The Yale expositor., 1896-11-13

III they walked into home every mem
ber of it felt a holy thrill, and II they
walked into prayer meeting the dull
ness and stolldity instantly vanished.
One of them would wake up a whole
church. One of them would sometimes
electrify whole city.
But the most wonderful one of that
characterization the world ever saw or
heard or felt was peasant in the far
east, wearing plain blouse like an In
verted wheat sack, with three open
ings, one for the neck, and the other
two for the arms. His father 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 a 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 madman. HIS
path strewn with slain dropsies and
catalepsies and ophthalmias, transfg-
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-sacriicing, most beautiful being
whose feet ever touched the earth. Tell
us, ye deserts who heard our Saviors
| prayer; tell us, ye seas that drenched
him with your surf; tell us, ye 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
farm, but the owner would not sell it
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 a practical deception, but
deceive you not when l tell you that the
crop of the soul takes hold of unend-
ing ages.
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 its value and the awful risk
some of his kindred were running con-
cerning it, and he writes this letter
containing the text, which Chryso-
stom admired so much he had ii read
to him twice a 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,
a passion for souls. To prove that II
is possible to have much of that spir-
1t, bring the conservation of 1890 for
eign missionaries. 1t is usually esti-
mated that there are at least 1900 mis-
sionaries. | make a 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 130 and
l4O degrees of oppressiveness, twelve
thousand miles from home, because OF
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 a 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 tc
many of the merchants-not all oi
them, but many of them-who, absent
from all home restraint, are so i'm
moral that We can make only faint al
lusion to the monstrosity of theil
denominations. Oh, would like to be al
the gate of heaven when those mission.
aries go in, to see how they will have
the pick of coronets, and thrones, anC
mansions on the best streets of heaven
We who have had easy pulpits an6
loving congregations, entering heaven
will, In my opinion. have to take oul
turn and wait for the Christian work
ers who amid physical sufferings ant
mental privation and environment o.
squalor, have done their work; and OF
the principle that in proportion as on'
has been self-sacrifcing and suffering
for Christ's sake on earth will be theil
! celestial preferment.
: Who is that young women on tn,