The Princeton union., 1896-07-09

8 than a tWO-edged sword, piercing Il
4 the dividing asunder Of body and soul
4 and Of the joints and marrow! Woult
a to God we had more faith in that Cos
\ pei! The humblest man, if he hat
enough faith in it, could bring hun
& dred souls to Jesus perhaps five hun
4 dred. just in proportion as this ag,
seems to believe less and less in it,
4 believe more and more in it Wha
are men about that they will not ac
! cept their own deliyerance? There is
nothing proposed by men that can dc
anything like the Gospel. The relig
ion OF Ralph Waldo Emerson was the
j philosophy Of icicles; the religion OF
theodore Parker was a sirocco Of the
desert covering up the soul with dry
sand; the religion Of Renan was the
romance OF believing nothing ;the re
ligion Of the Huxleys and the Spencers
merely a pedestal on which human
! philosophy sits shivering in tile night
OF the soul, looking up to the stars,
offering no help to the nations that
crouch and groan at the base Tell me
Whefes there is one man who mas re.
jected that Gospel for another, who is
thoroughly satisfied and helped, and
contented in his skepticism, and l will
/ take the car tomorrow and ride 500
miles to see him. The full power Of
the Gospel has not yet been touched.
AS sportsman throws up his head
and catches the ball flying through the
an, just SO easily will this Gospel after
a while catch this round world flying
from It's orbit and bring it back to the
heart OF Christ. Give it full swing and
1t will pardon every sin, heal every
Ia
every slave, and ransom every nation.
Ye Christian men and women who 90
out this afternoon to do Christian
work, as you go into the Sunday
schools, the lay preaching stations, the
penltentiaries and the asylums, want
you to feel that you bear in your hand
a weapon, compared with which the
nghtnlng has no speed, and the ava
lanches have no heft, and the thunder
bolts of heaven have no power; it is
the arrow of the omnipotent Gospel.
rake careful aim. Pull the arrow clear
back until the head strikes the bow!
Then let it fly! And may the slain Of
the Lord be many!
Again, if you want to be skillful in
spiritual archery, you must hunt in
unfrequented and secluded places.
Why does the hunter go three or four
days in the Pennsylvania forests or
over Raquette lake into the wilds Of
the Adirondacks? 1t is the only way
to do. The deer are shy, and one
.Dang" OF the gun clears the forest.
From the California stage you see,
as you go over the plain, here and
there, coyote. trotting along, almost
within range Of the gun-sometimes
quite within range Of it. No one cares
FOR that; it is worthless. The good
game is hidden and secluded. Every
hunter knows that. So many Of the
souls that will be Of most worth for
Christ and most value to the church
are secluded. They do not come in
your way. You will have to 20 where
they are. Yonder they are down in
that cellar; yonder they are up in that
garret. Far away from the door Of
any church, the Gospel arrow has not
been pointed at them The tract dis
tributor and city missionary some
times catch glimpse Of them, as a
hunter through the trees gets mo-
mentary sight of a partridge or roe
buck. The trouble is, we are waiting
for the game to come to us. We are
not good hunters. We are standing
in some street or highway expecting
that the timid antelope will come up
and eat out Of our hands. We are
expecting that the prairie fowl will
light on our church steeple 1t is not
their habit. II the church should wait
ten millions of years for the world to
come in and be saved, it will wait in
vain. The world will not come. What
the church wants now is to lift it's
feet from damask ottomans, and put
them in the stirrups. We want a
pulpit on wheels. The church wants
not so much cushions as it wants sad
dlebags and arrows. We have got to
put aside the gown and kid gloves
and put on the hunting shirt. We
have been fishing so long in the brooks
that run under the shadow of the
church that the fish know us, that
they avoid the hook, and escape as
soon as we come to the bank, while
yonder is Upper Saranac and Big Tup-
per's lake, where the first swing of
the Gospel net would break it for the
multitude Of the fishes. There is out
side work to be done What is that
j see in the backwoods? 1t is tent.
The hunters have made a clearing
and camped out. What do they care
if they have wet feet, or if they have
nothing but pine branch for pillow,
OF for the northwest storm? If a
moose in the darkness steps into the
lake to drink, they hear it right away.
II loon cry in the moonlight, they
hear it. So in the service Of God we
have exposed work. We have got to
camp out and rough it, We are put
ting all our care on the people who
come to our churches. What are we
doing for the thousands upon thou
sands who do not come? Have they.
no souls? Are they sinless, that they
need no pardon? Are there no dead
in their houses, that they need no.
comfort? Are they cut off from God,
to go into eternity mo wing to bear.
them, no light to cheer them, no well
come to greet them? hear to-day,
surging up from the lower depths, a
groan that comes through our Christ
ian assemblages and through our beau
tiful churches; and it blots out all
this scene from my eyes to-day, as
by the mists Of great Niagara, for
the dash and the plunge of these great
torrents of life dropping down into
the fathomless and laundering abyss
Of suffering and woe. I sometimes
think that Just as God blotted out the.
churches of Thyatira and Corinth and
Laodicea, because of their sloth and