The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-10-18

drowned out in the mighty tongue of
congregational song beating against the
gates of heaven. Do you know how they
mark the hours in heaven? They have
no clocks, as they have no candles, but
a great pendulum Of hallelujah swing
ing across heaven from eternity to
! eternity.
Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God,
| But children If the heavenly king
Should speak their joys abroad.
A sermonizer on Sermons.
Again. I remark that sanctuary help
ought to come from the sermon OF
1000 people in this or any other audience
how many want sympathetic help? Do
you guess 100? DO you guess 500? You
have guessed wrong. 1 will tell you
just the proportion. Out of 1000 people
in this audience there are just 1000 who
need sympathetic help. These young
people want II just as much as the old.
The old people sometimes seem to think
they have a monopoly of the rheuma-
tisms, and the neuralgias. and the head
aches, and the physical disorders of the
world, but 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
| thirty-seven; Richard III at thirty-three;
| Gustavus Adolphus died at thirty-eight;
| Innocent III came to his mightiest in
| fiuence at thirty-seven; Cortez conquered
| Mexico at thirty; Don John won Lepanto
| at twenty-five; Grotius was attorney
1 general at twenty-four. and have no
/ tlced amid all classes of men that some
of the severest battles and the toughest
| work comes before thirty. Therefore, we
! must have our sermons and our eXhorta-
| ton 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 whimsi-
| calities Of patients, the browbeating of
| legal opponents, the unfairness of Gus
| toners, who have plenty of fault-finding
for every imperfection of handiwork, but
| no praise for twenty eXcellencies. What
does that brain-racked. hand-blistered
| man care for Zwingle's Doctrine of
| Original Sim or Augustine's "Anthropol-
| ogy?' You might as well go to a man
who has the pleurisy and put on
| plaster made out of DR.. PARIS Treatise
on Medical Jurisprudence"
| While all Of a sermon may not be
helpful alike TO all. if it be a Christian
| sermon preached by a Christian man,
there will be help for every one some
where. We go into an apothecary store.
| We see others being waited on. We do
| not complain because we do not imme-
| diately get the medicine. We know our
| turn will come after awhile. And so
while all parts of a sermon may not be
| appropriate TO our case If we wait pray
| erfully before the sermon IS through we
| shall have the divine prescription. 1 say
| to these young men who come here Sab
| bath by Sabbath and who are going to
| preach thea gospel, these theological stu
| dents-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
! Christian 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 ratlines and the forecastles.
When Richard Weaver preached to the
| operatives in Oldham England, all the
worl1ingmen felt they had more grace
for the spindles When Dr. South
| preached TO kings and princes and
| princesses. all the mighty men and
women who heard him felt preparation
for their high station.
The Help of Prayer.
Again I remark that sanctuary help
ought to come through the prayers of all
the people. The door Of the eternal store
house is hung on one hinge, a gold
hinge, the hinge Of prayer-and when the
whole audience lays hold Of that door IL
must come open. There are here mary
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
a church before for ten years; what will
your prayer do for them by rolling over
their soul holy memories? Here are peo-
pie in crises of awful temptation.
| They are on the verge of despair or
| wild laundering or theft or suicide. What
will your prayer do for them this morn
ing 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 pray?
| VIII you be chiefly critical of the rhet-
ORIG OF the pastors petition? No No.
| A thousand people will feel that prayer
is for me-" and at every step Of the
prayer chains ought to drop off and tenn
pies Of sin ought TO crush into dust, and
| jubilees of deliverance ought to bran
| dish their trumpets. 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 ap-
| parel after entrance and spend the sec
ond prayer, the long prayer" in wish
ing II were through and spend the last
| prayer in preparing to start for home.
| The most insignificant part Of every re-
| ligious service is the sermon. The more
important parts are the scripture les
| son and the prayer. The sermon is only
| a man talking TO a man. The scripture
lesson is God talking 10 man. Prayer
| is man talking to God. Oh, II we under
stood the grandeur and the pathos 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 well now try to take all the passen-
| gers from New York TO Buffalo by stage
coach, or all the passengers from Albany
| TO Buffalo by canalboat, OF do all the
battling Of the world with bow and ar
| row. as with the old style of church to
| meet the exigencies of this day. Unless
| the church in our day will adapt itself
| 10 the time IL will become extinct. The
| people reading newspapers and books all
the week, i'm alert, picturesque and re-
| sounding style, will have no patience
| with Sabbath humdrum.
1 We have no objections to bands and
| surplice and all the paraphernalia Of
4 clorfoal life hut those things make no