Kansas City daily journal., 1896-11-22
Raising the Dead.

From the New York Advertiser
There IS work enough for every consist
ent Christian almost at his own door. The
field is white for the harvest. and Il lies
all around him. day and night
II does not seem that any human being
should be able 10 raise the dead to life
again and yet you can do II II you only
work in the night way. Sometimes the dead
spiritually outnumber the physically dead.
You can see them on every side, walking
and yet devoid OF all true life. You see
them eating. drinking and sleeping, and
rising up again. merely to repeat these
processes You can see them with souls
chained down in the trea3miu Of selfish
ness or Of vice or of crime, giving no heed
to the morrow, the dreadful morrow that
Is sure to come. They ara dead even
though they live; dead to God; dead 20
heaven; dead 10 righteousness; dead 20
their own heritage; dead to the divin-
ity that is in them, that was born with
them Yours be the task to arouse them
from this death in life; to unwrap the cere~
ments Of the grave from them and to show
them that trIer life which, il led here on
earth, will merge into the eternal life with
God and all His angls.
You, too, can preach the Gospel to the
poor as Christ did. and to the heather also.
You will not have to 90 10 foreign lands
to find them, TO waste your time and talent
and money thousands Of miles away,
among people who are called heather
chiefly because they do not wear clothes.
do not lie or steal or swear or lead lives Of
unchastity.
You will find plenty Of heather right here
at home; you will not have to cross great
oceans in search OF them. You will find
them here under the very shadow Of cost
ly churches where God Is worshiped with
strict regularity. You will find them ours
ing God in full view OF the magnificent
stained glass windows where He Is wor
SHIPPED in elegantly upholstered pews and
amid splendOr sometimes almost barbaric
in its decorations; and you will hear the
wild laughter OF the heather far above the
stately roll OF the organ pouring forth It's
alteration of a Christ who had not where
to lay His head.
Preach the Gospel to the poor. and you
will find them right at your own doors
perhaps by your own freside. Preach the
Gospel to the poor-those whose lives are
one long labor for a mere existence; who,
like Christ, have no place that they can
call home. and who. like Him, bear a
crown OF sorrows from the cradle to the
grave Do the works of Christ among
Christs poor. and give freely to those
whose lives are SO full OF bitterness and
dlsmay.
Spend your spare time and money in pro-
viding food for your starving brothers and
sisters who perish because they cannot get
even the crumbs that fall from the rich
mans table. Spend them in restoring sight
to your own blind; in opening the eyes
OF your own households; in making your
own lame to walk; in cleansing the lepers
of your own home; In giving hearing to
the deaf OF your own family; IN raising
up the dead that lie about your own street.
and in preaching the Gospel TO your own
poor who wander through the ways. look
ing up TO the skies and wondering why
God is SO far off from them.
On every side lie the dead, and as Christ
restored you TO life. will you not. In His
name, try TO arouse those who still sleep
so soundly in the grave OF doubt or ig-
norance?
In His name preach the Gospel to the
poor. not the Gospel OF creed or prefer
ence, or arrogance or seifishness, or of
gold and glitter and acknowledgements, but
the Gospel of love, the Gospel Of Christ
the Gospel OF humanity as enunciated in
the Golden Rule; the Gospel OF renuncla-
ton as preached in the Garden OF Geth-
semane; the Gospel OF love and self-sasri-
flee as proclaimed from the Mount OF Cali
vary.