and perdition for
lack of sympathy. May God give it TO
us! Fill all this pulpit with it, from
step to step. Let the sweep Of these
galleries suggest it's encircling arms.
Fill all the house with it, from door to
door, and from floor to ceiling, until
there is no more room for it, and it shall
overflow into the street, and passers-by
on foot and in carriage shall feel the
throb of it's magnificent benediction.
Let that be our new departure as a
church. Let that be my new departure
as u pastor. Sympathy! Gratitude to
God demands that this morning | men
ton the fact that during all these TWEEN
ty-four years l have missed but one
service through sickness.
l must, in gratitude to God, also
mention the multitudes to whom / have
been permitted to preach. 1t is simply
miraculous, the attendance morning
by morning night by night, and
year by year, and long after it has
got to be an old story. | know some
people are dainty and exclusive in their
tastes. AS for myself, l like a big
crowd. | would like to see an audience
large enough to scare me! If this Cos
pei is good, the more that get it the
better.
Profiting by the mistakes of the past,
| must do better work for you and bet
ter work for God. Lest | might, through
some sudden illness or casualty, be
snatched away before / have the oppor-
tunity of doing so, / take this occa-
sion to declare my love for you as q peo-
pie. 1t is different work if a pastor is
placed in a church already built up,
and he is surrounded by established
circumstances. There are not ten
people in this church who have not been
brought in the church through my NM
istry. You are my family. | feel as
much at home here as | do in my home
on Oxford street:
Your present and everlasting welfare
is the object of my ambition. / have
no worldly ambition. / had once. |
have not nov know the world about
as well as any n knows it. / have
heard the handclapping of it's applause,
and nave heard the hiss of it's opposi-
ton, and / declare to you the former is
not especially to be sought for, nor is
the latter to be feared. The world has
given me about all the comfort and
prosperity it can give a man, and l have
no worldly ambition. | have an all
consuming ambition to make full proof
of my ministry, to get to Heaven my
self, and to take a great crowd with
me.
During these t~wenty-four years there
is hardly a family that has not been in
vaded by sorrow or death. Where are
those grand old men, those glorious
Christian women who used to worship
with us? Why, they went away into
the next world so gradually that they
had concluded the second stanza OF the
third stanza in Heaven before you
knew they were gone. They had on
the crown before you thought they had
dropped the staff of the earthly pill
grimage.
And then the dear children. o! how
many have gone out of this church.
You could not keep them. You folded
them in your arms and said: "O! God,