The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-03-15
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Tho Church Too Exclusive to
Properly Fulfill It's Mission.
Too Much Time Devoted to Caring for
Felvet-Coated SInners-TO Reach
the Multitude TechnicaIt-
ties Must be Dropped.

lect: New Ground" basinR it on the
text:
Lest Ishould build upon another mans foun-
dation.-Romans xv., 20.
After, with the help of others, | had
built three churches in the same city,
and not feeling called upon to under
take the superhuman toll of building
a fourth church, Providence seemed
TO point to this place as the field in
which i could enlarge my work, and
feel sense of relief amounting to ex-
ultation. Whereunto this work will
grow l can not prophesy. 1t is invit-
ing and promising beyond anything /
ever touched. The churches are the
grandest institutions this world ever
saw, and their pastors have no superb
ors this side of Heaven; but there is a
wor!. which must be done outside of
the churches, and to that work l join
myself for awhile: Lest Ibuild on an
other mans foundation"
The church is a fortress, divinely
built. Now a fortress is for defeuse
and for drill, and for storing Rminuni-
tion, but an army must sometimes be
on the march far outside the fortress.
In the campaign of conquering this
world for Christ the time has come for
an advance movement, for a general
engagement, for massing the troops,
for an invasion of the enemies coun-
try. Confident that the forts are we'll
man ned by the ablest ministry that
ever blest the church, / propose, with
others, for awhile, to join the cavalry,
and move out and on for service in the
open field.
In laying out the plans for his mis-
sionary tour, Paul, with more brains
than any of his contemporaries, or
predecessors, or successors, sought out
towns and cities which had not yet
been preached to. He goes to Corinth,
city mentioned for splendor and vice,
and Jerusalem, where the priesthood
and Sanhedrim were ready to leap
with both feet upon the Christian re-
ligion. He feels he has a special work
TO do, and he means to do it. What
was the result? The grandest life of
usefulness that man ever lived. We
modern Christian workers are not apt
10 initiate Paul. We build on other peo-
ple's foundations. IL we erect a ci: urch
we prefer to have 1t filled with fam
uies all of whom have been pious. Do
we gather Sunday-school class, we
want good boys and girls, hair combed,
faces washed, manners attractive So
a church in this day is apt to be built
out of other churches. Some minis
ters speEd all their time fishing in
other peoples ponds. and they throw
the line into that church pond and
jerk out a Methodist, and throw the
line into another church pond and
bring out Presbyterian, or there is a
religious row in some neighboring
church, and the whole school of fish
swim off from that pond, and we take
them all in with one sweep of the net.
What is gained? Absolutely nothing
for the general cause of Christ. 1t is
only as in an army, when a regiment is
transferred from one division to an
other, or from the Fourteenth regi-
ment to the Sixty-ninth regiment.
What strengthens the army is new re-
cruits.
The fact is, this is a big world. When
IN our schoOlboy days we learned the
diameter and circumference of this
planet, we did not learn half. 1t is
the latitude and longitude and di-
woe and sin that no figures can calcu-
late. This one spiritual continent of
wretchedness reaches across all zones,
and if / were called to give its geo.
graphical boundary, 1 would say it is
bounded on the north and south and
east and west by the grrat heart of
Gods sympathy and love. Oh, it in q
great world. Since six o'clock this
morning at least eighty thousand
have been born, and all these
multiplied populations are to be
reached by the Gospel. In
England, or in Eastern American cities,
we are being much crowded, and an
acre of ground is of great value, but
out west five hundred acres is small
farm, and twenty thousand acres is no
unusual possession. There is a vast
field here and everywhere unoccupied,
plenty of room more, not building on
another mans foundation. We need as
churches to stop bombarding the old
iron-clad sinners that have been proof
against thirty years of Christian as
sault, and aim for the salvation of
those who have never yet had
one warm-heSrted and point-blank
invitation There are churches
whose buildings might be worth two
hundred thousand dollars who are not
averaging five new converts a year,
and doing less good than many a log
cabin meeting house with tallow
candle stuck in wooden socket, and q
minister who has never seen a college
or known the difference between Greek
and ChoctSw. We need churches to
get into sympathy with the great out
side world, and let them know that
none are so brolxen-hearted or hardly
beset that they will not be welcomed.
MOI says some fastidiOus Christian.
81 don't like to ne crowded in church.
Don't put any one in my pew" My
brother, what viii you do in Heaven?''
When a great multitude that no
man can number assemblies they will
put fifty in your pew. What are the
select few to-day assembled in the
Christian churches compared with the
mightier millions outside of them2 At
least three million people in the elus-
ter Of seaboard cities, and not more
than two hundred thousand in the
churches. Many of the churches
are like a hospital that should
advertise that its patients must have
nothing worse than tOothache or
''run-arounds," but no broken heads,
no crushed ankles, no fractured thighs.
Give US for treatment moderate sin
ners, velvet-eOated sinners, and sin
Hers with gloss on. 4t Ia as though 5