The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1896-02-14

pendous questions of the supreme
| judicatory? Ask the sieepers in the
congressional cemetery. Ask the maui
soleums all over the land. Their
tongues are speechless, their eyes
closed. their arms folded, their oppor'
tunities gone. their destinv fixed. How
soon time prorogues parliaments, and
adjourns senates. and disbands csbi-
| nets, and empties pulpits, and dis.
misses generationsi What we would
do, we must do quickly or not at all
l call upon the people who cannot
come forth from their sick beds to inn
plore the heavens in our behalf from
their midnight pillows, and call upon
the aged who cannot, even by the helL
of their staff, enter the churches, to
spend their last days on earth in sup
plicating the salvation of this nation,
and call upon all men and women who
have been in furnaces of trouble, ss
was Shadrach, and among lions,
as was Daniel, and in dungeons
of trouble, as was jeremiah, to
join in the prayer, and let the
church of God everywhere lay hold OF
the Almighty Arm that moves nations
We want in this country, only on g
larger scale, that which other centuries
have seen OF Gods workings, as in the
reformation of the sixteenth century,
which Martin Luther and Philip
Melancthon led on; as in the awaken
ing of the seventeenth century, when
Bunyan and Flavel, and Baxter led on;
as in the awakening of the eighteenth
century, when Tenant, and Edwards
and the Wesleys led on; as ia the
awakening of 1857, led on by Mathew
Simpson, the seraphic Methodist, and
Bishop MacIlvane, the Apostolic Epis-
copalian, and Albert Barnes, the con-
secrated Presbyterian, and others, just
as good, in all denominations. Oh,
will not some of those glorious souls OF
the past come down and help us? Come
down off your thrones, Nettleton, and
Finney, and Daniel Baker, and Edward
Payson, and Truman Osborne, and
Earle. and Knapp, and Inskip and
Archibald Alexander - that Alexan-
der the Great, of the Christian
churches Come down. How can
you rest up there when the world
is dying'for lack of the gospel?
Il
the beach by the stormy Atlantic, 70
the sands laved by the quiet Pacific this
country will be EmanuePs land, the
work beginning at Washington, if we
have the faith and holy push and the
conservation requisite. First of all, we
ministers must get right. That was
startling utterance of Mr.. Swinnock,
when he said: at is a doleful thing
to fall into hell from under the pulpit,
but, OH how dreadful a thing to drop
thither out of the pulpit" That was
an all-suggestive thing that Paul wrote
to the Corinthians: Lest that by
any means, when l preach to others,
l myself should be a castaway."
That was an inspiring motto
with which Whitefield sealed his
letters: 1--WE seek the stars" Lord
God! Wake up all pulpits and then it
will be as when Venn preached and it
was said that men fell before the Word
| like slaked lime. Let us all, laymen
and clergymeu, to the work What
| Washington wants most of all is an
| old-fashioned revival of religion. but
on a vaster scale, so that the world will
be compelled to say, as of old, 1--WE
never saw it on this fashion, But re.
member there is human side as well
| as Divine side to a revival. Those of
us brought up in the country know
what is called "a raising" the neigh
bors gathered together to lift the
| heavy frame for a new house, after the
timbers are ready to be put into their
! places. 1t is dangerous work, and there
are many accidents. The neighbors
| had gathered for such a raising and
the beams had all been fitted to their
places except one, and that very heavy.
| That one, on the long pixies of the
men, had almost reached it's place,
| when something went wrong, and the
| men could hoist it no higher. But il
it did not go in its place it would fall
| back upon the men who were lifting
| it. 1t had already begun to settle
| back. The boss carpenter shouted:
Lift men or die! All together. Yo-
heaver' With mightier push they
| tried to send the beam to its place, but
| failed.
Still they held on, all the time their
strength lessening. The wives and
mothers and daughters stood in horror
| looking on. Then the boss carpenter
shouted to the women: "Come and
helpr They came, and womanly arms
became the arms of giants, for they
were lifting to save the lives of hus-
| bands and fathers and sons, as well as
their own. Then the boss carpenter
mounted one of the beams and shout
ed: "NowI All together! Lift, or
die! Yo-heaver' And with united
effort that almost burst the blood
vessels, the great beam went to
its place and a wild huzza was
heard That is the way it sometimes
seems in the churches. Temples of right.
eousness are to be reared, but there
is halt, a stop, catch, somewhere. A
| few are lifting all they can, but we
want more hands at this raising, and
more hearts. More Christian men to
| help aye, more Christian women to
reinforce If the work fail, it means
the death of many souls All together!
/ Men and women of God! Lift or die!