The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-07-04

flying through the air, 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 it will
pardon every sin, heal every wound,
cure every trouble, emancipate
every slave, and ransom every ma
ton. Ye Christian men and women
who go out his afternoon to do Chris
tian work, as you go into the Sunday
schools, the lay preaching stations, and
the penitentiaries, and the asylums, l
want you to feel that you bear in your
hand a weapon, compared with which
the lightning has no speed, and the
~avalanches have no heft, and the thun-
derbolts of heaven have no power; 1t
Is the arrow of the Omnipotent Gospel.
Take careful aim. Pull the arrow clear
back until the head strikes the bowl
Then let it fiyi And may the slain of
the Lord be manyi
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 OF
over Raquette AXE into the wilds of
the ~Adirondacks? 1t is the only way
to do. The deer are shy, and one
"bang'' of the gun clears the forests
From the California stage you see, as
you go over the plains, here and there,
a 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 hidde and
secluded. Every hunter knows that.
So, many of the souls that will be of
most worth to Christ m of 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 garrett Far away from
the door of any church, the gospel ar
row has not been pointed at them.
The tract distributor aud city mission
airy sometimes catches a glimpse of
them, as a hunter through the
trees gets a momentary sight of a par
fridge or a roebuck. 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 high
way 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. If the church should
wait ten millions of years for h 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 n put
them in the stirrups. We want a pull
pit on wheels. The church ants
not so much cushions as it wants
saddlebags 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 MS, that
they avoid the hook, and escape al
soon as we come to the bank, while
yonder is Upper Saranic 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 it l see
in the baclwoods? 1t is a 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 a pine branch
for a pillow, or for the northeast
storm? If a moose in the darkness
steps into the lake to drink, they hear
it right away. If a loon cry in the
moonlight, they lear it So in the
service of God we ave exposed work.
We have got to camp out and rough it.
We are putting all our care on the peo'
pie who come to our churches. What
are we doing for the thouands upon
thousands who do not come? Have
they no soulso Are they s~inless, 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-no wing to
pear them, no light to cheer them,
no welcome to greet them? / hear
to-day, surging up from the lower
depths. a groan hat comes through
our Christian assemblages and through
out all this scene from my eyes to-day,
as by the mists of a 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. / sometimes think
that just as God blotted out the
churches of Thyatira and Corintb and
Laodicea, because of their sloth and
6COllulLys ne Will DlOL OuL AAlG q
and English Christianity. and raise on
the ruins a stalwart, w~ideawake. mis-
sionary church, that can take the full
meaning of hat command: G into
all the world, and preach the Gospel
to every creature"
L remark, further, If you want to
succeed in spiritual archery you must
have courage. If the hunter stand
18th frana h1inn ha nd or ahnnlhar that
fiinches with fear, instead of his TAX
ing the catamount, the catamount takes
him. What would become of the
Greenlander If, when out hunting for
the bear, he should stand shivering
with terror on an iceberg? What
would nave become of Du Chaillu and
Livingstone in the African thioket
with a faint heart and a weak knee2
When a panther comes within 30 PAGES
of you and it has its eye on you and it
has squatted for the fearful spring,
STEADY therer"
Courage, o ye spiritual archersl
There are great monsters in iniquity
prowling all around about the com.
munity. Shall we not of the strength
of God go forth and combat them? We
not only need more heart, but more
backbone. What is the church of God,
that it should fear to look in the eye
of any transgression? There is the
Bengal tiger of drunkenness thai
prowls around and, instead of attack
ing it, how many of us hide under the
church pew or the communion tablet
There is so much invested in it we are
afraid to assault it; millions of dollarI
in barrels, in watts. in spigots, In cork.
screws, in gin palaces with marble foor,
and ~Italian-top tables, n chased ica
coolers, and in the strychnine, and the
logwood, and the tartaric acid, and the
nux vomica, that go to make up our
''pure" American drinks 1 looked
with wondering eyes on the "Heidel'
berg tun." 1t is the great liquor vat
of Germany, which is said to hold SOC
hogsheads of wine, and only three
times in a hundred years it has been
filed. But, as ! stood and looked al
it, 1 said to myself; THAT is nothing
800 hogsheads. Why, u American
vat holds :, $780, 900 barrels of strong
drinks, and we keep 200, 900 men with
nothing to do but to see that 1t IL
filed" Oil to attack this great monster
of intemperance, and the kindred
-oosta-o ~ fraud md unoIaannaas ra.