News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1895-01-24

] lure. Will u ne OOn6 Dy worthy I61OFIl
or evangelism? Will it be law or Cos
pei? l am glad that wave of reform
has swept across this land, and all the
cities are feeling the advantage of the
mighty movement. Let the good work
go on until the last municipal evil is
extirpated. About 8 years ago the dis
tinguished editor of a New York daily
newspaper said to me in his editorial
room: lyon ministers talk about evils
of which you know nothing. Why don't
you go with the officers of the law and
explore for yourself, SO that when you
preach against sin you can speak from
what you have seen with your own
eyes?" said, Il will, " and in company
with a commissioner of police and a
captain Of police and two elders Of my
church explored the dens and hiding
places of all styles of crime in New York
and preached q series of sermons warn
ing young men and setting forth the
work that must be done lest the judg-
ments of God whelm this city with
more awful enlargement than the vol
canic delugo that buried Herculaneum
and Pompeii. | received, as nearly as |
can remember, several hundred columns
of newspaper abuse for undertaking that
exploration. Editorials of denunciation,
double loaded, and with captions in
great primer type, entitled %The Fall OF
Talmage," or ''Talmage Makes the Mis-
take of His Life, 3" or "Down With Tai
mage" but l still live and am in full
sympathy with all movements for mu-
nicipal publication.
But movement which ends with
crime exposed and law executed stops
half way. Nay, it stops long before it
gets half way. The law never yet saved
anybody, never yet changed anybody.
Break up all the houses of iniquity in
this city, and you only send the occu-
pants to other cities. Break down all
the policemen in New York, and while
it changes their worldly fortunes it does
not change their heart or life. The
greatest want in New York today is the
transforming power of the gospel of
Jesus Christ to change the heart and the
life and uplift the tone of moral senti-
ment and make men do right not be-
cause they are afraid Of Ludlow Street
jail or Sing Sing, but because they love
God and hate unrighteousness. | have
never heard, nor have you heard, of any
thing except the gospel that proposes to
regenerato the heart, and by the iniu-
ence Of that regenerated heart rectify
the life. Execute the law most certain
ly, but preach the gospel by all means in
churches i'll theaters, in homes, in pris-
ons, on the land and on the sea. The
gospel is the only power that can revo-
lutionize society and save the world.
All else is half and half work and will
not last. In New York it has allowed
men who got by police bribery their
thousands and tens of thousands and
perhaps hundreds of thousands of dol
lars to 60 scot free, while some who
were merely the cats paw and agents of
bribery are struck with the ightnings
of the law. 1t reminds me of scene in
Philadelphia when l was living there.
A poor woman had been arrested and
tried and imprisoned for selling molasses
candy on Sunday. Other lawbrealiers
had been allowed to go undisturbed,
and the grogshops were open on the
Lords day, and the law, with its hands
behind its back, walked up and down
the streets declining to modest many of
the offenders, but we all rose up in our
righteous indignation, and calling upon
all powers, visible and invisible to help
us, we declared that though the heavens
fell no woman should be allowed to sell
molasses candy on Sunday.
Party and Politics.
A few weeks ago, after had preached
in one of the churches in this city, q
man staggered up on the pulpit Stairs
maudlin drunk, saying, 81 am one Of
the reformers that were elected to high
office at the last election. got rid of
that "great reformer" as soon as | could
but did not get rid of the impression
that a man like that would cure the
denominations of New York about as soon
as smallpox would cure typhoid fever or
a buzzsaw would render Haydn's "Crea-
tion." Politics in all our cities has be-
come so corrupt that the only difference
between the Republican and Democratic
parties is that each is worse than the
other. But what nothing else in the uni
verse can do the gospel can and will ac-
complish. '"They shall come from the
west, y and for that purpose the evan
gelistic batteries are planted all along
the Pacific coast, as they are planted all
along the Atlantic coast. All the prai-
ries, all the mountains, all the valleys
all the cities are under more or less Cos
Lcl influence, aud when we get enough
saith and conservation for the work this
whole American continent will cry out
for God. "They shall come from tho
west.
The work is not so difficult as many
suppose You say, "There are the for
eign populations. Yes, but many Of
them are Eollanders, and they were
brought up to love and worship God,
and it will take but littls to persuade
the Hollanders to adopt tho religion Of
their forefathers. Then there are among
these foreigners SO many of the Scotch.
They or their ancestors heard Thomas
Chalmers thunder and Robert Nc
Cheyne pray The breath of God so often
swept through the heather of tho high
lands, and the voice of God has so often
sounded through the Trossachs, and they
all know how to sing Dundee, so that
they will not have often to be invited TO
accept the God of John Knox and Both