Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-05-12

IL
2k1 right piece of wood
nailed to a trans
verse piece has become the symbol not
more of suffering than Of victory. 1t
is of Christ the conqueror, that my text
speaks AS kingly warrior, having
subdued an empire, might divide the
palaces and mansions and cities and
valleys and mountains among his Off
GERS, SO Christ is going to divide up
all the earth and all the heavens among
his people and you | will have to take
our share if we are strong in faith and
strong in our Christian loyalty, for my
text declares it: 'He shall divide the
spoil with the strong"
The capture of this round planet for
Christ is not so much of job as you
might imagine, when the Church takes
off its coat and rolls up it's sleeves for
the work, as it will There are six
teen hundred millions of people now in
the world, and four hundred and fifty
millions are Christians. Subtract four
hundred and fifty millions who are
Christions from the sixteen hundred
millions, and there are eleven hundred
and fifty millions left. Divide the
eleven hundred and fifty millions who
are not Christians by the four hundred
and fifty who are Christians, and you
will find that We shall have to average
less than three souls each. brought by
us into the kingdom Of God, to have
the whole world redeemed. Certainly,
with the church rising up to it's full
duty, no Christian will be willing to
bring less than three souls into the
kingdom of God. / hope, and pray
Almighty God that / may bring more
than three. l know evangelists who
have already brought fifty thousand
each for the kingdom of God. There
are two hundred thousand people whose
one and only and absorbing business
in the world is to save souls. When
you take these things into considera-
ton, and that the Christians will have
to average the bringing of only three
souls each into the kingdom of our
Lord, all impossibility vanishes from
this omnipotent crusade. Why, know
Sabbath School teacher who for many
years has been engaged in training the
young, and she has had five different
classes, and they averaged seven to a
burfS, and they were all converted, and
nv. lines seven are thirty-five, as near
as can calculate. So that she brought
her three into the kingdom of God and
had thirty-two to spare. My grand
mother prayed her children into the
"a. re Ioh
dren, and hope all her great-grand
children, for God remembers a prayer
seventy-f1ve years old, as though it
were only minute old; and so she
brought her three into the kingdom of
God, and had more than one hundred
to spare. Besides that, through the
telephone and the telegraph, this whole
world, within few years, will be
brought within compass of ten minutes.
Besides that, omnipotence, omnipres-
ence, and omniscience are presiding in
this matter of the worlds betterment,
and that takes the question of the
worlds salvation out of the impossible
ties into the possibilities, and then cut
of the possibilities into the probabili-
into the certainties The building of
the Union Pacific Railroad from ocean
to ocean was greater undertaking
than the girdling of the earth with the
Gospel; for one enterprise depended up
on the human arm, while the other de-
Ponds upon almightiness.
Do / really mean that all the earth
will surrender to Christ? Yes. How
about the uninviting portions? Will
Greenland be evangelical? The posi-
bility is that after few more hundred
brave lives are dashed out among the
icebergs, that great refrigerator, the
Polar region, will be given up to the
walrus and bear, and that the innabi-
tants will come down by invitation in
to tolerable climates or those climates
may soften; and, as it has been posi-
lively demonstrated that the Arctic re-
gion was once blooming garden and
a fruitful field, those regions may
,hange climate and again be bloom
ing garden and fruitful field. 1t is
proved beyond controversy, by German
and American scientists, that the Arc
tic regions were the first portions of
this world inhabitable; the world hot
beyond human endurance. those regions
were. of course, the first to be cool
enough for human foot and human
lung. 1t was positively proved that the
Arctic region was tropical climate.
Prof. Heer, of Zurich, says the remains
of flowers have been found in the Arc
tic region, showing it was like Mexico
for climate, and it Is found that the
Arctic was the mother region from
which all the flowers descended. Prof.
Wallace says the remains OF all styles
of animal life are found in the Arctic
regions, including those animals that
can live only in warm climates. Now
that Arctic region, which has been
demonstrated by flora and fauna and
geological argument to have been as
full of vegetation and life as our Flor
ida, may be turned back to its original
bloom and glory, or it will be shut up
as a museum OF crystals for curiosity
seekers once in awhile to visit. But
Arctic and Antarctic. in some shape, viii