The Bossier banner., 1894-06-28
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|
other people do it, we have asked the
question how people do not do it. I'm
perious custom has decided that
churches shall be angular, cheerless,
gloomy, unsympathetic; forgetting
that what men call pious gloom is
impious, and that that church has the
best architecture where the people are
the most comforta BILE, and that that
is the most efficient Christian service
where the people are made most sick
of sin, and most anxious after
Christ and Heaven. And so we
called the architects together for
one first church building and
said: ''Give us an amphitheater''-
that is, large family circle gathered
around a fireplace. For many years
we had felt that an amphitheater was
the only proper shape for an audience
room. The prominent architects of
the country said: st can not be done
You need churchly building" And
so we had plan after plan of churchly
buildings presented; but in due time
God sent man who grasped our idea
and executed it. So far from being a
failure, it satisfied our want, and all
our three churches were built on the
amphitheatrical plan, and scores of
churches all over the country have
adopted the same plan.
And, my brethren and sisters, we
| fail in our work just in proportion as
we try to be like other churches, like
every man, to be individual, gathering
up all its peculiarities and idiosyncra-
cies, and hurting them toward some
good and grand object. In other words,
no two churches ought ever to be just
alike. Here is church, for in
stance, whose object it is to
prepare philosophers and artists
and critics for Heaven. God speed
them in the difficult work! Here is
church, on the other hand, that pro-
pose to bring only the poor into the
| Kingdom Of Jesus Christ, looking not
after the rich. God speed such church
in its undertaking. But there is
| larger idea that a church may take
bringing in the rich and the poor, the
wise and the ignorant, the high and
| and the low; SO that kneeling beside
each other shall be the man faring
sumptuously every day, and the man
| who could not get his breakfast. God
speed such church.
oh! my friends, we need to break
away from slavery to ecclesiastical
customs. We dare not sing if anybody
hear us. We dare not preach unless
we have rounded off our sentences to
suit the criticism of the world. We
dare not dress for church until we
have examined the fashion-plates, and
we would rather stay at home than
appear with coat or hat not sane
toned by custom. When will the day
of dcliverance come to the church of
God, when, instead of dead religion,
laid out in state of catafalque of pomp
and insincerity, we shall have a liv-
ing, bounding, sympathetic, glowing
Christianity?
remark, further. that we have tried
here to build and to conduct a cheerful
church. While, as you know, we have
not held back the terrorS of the law
and the sterner doctrines of the Cos
pei, we have tried in this house to
present to this people the idea that
the gladdest, brightest, happiest thing
in the universe is the Christian re-
ligion. There is SO much trouble in
the world; business men have so
many anxieties; toiling men have so
many fatigues; orphans have SO many
desolations-for Gods sake, if there
be any bright place on earth, show it
to them. Let the church of Jesus
Christ be the most cheerful spot on
earth Let me say that do not want
nybody to come whining around me
about the Christian religion. L have
no faith in religion made up of equal
parts of wormwood, vinegar and red
pepper. If the religion that is pre-
| sented to us be a depression, we
| will get along better without it.
| If it be q joy, let it shine out
from your face ana from your CONVEX
sation. If a man comes to my house
to talk of religion with lugubrious
| countenance and manner full of sniff
| fle and dolorousness, feel like saying
| to my wife: "You had better lock up
the silver before he steals, something. :"
| have found it an invariabie rule that
men who profess faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, priding themselves at the
same time on their sanctimoniousness,
always turn out badly. l never knew
an exception. While those who are
the most consistent, the most useful
and the most consecrated have per-
| fume in their conversation and Heaven
| in their face.
We try to make this church a cheer
| full church. A man, on Saturday after
noon, stands in his store and says:
| How shall | meet these obligations?
| How can | endure this new disaster
that is coming upon me?" He goes
home. Sabbath morning finds him in
the house of God. Through the song,
through the sermon, through the
prayer, the Lord Jesus Christ says to
that man: 30 man! / have watched
thee; / will see thee through; /
will stand between thee and thy
creditors. l will make up in Heav-
emily treasures what you have lost in
earthly treasures. Courage, man,
courage! Angels of God, command