Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1896-07-04


backplate. What symbol of that gos-
pei which is sharper than two edged
sword, piercing to the dividing asunder
of body and soul, and of the joints and
marrow! Would to God we had more
faith in that gospel The humblest man,
if he had enough faith in it, could
bring 100 souls to Jesus-perhaps 500.
Just in proportion as this age seems to
believe less and less in it, I believe
more and more in it. What are men
about that they will not accept their
own deliverance? There is nothing pro-
posed by men that can do anything like
this gospel. The religion of Ralph Wal
do Emerson was the philosophy of lei
cles; 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 religion of the Huxleys and
the Spencers merely pedestal on which
human philosophy sits shivering in the
night of the soul, looking up to the
stars, offering no help to the nations
that crouch and groan at the base. Tell
me where there is one man who has re-
jected that gospel for another who is
thoroughly satisfied and helped and con
tented in his szepticism, and will take
the car tomorrow and ride 500 miles to
see him. Tho full power of the gospel
has not yet been touched. AS a sports
man throws up his head and catches
the ball flying through the air, just Sc
easily will this gospel after awhile catch
this round world flying from its 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, cmancipate every slave and
ransom every nation
Ye Christian men and women who 60
out this afternoon to do Christian work,
as you 90 into the Sunday schools, the
lay preaching stations and the peniten-
tiarics and the asylums, want you to
feel that you bear in your hand q weapon
compared with which the lightning has
no speed, and avalanches have no heft,
and the thunderbolts Of heaven have no
power; it is the arrow Of the omnipotent
gospel. Take careful aim. Pull the ar
row clear back until tho head strikes
the bowl Then let it fiyl And may the
slain of the Lord be many!
Good Hunting Ground.
Again, if you want to be skillful IN
spiritual archery, you must hunt in I'M
frequented and secluded places. Why
does the hunter go three or four days III
the Pennsylvania forests or over Ra-
quette lake into the wilds of the Adiron'
dacks? 1t is the only way to do. The
deer are shy, and one "bang" of the
gun clears the forest. From the Cali
fornia stage you see, as you 60 over the
plains, here and there, coyote trotting
along, almost within range of tho gun
sometimes quite within range of it. No
one cares for that; it is worthless. The
good game is hidden and secluded. Ev-
cry hunter knows that. So, many of the
souls that will be of most worth for
Christ and Of most value to the church
are secluded. They do not come i'll your
way. You will have to go where they
are. Yonder tn, IRE down in that eel
lar; yonder they are up in that garrett
Far away from the door of any church,
the gospel arrow has not been pointed
at them. The tract distributor and city
missionary sometimes catch u glimpse
of them, as hunter through the trees
get momentary sight of a partridge or
a roebuck. The trouble is, we are wait
ing for the game to come to us. We are
not good hunters We are standing i'll
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.
If the church should wait 10, 600, 600
of years for the world to come i'll and
be saved, it will wait in vain. The
world will not come. What the church
wants now is to lift its feet from dam
ask ottomans and put them i'll the STIR
rups. We want a pulpit on wheels The
church wants not so much cushions as
it wants saddlebags and arrows. We
have got to put aside the go n and kid
gloves and put OH the lifting 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 Up
per Saranac and Big Tuppers lake,
where the first swing of the gospel net
would break it for the multitude of the
fishes. There is outside workto be done.
What is that sec in the backwoods? 1t
is q tent. The hunters have made q
clearing and campcd out. What do they
care if they have wet feet, or if they
have nothing but pine branch for q
pillow or for the northeast storm? If
a moose in the darkness steps into the
lake to drink, they hear it right away.
If 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 1t. we are putting
all our care on the people who come to
our churches. What are we doing for
the thousands upon thousands that 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-no wing to
bear them, no light to cheer them, no
welcome to greet them? I hear today
surging up from the lower depths a
groan that comes through our Christian
assemblages and through our beautiful
churches, and it blots out all this scene
from my eyes today, as by the mists of
q 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.
L sometimes think that just as God blot
ted out the churches of Thyatira and
Corinth and Laodicea, because OF their
cloth and stolidity, he will blot out