Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1895-03-09

are not positively busy with their
wounds it takes all our time to keep the
flies off In this awful battle of sin
and sorrow, where millions have fallen
! ON millions, do not let us spend all our
time i'll taking care of o few people. and
when the command comes, go into the
world" say practically: mo: cannot
go, have here few choice cases, and
am busy keeping off the flies. " There
are multitudes today who have never
had any Christian worker look them in
the eye, and with earnestness in the ac-
centuation say. Gomez or they would
long ago have been in the kingdom. MY
friends, religion is either sham or a
tremendous reality If it be a sham, let
us cease to have anything TO do with
Christian association. If it be reality,
then great populations are on their way
to the bar of God untitled for the or
deal, and what are we doing?
In order to teach 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 erasti-
anism and complutensianism, we are as
impolitic and little understood as if a
physician should talk to an ordinary
patient about the pericardium and in
tercostal muscle and scorbutio 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 peo-
pie how much we know, and the next
ten years get our people to know as
much as we know, and at the end find
that neither of us knows anything as we
ought to know. Here are hundreds of
thousands of SHINING, struggling and dy-
ing people who need to realize just one
thing-that Jesus Christ came to save
them and will save them now But we
go into profound and elaborate defini-
tion 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 justifi-
cation is Twill read you the definition:
justification is purely a 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 tho
ends of his universal government can
best be attained, reekons that which
was done by tho 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
The Multitude of skeptics.
Now, what is justification? Twill tell
you what justification is, When a sim
ner believes, God lets him off One sum
mer in Connecticut / went to large
factory, and l saw over the door writ
ten the words, mo admittance. " I
entered and saw over the next door,
mo admittance OF course | ell
tered. | got inside end found it
pin factory. and they were making
pins, very serviceable, fine and useful
pins So the spirit of exclusiveness has
practically written over the outside door
of many church, mo admittance. "
And If the stranger enter he finds prac-
tically written over the second door,
mo admittance, and if he goes in
over all tho pew doors seems written,
mo admittance, while the minister
stands in the pulpit, hammering out his
little niceties of belief, pounding ont the
technicalities of religion, making pins.
In the most practical, common sense
way, and laying aside the nonessentials
and the hard definitions of religion, 90
Out thn Cod r,fp
tho people what they need and when
ard how they can get it.
Comparatively little effort as yet has
been made to save that large class of
persons i'll our midst called skeptics, and
he who goes to work here will not be
building upon another mans founda-
ton. There is great multitude Of
them. They are afraid of us and our
churches, fer 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 "a myself.
There is no other commandment greater
than this " And the scribe said to him,
well, master. thou hast said the truth,
for 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. Z" And when
Jesus saw that he answered discreetly
he said unto him, ''Thou art not far
from the kingdom of God. " So a skep-
tic was saved in one interview. But few
Christian people treat the skeptic in
that way. Instead of taking hold Of him
with the gentle hand of love, we arc apt
to take him with the iron pinchers of &C.
clesiasticism.
You would not he so rough on that
man if you knew by what process be
had lost his faith In Christianity.
have known men skeptical from the fact
that they grew up III houses where reli-
gion was oyerdone. Sunday was the
most awful day Of the week They had
religion driven into them with trip
hammer. They were surfeited with
prayer meetings They Were stuffed and
choked with catechisms. They were
often told they were the worst boys the
parents ever knew because they liked
to ride down hill better than to read
Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress. When
FotLa,. .,r,1 follraI kAf
gion, they drew down the corners Of
their mouth and rolled up their eyes. II
any one thing will send boy OF girl to
ruin sooner than another, that is it. II
had had such father and mother, /
lear | should have been an infdel.
When was boy i'll Sunday school, at
one time we had teacher who, when
we were not attentive, struck us over
the head with New Testament, and
there is way of using even the Bible
50 as to make 1t offensive
Others were tripped up of skepticism
from being grievously wronged by some
man who professed to be Christian.
They had a partner in business who
turned out to be first class scoundrel,
though professed Christian. Many
years ago they lost all faith by what
happened il an oil company which was
formed amid the petroleum excitement
The company owned no land. or if they
did there was no sign Of oil produced,
but the president of the company was a
Presbyterian elder, and the treasurer
was an Episcopal yestryman, and one
director was Methodist class leader,
and the other directors prominent menu