The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-12-06
Pritchard, of Charlotte, and DIR. Felix,
of Asheville.
THE OPENING SERMON

a pleasant and captivating preacher
whose object in preaching is always to
make men have aspirations to better
living. His sermon made n fine inn
preston upon the large congregation
of men who know how to judge good
sermons.
The text was Isaiah 51:1 and 2. The
following synopsis will give an outline
of the sermon;
The Lord was endeavoring to cheer
his people, and that they might be a
BILE to appropriate his promises he APP
pealed to what he had done in the case
of Abraham. The theme is, The voice
of the Past, The Parent of Hope.
Not with your past, as an individual,
nor the last hundred years, but all the
past. God says look back on it all and
get comfort, strength and faith from
any part of it.
Roam with the antediluvian pion-
GERS. Chat with Noah, take breakfast
with Abraham, lunch with raven-fed
Elisha, or sing with the sweet singer in
Israel, all are yours and wherever God
bids us look for comfort, as may be
seen it will be found. The Hebrew
looked to the brazen serpent and found
healing, and when the world looks to
suffering Christ it finds a savior.
When we get this conception of the
past, Old Testament events and char
acters will speak to us with living
force.
1t is by looking back that we get in
spiration to hope for the future.
Take your own life as an illustra-
ton. You started in obscurity, power
ty and until some event or person of
the past was held before YOU, you had
no hope of any special achievement in
life That other life aroused you and
from that moment you became a new
man, living III world with new pos
aibilities.
Mems lives, in their greatness, spring
not from the crib or the hearthstone
alone, but from the touch of the past.
This was illustrated by the open sea
of Northern Europe which is caused,
not by the rivers there but by the Gulf
streams whose waters have been kiss
ed by the sun of another country. So
the life force with which you work to-
morrow may spring from Abraham,
Paul, Luther or Julius Caesar.
From the past we also learn that God
will not leave his people without lead
ers.
This is a feature OF the subject espe
cialiy interesting to us now.
A great leader has fallen, but by
looking to the past we are comforted.
When Moses died Joshua was at hand,
and SO it was when Aaron and Samuel
and David died.
When Christ, the great teacher, fell
the Holy Spirit was sent and so God
will always comfort his people. So
we have seen it in North Carolina. Win
gate is gone but Taylor is here. When
Broadus the great preacher died Il. ii.
Carroll, of Texas was already before
the people.
Meredith and Bailey have gone, but
the latter has left noble son who
cheers us by his power.
Our difficulties are correctly estimat-
ed only as we look AT them in the light
OF the past
Forgetting the past they loom up
before US rs mountains insnrmounta-
ble as boys We jumped the broad ditch
only after comparing il with some pre-
yious leap. So young David went
against the giant, encouraged by his
experience with the lion and the bear
\ great difficulty in the way Of our civ
ilization is the liquor traffic. 1t is an
iron heeled tyrant, Il Nesuvianic cloud
that threatens us with strangulation.
Whence is cur hope2 We measure it
by other evils III the past, such as the
Roman gladiatorial shows, feudalisIn
and slavery, and seeing that these have
gone down before the faithful presen-
tation of gospel truth we hope for the
death of this evil also.
But the victory will not come until
the people are taught and aroused to
the point of voting by principles and
not by political parties.
There is great crisis in our educa-
tional work. Shall our schools live or
shall they die? Shall we sink or swim
We believe that somewhere in the
past there has been an outcropping of
facts and principles which may help
us in the solution of the question. 1t is
a conflict of opinions-nay of conyic-
tions--which, to some of us, are dear
as life We believe in Christian educa-
ton, the saturation of the mind with
the principles of revealed religion, and
if the opinions of our opponents pre-
vail, we believe it will be as hard to
reach the people with the gospel as it
is for a smith to weld cast-iron. We
find a similar conflict in the past his
tory of our country, and we find that
when our fathers spoke openly, per-
sistently and in a manly way, teaching
through printed matter, speeches and
sermons, they prevailed. And 50 we
believe it will be now. True it will
cause the disruption of friendships in
some cases, but this has always fol-
lowed the incuIcation and mainte-
| nance of principles.
When the churches can do more for
peace than for principle, they have
lost their right to live. Christ intend
ed them to be the storm centers of So
ciety. Every needed revolution, every
agitation against evil and every up
heaving against wrong must begin in
| them. or they are disloyal to their
trust Speak not, then, of peace, but
of right, of conviction. of allegiance to
Christ and to the highest interests of
! humanity.
A condition confronts us. The peo-
pie are drifting from the country into
the towns and cities, and ancient
strongholds of the country are grow
ing weak The great country preacher