Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-11-17


If they walked into home every mem
/ Der of 1t felt holy thrill, and If they
! walked into a prayer meeting the dull
ness and stolidity instantly vanished.
One Of them would wake up whole
church. One of them w1uld sometimes
electrify whole city.
But the most wonderful one Of that
characterization the world ever saw or
heard or felt was a peasant in the far
| east, wearing a plain blouse like an in
| verified wheat sack, with three open
| ings, one for the neck, and the other
| two for the arms. His father a wheel
| wright and house builder, and given to
various carpentry. His mother at first
under suspicion because of the circum-
stances of his nativity, and he chased
| by Herodic mania out of his native
land, to live awhile under the shadows
of the sphinx and Pyramid OF Gizeh.
afterward confounding the LIDS Of
Jerusalem, then stopping the parox-
ysm Of tempest and of mailman. His
path strewn with slain dropsies and
catalepsies and ophthalmias, transfig-
ured on one mountain, preaching on
another mountain, dying on another
mountain, and ascending from another
| mountain-the greatest, the loveliest,
the mightiest, the kindest, the most
self-sacrifcing, most beautiful being
whose feet ever touched the earth. Tell
US, ys deserts who heard our Sayior's
prayer; tell US, We seas that drenched
him with your surf; tell us, we multi
| tudes who heard him preach on deck.
on beach, on hillside; tell us, Golgotha
who heard the stroke of the hammer
on the spikeheads, and the dying groan
in that midnight that dropped on mid
noon, did anyone like Jesus have this
passion for souls?
A stranger desired to purchase a
| farm, but the owner would not sell 1t
would only let it. The stranger hired
| 1t by lease for only one crop, but he
| sowed acorns, and to mature that crop
| three hundred years were necessary.
| That was q practical deception, but
deceive you not when tell you that the
crop of the soul takes hold of unend-
| ing ages.
i see the author Of my text seated in
the house OF Gaius, who entertained
him at Corinth, not far from the over
hanging fortress of Acro-Corinthus,
and meditating on the longevity Of the
soul, and getting more and more agi-
tated about it's value and the awful risk
| 80 L, a. l.;
corning it, and he writes this letter
| containing the text, which Chryso-
stom admired SO much he had 1t read
to him twice week. and among other
| things he says those daring and start
| ling words of my text: II could wish
that myself were accursed from Christ
for my brethren, my kinsmen, accord
| ing to the flesh"
Now, the object Of this sermon is
| to stir at least one-fourth of you to
an ambition for that which my text
presents in blazing vocabulary, namely,
passion for souls. To prove that it
/ is possible to have much of that spir-
it, bring the conservation of 1890 for
eign missionaries. 1t is usually esti-
mated that there are at least 5000 mis-
sionaries / make liberal allowance,
and admit there may be ten bad mis-
sionaries out of the 5000, but ! do not
believe there is one. All English and
American merchants leave Bombay,
| Calcutta, Annoy, and Pekin as soon as
they make their fortunes. Why? Be-
cause no European or American in his
senses would stay in that climate af-
ter monetary inducements have ceased
Now, the missionaries there are put
down on the barest necessities, and
most of them do not lay up one dollar
in twenty years. Why, then, do they
stay in those lands of intolerable heat
and cobras, and raging fevers, the ther-
mometer sometimes playing at $50 and
lao degrees of oppressiveness, twelve
the unhealthy climate and the prevail
ing immoralities of those regions COM
PEELED to send their children to Eng
land, or Scotland, or America, prob
ably never to see them again? O.,
Blessed Christ! Can it be anything
but passion for souls? 1t is easy to
understand all this frequent deprecia-
ton Of foreign missionaries when you
know that they are all opposed to the
| opium traffic, and that interferes with
| commerce; and then the missionaries
| are moral, and that Is an offense to
many of the merchants-not all Of
| them, but many of them-who, absent
| from all home restraint, are so inn
moral that We can make only faint al
| fusion to the monstrosity Of their
denominations. Oh, l would like to be at
| the gate of heaven when those mission
aries go in, to see how they will have
| the pick of coronets, and thrones, and
mansions on the best streets of heaven.
| We who have had easy pulpits and
| loving congregations, entering heaven.
| will, IN my opinion, have to take our
| turn and wait for the Christian work
ers who, amid physical sufferings and
mental privation and environment Of
squalor, have done their work; and on
the principle that in proportion as one
has been self-sacrifcing and suffering
for Christ's sake on earth will be their
celestial preferment.
Who is that young women on the
worst street in Washington, New York,
or London. Bible in hand, and little
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