The Yale expositor., 1895-03-08


In this awful battle OF sin and sorrow,
where millions have fallen on millions,
do not let us spend all our time In
taking care of a few people. and when
the command comes: Go into the
world" say practically: mo, can not
GO; have here a few choice cases and
/ am busy keeping off the flies" There
are multitudes to-day who have never
had any Christian worker look them in
the eye and with earnestness in the ac-
centuation say: Comet! or they would
long ago have been in the kingdom
My friends, religion is either sham or
a tremendous reality. II II be sham.
let US cease to have anything TO do
with Christian association. IL IL be
reality, then great populations are on
their way to the bar of God untitled for
the ordeal, and what are we doing?
In order to reach the multitude OF out
siders we must drop all technicalities
out of our religion. When we talk to
people about the hypostatic union and
French encyclopedianism and Erastin-
ianism and COMPREHENSION, we are
as impolitic and little understood as IL
a physician should talk to an ordinary
patient about the pericardium and in
tercostal muscle and scorbutic symp-
toms. Many OF us come out OF the theo-
logical seminaries so loaded up that
we take the first ten years to show our
people how much We know and the next
ten years to get our people to know as
much as we know, and at last find that
/ neither OF us knows anything as we
ought to know. Here are hundreds of
thousands Of SHINING, struggling and
dying people who need 10 realize just
inn l,nf icf On
save them, and will save them now. But
we go into a profound and elaborate
definition of what justification is, and
after all the work there are not, outside
of the learned professions, 5000 people
in the United States who can tell what
Justification Is. 1 will read you the defi-
milton:
Justification is purely forensic act,
the act of a Judge sitting in the forum,
In which the Supreme Ruler and Judge,
who is accountable to none and who
alone knows the manner in which the
ends OF his universal government can
best be obtained, reckons that which
was done by the substitute, and not on
account of anything done by them, but
purely upon account of this gracious
method OF reckoning, grants them the
full remission OF their sins"
Comparatively little effort has as yet
been made to save that large class OF
persons In our midst called sceptics,
and he who goes 10 work here will not
be building upon another mans founda-
ton. There is a great multitude or
them. They are afraid OF us and our
churches, for the reason we do not
know how TO treat them. One OF this
class met Christ. and hear with what
tenderness and pathos and beauty and
success Christ dealt with him: Thou
| shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart and with all thy soul and with all
thy mind and with all thy strength.
This is the first commandment. and the
second is like to this. namely: Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as myself.
There is no other commandment greater
than this" And the scribe said to him:
We'll. Master. thou hast said the truth.
Tor there is one God: and to love him
with all the heart and all the under
standing and all the soul and all the
strength is more than whole burnt Of
ferings and sacrifices" And when Je-
sus saw that he answered discreetly, he
said unto him: Thou art not far from
the kingdom Of God" SO a sceptic was
saved In one interview. But few Chris
lion people treat sceptics in that way.
Instead Of taking hold OF them with
the gentle hand of love. we are apt to
take them with the iron pincers Of &C.
clesiasticism.
Again. there Is a field Of usefulness
but little touched or occupied by those
who are astray in their habits. All
northern nations, like those of North
America and England and Scotland.
that Is, In the col Ter climates. are devas-
tated by alcoholism. They take the fire
TO keep up the warmth. In southern
countries, like Arabia and Spain, the
blood is so warm they are not tempted
TO fiery liquids. The great Roman ar
mics never drank anything stronger
than water tinged with vinegar. but
under our northern climate the tempta-
ton to heating stimulants is most
mighty and millions succumb. When
mans habits go wrong the church drops
him, the social circle drops him. good
influence drops him, we all drop him.
or all the men who get off the track,
but few ever get on again. Near my
summer residence there is a life saving
station on the beach. There are all the
ropes and rockets. the boats, the ma
chinery for getting people off ship
wrecks. One summer 1 saw there fifteen
or twenty men who were breakfasting
after having just escaped with their
lives and nothing more. Up and down
our coasts are built these useful struc-
ures, and the mariners know it, and
they feel that if they are driven into
the breakers, there will be apt from
shore to come q rescue. The churches of
God ought 70 be so many lifesaving
stations, not so much to help those who
are in smooth waters, but those who
have been shipwrecked. Come, let us
run out the life boats, And who
will man them? We do not preach
enough to such men; we have not
enough faith in their release. Alas, If
when they come to hear us, we are la
boriously trying to show the difference
between sublapsarianism and supra
lapsarianism, while they have a thou
sand vipers of remorse and despair
coiling around and biting their immor-
tai spirits. The church is not chiefly
for goodish sort of men whose proclivi-
ties are all right, and who could get TO
heaven praying and singing in their
own homes. 1t is on the beach TO help
the drowning. Those bad cases are the
cases that God likes to take hold of. He
Fs.Il