The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1896-01-31

Israelitish heroes told Abimelech:
You are only going up there to be
cut to pieces" Yet you are willing
to testify to-day that by no other
mode-certainly not by ordinary modes
could that temple so easily, so thor
oughly, have been taken. Fathers
and mothers, brethren and sisters in
Jesus Christ, what the church most
wants to learn, this day, is that any
plan is right, is lawful, is best, which
helps to overthrow the temple of sin,
and capture this world for God. We
are very apt to stick to the old modes
Of attack. We put on the old style
coat of mail. We come up with the
sharp. keen, glittering steel spear OF
argument, expecting in that way to
take the castle; but they have thou
sand spears where we have ten. And
so the castle of sin stands. Oh, my
friends, we will never capture this
world for God by any keen saber of
sarcasm; by any glittering lances of
rhetoric; by any sapping and mining
of profound disquisition: by any gum
powdery explosions of indignation; by
mental strength made to sling she'll
five miles; by cavalry horses gorgeous
" caparisoned paving the air. In
vain all the attempts on the part of
these ecclesiastical foot soldiers, light
horsemen and grenadiers
My friends, l propose a different
style of tactics. Let each one go to
the forest of Gods promise and invita-
ton, and hew down a branch, and put
it on his shoulder and let us all come
around these obstinate iniquities and
then, with this pile, kindled by the
fires of holy zeal, and the flames of a
consecrated life, we will burn them
out. What steel cannot do, fire may.
And announce myself in favor of any
plan of religious attack that succeeds
any plan of religious attack, how
ever radical, however odd, however I'M
popular. however hostile to all the
conventionalities of church and state.
If one style of prayer does not do the
work, let us try another style. If the
church music of to-day does
not get the victory, then let us
make the assault with a back
woods chorous. If prayer meeting
at 7:3O in the evening does not succeed,
let us have one as early in the morn
| ing as when the angel found wrestling
Jacob too much for him. If sermon
with the three authorized heads does
not do the work, then let us have a
sermon with 20 heads, or no heads at
all. We want more heart in our song,
more heart in our almsgiving, more
heart in our prayers, more heart in
our preaching. oh, for less of Abim-
elech's sword and more of Abimelech's
coDflagration! l had often heard
There is a fountain filled with blood
sung artistically by four birds perched
on their Sunday roost in the gallery
until ] thought of Jenny Lind, and
Nilsson, and Sontag, and all the other
warblers; but there came not one tear
to nv eve, nor one master emotion to
my heart.
But one night | went down to the
| African Methodist meeting house in
! Philadelphia. and at the close of the
service a black woman, in the middle
of the audience, began to sing that
/ II.
and we were f1oated some three or four
miles nearer Heaven than l have ever
been since. | saw with my own eye
that fountain filled with blood"
agonizing, sacrifcial, redemptive and
heard the crimson plash of the wave
as we all went down under it.
For sinners plunged beneath that food
| Lose all their guilty stain.
Oh, my friends, the gospel is not a
syllogism; it is not clsuistry: it is not
polemics. or the science of squabbles.
1t is blood-red fact; it is warm-hearted
invitations; it is lceping. bounding, fly
| ing good news; it is efflOrescent with
| all light; it is rubescent with all sum-
merry glow; it is arborescent with all
sweet shade. / have seen the sun rise
on Mount Washington, and from the
| Tip-top house; but there was no beauty
| in that compared with the day-spring
from on high when Christ gives light
to soul l have heard Parepa sing;
but there was no music in that COM
pared with the voice of Christ when He
said: 'Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in
peace" Good newsI Let everyone cut
| down a branch of this tree of life and
wave it. Let him throw it down and
kindle it. Let all the way from Mount
Zalmon to Shechem be filed with the
tossing Joy. Good news! This bonfire
of the gospel shall consume the last
temple of sin, and will illumine the
sky with apocalyptic joy, that Jesus
Christ came into the world to save sim
ners. ANY new plan that makes a
man quit his sin, and that prostrates a
wrong, / am as much in favor of as
though all the doctors, and the bishops,
and the arch bishops. and the synods,
and the academical gownsmen of
Christianity sanctioned it The tenn
pie of Berth must come down, and l
do not care how it comes
Still further, 1 learn from this sub
ject the power of example. If Abime-
| lech had sat down on the grass, and
told his men to go and get the boughs.
and go out to the battle, they would
never have gone at all. or if they had.
it would have been without any spirit
or effective result; but when Anime
lech goes with his own ak and news
down branch, and with Abimelech's
arm puts it on Abimelech's shoulder,