The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1894-01-31

was a time when ship from a foreign
port was seized aud made prey Of.
Every part Of the ocean was infested
With pirates, and death rode upon the
wbite-oapped sea No attention. was
paid to roadways, and County Commis-
sioners had not been invented Only
the stoutest horses could wade through
the bog, aed the fruits Of the earth were
allowed to rot in the barns. because
they could not be transported to market.
6. TIE same holds good with reference
to the facilities of travel aed intercourse
Our fathers travelled three miles an
hour We grumble if We do not make
thirty. From 1870 to 1880, there we're
built in the United States over forty
one thousand miles of railroads In 1925,
the cheapest passage from Europe to
America was one hundred dollars !: now
the cheapest rate in the steerage is
eight dollars At the beginning Of this
century. there was little or no travel
Men lived in isolated communities. A
stranger was regarded as az enemy. 1t
is only eighty-6ye years since Fultou's
steamboat, made its first trip up the
Hudson. Fifty-four years ago, the
ocean was first crossed by means of
steam. An Euglisbman stood on the
other shore, and said he would eat the
boiler of the first steamer that crossed.
The oldest railway passenger train is
but twenty years older than am.
7. Along with all this, the worlds
morals have been improved in many
directions. and mans conception of
right and wrong greatly quiekeued
As late as 1915, there were found
thirty-nine cases of wives exposed to
public sale 10 Smith6eld. Eogland. In
Virginia. the girls were bartered away
for tobacco. Until this century,
Dothiug was cheaper than human life.
In our mother country, there we're two
hundred and tweny-.hree ofenses for
which the punishment was death. II
q man killed a rabbit unlawfully, be
was hanged. II be appeared publicly
10 disguise, or cut down young trees.
or stole property valued at Eve shiliings.
or wrote a threatening letter to extors
money-for all these he was banged.
But all this progress has come as the
result Of vast labor 10 all the 6elds OF
study. Just as Agassis lived for
months upon the shores Of the Amason,
studying out some Of natures problems,
so Others have toiled in other places,
and the great caravan is ssiIl moving on.
After boy has begun to walk and talk, !,
be is sometimes subject to unaccount-
able pains over his body. The old
folks called them growing pains .
Sometimes l have almost been willing
to believe that these convulsions and
panics aud revolutions, of which our
papers tell us daily, are the great
worlds growing pains, and men cannot
even now imagine the great things that
are coming.
But 10! we are brought face to face
With the appalling fact.
II. THE CHURCH IS STANDING STILL.
The church methods and measures
are just what they we're generations
ago. nor do men cling to them upon the
ground that they are of divine appoint
ment. but rather because they are old
aud agreeable.
A church with two hundred and
6fty members. which receives only four
or five additions per year. should surely
begin TO suspect tEat something is
wrong. If man sowed ten bushels Of
wheat, and only reaped one. he would
quit the business; yet the ''garden Of
the Lord" is not even as productive as
that.
1t is manifest to my mind that our
method of preaching and conducting
services is failure. We forgive our
selves by saying, the Lord does not
see fit to bless US, aud 60 on doing this
year just what we did last. and all to
as little purpose. If these plans Of ours
are all that we can have. | am free to
say to you. they are a failure, and the
case is hopeless But must We not
have plans aud methods :? Certainly!
but it is great mistake to expect re-
suits from mere methods. Somewhere
there must be spiritual gy,and that
is never manifest from heaven except
through the people as the divinely chosen
chancel. God has always used men to
save men, and if the men who receive
the gospel have no spiritual energy, the
men who have DOT the gospel will die
without it. Behind all methods there
must be spiritual power among the
people This power is lacking. and
this is our great deficiency.
~. Il c.a .L.t .. D.eo.o~ 70 ofronoo