Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-05-11

now. There was just as much avarice
among the apple barrels as now among
the cotton bales, and among the
wheelborrows as among the locomo-
lives. The tallow candles saw the
same sins that are now found
under the electric lights Home
spun was just as proud as is
the modern fashion plate TWEEN
ty-five years-yea, twenty-five CEN
turies-have not changed human ma
ture particle. say this for the en-
enlargement of those who think that
our times monopolize all the abomina-
tons of the ages One minute after
Adam got outside of Paradise he was
just like you, Oh, mani One step after
Eve left the gate she was just like you,
oh, woman! All the faults and vices
are many times centenarians. Yea,
the cities Sodom, Gomorrah, Pompeii
Herculaneum, Heliopolis and ancient
Memphis were as much worse than our
modern cities as you might expect,
from the fact that the modern cities
have somewhat yielded to the re-
straints of Christianity, while those
ancient cities were not limited in their
denominations
Yea, that generation which passed
off within the last twenty-five years
had their bereavements, their tempta-
tons, their struggles, their disappoint.
ments, their successes, their failures,
their gladnesses and their griefs, like
| these two generations now in sight,
that in advance and that following.
But the twenty-five years between 1869
and 1s94-how much they saw! How
much they discovered! How much
they felt! Within that time have been
performed the miracles of the tele-
phone and the photograph. From the
observatories other worlds have been
seen to heave in sight Six Presidents
of the United States have been inaugur-
ated. Trans Atlantic voyage abbrevia-
ted from ten days to five and a half Chi
! cago and New York once three days
apart, now only twenty-four hours by
the vestibule limited. Two additional
railroads have been built TO the Pacific.
France has passed from monarchy to
republication. Many of the cities
have nearly doubled their populations
During that generation the chief sur
! viving heroes of the civil war have
gone into the encampment of the
grave. The chief physicians, attor-
neys, orators, merchants, have passed
off the earth, or are in retirement
waiting for transition Other men in
editorial chairs, in pulpits, in gov
ernor's mansions, in legislative, scna-
torial and congressional halls. There
are not ten men or women on the earth
now prominent who were prominent
twenty-five years ago. The crew of
this old ship of world is all changed
Others at the helm, others on the
lookout" others climbing the rat
lines Time is doctor who with po-
tent anodyne has put an entire gem
Grafton into sound sleep. Time, like
another Cromwell, has roughly pro-
rogued Parliament, and with icono-
clasm driven nearly all the rulers eX-
cept one Queen from their places. So
far as ! observed that generation, for
the most part they did their best.
! CHASTITY exceptions, but so far as
knew them, they did quite well, and
many of them gloriously well They
were born at the right time and they
died at the right time. They left the
world better than they found it. We
are indebted to them for the fact that
they prepared the way for our coming.
1894 reverently and gratefully salutes
1869. "One generation passeth away,
and another generation cometh"
There are fathers and mothers here
whom l baptized in their infancy.
There is not one person in this church's
board of session or trustees who was
here when / came. Here and there in
this vast assembly is one person who
heard my opening sermon in Brooklyn,
but not more than one person in every
five hundred now present OF the sew
enteen persons who gave me a unani-
nous call when / came. only three,
believe, are living.
During the passage of the last gen
Grafton some peculiar events have I'M
folded, One day while resting at
Sharon Springs, n Y, think it was
in 1870 the year after my settlement
in Brooklyn, aud while walking in the
park of that place, found myself ask
ing the question, II wonder is there is
any special mission for me to execute
in this world? If there is, may God
show it to mel" There soon came
upon me great desire to preach the
gospel through the secular printing
press i realized that the vast MAORI
ty of people, even in Christian lands,
never enter church, and that it would
be an opportunity of usefulness infinite
If that door of pu blication were opened.
And so / recorded that prayer in a
blank book, and offered that prayer
day in and day out until the answer
came, though in way different from
that which had expected, for it came
through the misrepresentation and
! persecution OF enemies and have to
record it for the encouragement of all
ministers of the Gospel who are mis-
represented, that If the rnisrepresenta-
ton be virulent enough. and bitter
enough, and continuous enough. there
is nothing that so widens ones field OF
usefulness as hostile attack, If you are
really doing the Lords work The