Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1896-12-09

brick. Our American Nation at the opening
OF this century only slice of land along
the Atlantic coast, now the whole continent
In possession 81 our schools and churches
and missionary stationA Sermons and ~
ligious intelligence which In other times. II
allowed only paragraph Of three or four
lines, now and the columns OF the secular
press In all tho cities thrown wide
open. and every week for twenty-six
years, without the omission Of single
week, I have been permitted to preach
one entire gospel sermon through the news
paper press. I thank God for this great
opportunity. Glorious old century! You
shall not be entombed until We have, face to
face, extolled you. You were rocked In q
rough cradle. and the Inheritance you re-
ceived was. for the most part. poverty and
struggle and hardship, en- poorly covered
graves Of heroes and heroines of whom the
world had not been worthy, AMI atheism and
military despotism, and the wreck OF the
French revolution. You Inherited the fnfiu-
ences tnaf resulted In Aaron Burr's treason,
and another war with England. and battle
Of Lake Erie, and Indian savagery, and
Lundv's Lane. and Dartmoor massacre. and
dissention, bitter and wild beyond measure
menf, and African slavery. which was yet to
cost a National hemorrhage Of four awful
years and q million precio US lives.
Yes. dear old century, you had an awful
start, and you have done more than we'll,
considering your parentage and your early
environment. II Is Q wonder you did not
turn out TO be the vagabond century Of all
time. You haa q bad mother and bad
grandmother. Some Of the preceding CEN
turtles were not a: TO live in-their morals
were so bad, their fashions were so outrage
Gus. their ignorance was SO dense, their in
terrific. oh, dying nineteenth
century, before you go We take this oppor-
tunity Of telling you that you are the best
and the mightiest Of all the centuries OF tho
Christian era except the first, which gave us
the Christ, and you rival that century in the
les put together are giving the Christ to all
theworld. One hundred and twelve thousand
dollars, at one meeting q few days ago con-
tributed for the worlds evangelization.
Look at what you have done. o thou
iss sSa'sf P. sas s sslea 'sutSy aS bsd
against the gospel when you began
to reign, now all open, and some Of them
more Christianized than America. No more,
as once written over the church doors in
Cape Colony. "Dogs and Hottentots not ad-
mitted." The late Mr.. Darwin contributing
e25 to the Southern Missionary Society. Cam
nibalism driven OF the face of the earth. The
gates of all Nations wide open for the gospel
entrance when the church shall give up its
dandyism, and quit fooling with
higher criticism, and plunge into the work,
as at life saving station the crew pull out
with the lifeboat to take the sailors of a
ship going to pieces in the Skerries. thank
you, old and dying century. All heaven
thanks you, and surely all the Nations OF the
earth ought to thank you. Iput before your
eyes, soon to be dim for the last sleep, the
facts tremendous. take your wrinkled old
hand and shake it in congratulation. bathe
your fevered brow and freshen your parched
lips from the fountains of eternal victory.
But my text suggests that there are some
things that this century ought to do before
he leaves US. "Thus saith the Lord, ''Set
thine house in order, for thou shalt die and
not i've" We ought not to let this century
go before two or three things are set in order
For one thing this quarrel between labor anil
capital. The nineteenth century inherited
1t from the eighteenth century, but do not
let this nineteenth century beQueath it 10
the wentie;h. "What we want" says labor.
'.to set us right is more strikes and more Wig
orous work with torch and dynamite"
"What we want" says capital, sis tighter
grip on the working classes and compulsion
take Wha Ys tier
as sin. Both defiant. Until the day of judg-
ment no settlement of the qnarrelff you leave
1t to British, Russian or American politics.
The religion of Jesus Christ ought to come
in within the next four years and take the
have tried everything else and failed. Now
try the gospel of Kindness" No more op-
preston and no more strikes. The gospel Of
Jesus Christ will sweeten this acer-
bty, or 1t will go on to
the end of time. and the fires that
burn the world up will crackle in the ears of
wrathful prosperity and indignant toll while
their hands are still clutching at each others
throats, Before this century sighs its last
breath would that swarthy labor and easy
opulence would ceme up and let the Carpen-
ter of Nazareth join their hands in pledge Of
everlasting kindness and peace. When men
and women are dying they are apt to divide
given a watch, and another vase, and
another picture. and another a rope. Let
this veteran century before II dies hand over
to the human race, with an impressiveness
that shall last forever, that old family keep
sake, the golden keepsake which nearly 1900
years ago was handed down from the black
rock of the mount Of beatttudes, Therefore
all things whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you. do ye even so to them, for
Tor this is the law and the prophets"
Another thing that needs to be set in
order before the veteran century quits Us
Ii a more thorough and all embracing plan
for the worlds gardenization. We have
been trying to save the world from the
top, and 1t cannot be done that way. 1t
has got to be saved from the bottom. The
church ought to be only a West Point to
drill soldiers for outside battle. What il a
academy should keep its students
from age to age in the messroom and the
barracks2 No, no! They are wanted at
Montezuma and Chapuitepec and South
Mountain and Missionary Ridge, and the
church is no place for Christian to stay
very long. He is wanted at the front. He
is needed in the desperate charge Of taking
the parapets. The last great battle for
God is not to be fought on the campus Of
a college or the lawn Of a church. 1t is to
be fought at Missionary Ridge. Before
tnis century quits US let us establish the
bath to the churches and the afternoon AMI
the evening of the Sabbath to gospel work
In the halls and theaters and streets an
fields and slums, and wiidernesses OF sin
and sorrow. Why do Christians who have
stuffed themselves with "the strong meat OF
the word' and all gospel viands on Sabbath
forenoons want to come up to second ser
vice and stuff themselves again? These old
gormandizers at the gospel feast need to get
into outdoor work with the outdoor gospel
that was preached on the banks OF tho Jor-
dan, and on the fishing smacks OF Lake Cali
tains. I am told that throughout all OUT
Am ,rican cities the second Sabbath services
In the majority OF churches is sparsely, yea,
disgraceiuily attended, and Is the distress oi
the consecrated and eloquent pastors who
bring their learning and piety before pews
CHASTITY for their inoccupancy. What Is the
providential meaning? The greatest of all
evangelists since Bible times recently sug
gested that the evening services In all the
churches be turned into the most popular
style of evanyelistic meetings for outsiders.
Surely that is an experiment worth making
If that does not succeed, then 1t does seen
to me all the churches which cannot secure
sufficient evening audiences ought to shu
up their buildings at night and go whore thu
people are and invite them to come to th'
gospel banquet.
Let the Christian souls bountifully Eel 81
the morning, go forth In the afternoon an
evening to feed the multItudes OF outsider
starving for the bread of which il a man ca
he shall never again hunger. Among thos
clear down the gospel would make NOR
rapid conquest than among those who kno'
so much and have so much that God car
not teach or help them. In those lowe
depths are splendid fellows in the rougf
like the shoeblack reporter saw near Ne'
York City Hall. He asked boy to blac
his boots. The boy came up to his wor
I = L. .ak hnrrr n