News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-10-19
THE DISCOURSE,

|
will tell you just the proportion. Out
of thousand people in this audience
tAcre are just 1000 who need sympa-
thetic help. These young people want
it just as much as the old. The old peo-
pie sometimes seem to think they have
| a monopoly of the rheumatism, and the
neuralgias, and the headaches, and the
physical disorders of the world. But I
tell you there are no worse heartaches
than are felt by some of these young
people.
Do you know that much of the work
is done by the young? Raphael died at
81, Richard III at SO, Gustavus Adolphus
died at 3S; Innocent III came to his
mightiest influence at 81; Cortez con-
quered Mexico at 80; Don John won Lee
panto at %; Grotius was attorney gen.
eral at "a, and have noticed amid all
classes of men that some of the severest
battles and the toughest work comes be-
fore 80. Therefore we must have our
sermons and our exhortation in prayer
meeting all sympathetic with the young.
And so with these people further on
in life. What do these doctors and law
yers and merchants and mechanics care
about the distractions of religion? What
they want is help to bear the whimsical
tiles of patients, the browbeating of le-
gal opponents, the unfairness of Gus
toners, who have plenty of fault finding
for every imperfection of handiwork, but
| no praise for 20 excellences. What does
that brain. racked, hand blistered man
care for Zwingle's Doctrine of Original
SIM or Augustine's "Anthropology?"
Y GU might as well go to man who has
the pIeurlsy and put on his side aplaster
mace out of DR.. PARIS ''Treatise on
Medical Jurisprudence"
WnIe all OF sermon may not be help
full alike to all if it be a Christian onr-
mon preached by Christian man tboro
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 Immediate
ly get the medicine. We know our turn
will come after awhile. And so, while
all parts of a sermon may not be appro-
pirate to our case, if we wait prayerfully
before the sermon is through we shall
have the divine prescription. l say to
these young men who come here Sabbath
by Sabbath, and who are going to preach
the gospel-these theological students
1 say to them, we want in our sermons
not more metaphysics, nor more imagi-
nation, nor more logic, nor more pro-
fundity.
What we want in our sermons and
Christian exhortations is more sympa-
thy. When Father Taylor preached in
the Sailors Bethel at Boston, the jack
tars felt that they had help for their du-
ties among the ratlines and the forecas-
ties. When Richard Weaver preached
to the operatives in Oldham, England,
all the workingmen felt they had more
grace for the spindles. When DR.. South
preached to kings and princes and prin-
cesses, all the mighty men and women
who heard him felt preparation for their
high station.
NECESSITY FOR PRAYER.
Again I remark that sanctuary help
ought to come through the prayers of all
the people. The door of the eternal
storehouse is hung on one hinge-a gold
hinge, the hinge of prayer-and when the
whole audience lay hold of that door, it
must come open. There are here many
| people spending their first Sabbath after
some great bereavement. What 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
before for 10 years. What will your pray
er 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 laundering 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? VIII you be chiefly critical of
the rhetoric Of the pastors petition? No.
No. A thousand people will feel, F'That
prayer is for me, and at every step of the
prayer chains ought to drop off, and tenn
Piles of sin ought to crush into dust, and
jubilees of deliverance ought to brandish
their trumpcts. In most of our churches
we have three prayers-the opening
prayer, what is called the ''long prayer"
and 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 through, and spend the last prayer
in preparing to start for home. The
most insignificant part of every reli-
gious service is the sermon. The more
important parts are the Scripture les
son 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 under
stood 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 as well
how try to take all the passengers from
New York to Buffalo by stage coach, or
all the passengers from Albany to Buffa-
10 by canalboat, 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 haveno patience with Sabbath |
humdrum.
We have no objections to bands and
surplice and all the paraphernalia of
clerical life, but these things make no
mpression-1nake 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 preach
ers wear the best clothes, and many d
backwoodsnnan has dismounted from
the saddIebags and in his linen buster
preacbed a sermon that shook earth and
heaven with it's Christian eloquence.
No new gospel, only the old gospel in
a way suited to the time. NOnew church,
but a church to be the asylum, the IN
spiration, the practical sympathy and
the eternal help of the people.
CHURCH DOORS.
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 l 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 stumbling out of