Connecticut western news., 1896-11-12

tire-not the very best, for that has to be reserved for the levee-enter the church with stately step, bow his head or at any rate shut his eyes in prayer time or close them enough to look sleepy, turn toward the pulpit with holy dull ness while the preacher speaks, put 5 cent piece or if the times be hard 1 cent piece, on the collection platter, kind of showing it down under the other coin so that it might be, for all that the usher knows, a $5 goldpiece, and then, after the benediction, go quietly home to the biggest repast of all the week. That is all the majority of Christians are doing for the rectification of this planet, and they will do that until, at the close of life, the pastor opens a black book at the head of their casket and reads, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; they rest from their la- bors, and their works do follow them" The sense of the ludicrous is so thor oughly developed in me that when I hear these Scripture words read at the obsequies of one of the religious do nothings in the churches it is too much Cor my gravity. Their works do follow them" What works? And in what di- rection do they follow them-up or down? And do they follow on foot or on the wing? And how long will they follow before they catch up? More appropriate funeral text for all such religious dead beats would be the words in Matthew xxv. 8, ''Our lamps are gone out" One would think that such Christians would ,hn of xrb han Are enlisted. In one of the Napoleonic wars 8 woman, Jeannette by name, took per position with the troops and shoul- lered broomstick. The colonel said,
 'Jeannette, why do you take such aseless weapon into the ranksf" Well" she said, II can show at least which side am on.
 Now, the object of this sermon is to stir at least one-fourth of you to an am- pition for that which my text presents in blazing vocabulary-namely, a pas sion for souls. To prove that it is pos jible to have much of that spirit, bring sionaries. It is usually estimated that :here are at least 5000 missionaries. I make liberal allowance and admit there may be 10 bad missionaries out of the 5000, but l do not believe there is one. All English and American mer- chants leave Bombay, Calcutta, Annoy and Peking as soon as they make their fortunes Why? Because no European or American in his senses would stay in that climate after monetary induce ments have ceased. Now, the mission aries there are put down on the barest necessities, and most of them do not lay up q in 20 years. Why, then, do they stay in those lands of intolerable heat and cobras and raging fevers, the thermometer sometimes playing at 180 and 40 degrees of oppressiveness, 12.- 900 miles from home, because of the unhealthy climate and the prevailing immoralities of those regions compelled to send their children to England or Scotland or America, probably never to see them again? O blessed Christi Can it be anything but a passion for soulss It is easy to understand all this frequent depreciation of foreign missionaries when you know that they are all oppos- ed to the opium traffic, and that inter feres with commerce, and then the mis- sionaries are moral, and that is an of fense to many of the merchapts-nos all of them, but many of them-who, absent from all home restraint, are so immoral that we can make only faint allusion to the monstrosity of their abominations Oh, I 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 lov- ing congregations, entering heaven will, in my opinion, have to take our turn and wait for the Christian workers who, amid physical sufferings and men- tai privation and environment of squa- Tor, have done their work, and on the principle that in proportion as one has been self sacrificing and suffering for Christ's sake on earth will be their ce- lestial preferment
 Poor Anne Boleyn.
 Who is that young woman on the worst street in Washington, New York or London, Bible in hand and & little package in which are small vials of medicines, and another bundle in which are biscuits? How dare she risk herself among those "roughs, and where is she going? She is one of the queens of heaven. hunting up the sick and hun gry. and before night she will have read Christ's "Let not your heart be trou- bled" in eight or ten places and count ed out from those vials the right num- Der of drops to ease pain and given food to family that would otherwise have had nothing to eat today and taken the measure of dead child that she may prepare for it shroud, her every act of kindness for the body accompanied with benediction for the soul. You see nothing but the filthy street along which she walks and the rickety stairs up which she climbs, but she is accom- panied by an unseen cohort of angels with drawn swords to defend her, and with garlands twisted for her victories, all up and down the tenement house districts. l tell you there was not so much excitement when Anne Boleyn, on her way to her coronation, found the Thames stirred by 50 gilded barges. with brilliant flags, ill which hung small bells, rung by each motion of the wind, noblemen standing in scarlet, and wharf spread with cloth of gold, and all the gateways surmounted by huzzaing admirers, and the streets hung with crimson velvet, and trumpets and cannons sounding the jubilee, and Anne, dressed in surcoat of silver tis- sue, and brow gleamipg with circlet of rubies, and amid fountains that poured Rhenish wine, passed on to Westminster hall and rode in on a ca- parisoned palfrey, its hoofs clattering on the classic floor, and, dismounting, pass ed into Westminster abbey, and, be- tween the choir and high altar, was crowned queen amido rgans and choirs chanting the "Te Deum"-I say there was not much in all that glory which | dazzles fha ereS of histnr,- xx- hon if sa