The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-02-03
JOSEPH PARKER TELLS
WHAT WILL COME TO PASS DURING
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
The Great London Divine Thinks
Preachers VIII Pass Away with
the Moldy Lies of the A~ncients.

New York Sun.
Dr. Jose:,h Parker, of the London
Temple, has gently stated his views
regarding the possibilities of the TWEEN
tieth century. He does not see much
rknes upon the main outlines of the
coming century. In his opinion it will
be a century of silent but profound and
historic revolutions and developments.
Preachers there will be, and possibly
great preachers, but, taken broadly,
there will be no pulpit in the twentieth
century. Preaching, in DR.. Parker's
opinion, is a supreme impertinence, as
standing between man and man. unless
the preacher be divinely inspired and
qualified. Given an inspired message
and an inspired messenger, and the pull
pit is safe. rs it possible" he asks,
.'that England can require the preach
ing of thirty thousand able-bodied men
every Sunday, and twice every Sunday.
in the year? Or, if all the preaching is
required, is it required in the same
place? The Master said, Go into all the
world Do not many Of us say, Come
into our nice little Westinghouse and
take a seat in the front of the gallery"
He distinguishes broadly between
preachers and teachers. The latter. he
says, we shall always need. OF we'll
equipped teachers we can hardly have
too many. The coming century will be
impatient with incompetent teachers.
but the very degree of it's impatience
on the one hand will be the degree of
it's appreciation on the other. Men will
do willingly homage to the teachers
who can bring them within clear sight
Of all the kingdoms of G~od-righteous-
ness, purity, music, beauty and eternal
love. =
AS to the churches, q wonderful
change will AXE place. Little Bethels
and lions, born to blush unseen" will
be swept off the face of the earth. Small
tests of faith, sectarian standards of
orthodoxy, ~pedantries. whims and theo-
logical crazes will all and
men will gather in adoring love around
the Christ of God. There will be a grand
church in the twentieth century. In
that holy day opinion will be nothing
accounted of compared with sincere love
and passionate devotion to the service
of the poor, the weak and the weary
who need a word in season.
STATE CHURCH NO MORE.
In that day men will not know that
there ever was SO great an anomaly as
a State church. The buttress of the
State will have been displaced by the
unseen hand Of the living God, and out
ward glitter will disappear under the
dawning and Frightening radiance of
spiritual beauty and loneliness. The
church of the, triumphant Savior will in
every deed be established, for she will
have granite for her foundations and
salvation for her walls.
The great freedom which is coming
upon all sections of the one church will
not be the freedom of wanton n riot
Gus license. 1t will be the freedom of
eternal law. the law which makes as
tronomic music and keeps the oceans
| within their appointed lines. Men will
set their faces as flint against the crime
of violating, even in vain attempt, the
solemn and rhythmic order of God. In
the twentieth century the Christian con-
ception of thought and service will be
cleansed of every faint of professional
ism. because faint is indeed foul and
mischievious Many of the old heresies
will pass out of the mind of the world.
because men will not be professionally
engaged in keeping them green and
blooming by constant watering.
| Now men take long journeys to the
| cemeteries of the opening Christian CEN
turtles, hum putrescent heretics,
making their CHASTITY jaws repeat their
foetid commonplace, then argumenta-
lively slapping their faces and putting
them back into their Anticipated
shrouds. A hideous way of making a
living. But the twentieth century will
want to know the present truth, n
not to hear the lies men used to tell two
thousand years ago.
In Great Britain. DIR. Parker prophe-
sizes great political changes at the close
of the twentieth century. The eccles-
~iastical commissioners will all be paid
off and their millions will have gone to
the reduction of the national debt.
Leaseholds will have become freehoYds.
The land will no longer be the monop-
oily OF men who never paid for 1t. Men
viii not be great by title. but by char