Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-12-29

any provocation and falls off. Plumb
ing that needs to be plumbed. Imper-
feet car wheel that halts the whole
train with q hot box. So little prac-
teal religion in the mechanism of the
world. | tell you, my friends, the law
of man will never rectify these things.
1t will be the all-pervading influence OF
the practical religion of Jesus Christ
that will make the change for the bet
ter
Yea, this practical religion will have
to come in and fix up the marriage re-
lation in America. There are members
OF churches who have too many wives
and too many husbands. Society needs
to be expurgated, and washed, and
fumigated, and Christianized. We want
this practical religion not only to take
hold of what are called the lower
classes, but to take hold of what are
called the higher classes. The trou-
BILE is that people have an idea they
can do all their religion on Sunday
with hymn-book, and prayer-book, and
liturgy, and some of them sit in church
rolling up their eyes as though they
were ready for translation, when their
Sabbath is bounded on all sides by an
inconsistent life. and while you are ex-
pecting to come out from under their
arms the wings of an angel, there come
out from their forehead the horns of a
beast.
There has got to be new departure
in religion. l do not say new re-
ligion. Oh, no; but the old religion
brought to new appliances. In our time
we have had the daguerreotype, anc.
the amb-otype, and the photograph; but
it is the same old sun, and these arts
are only new appliances of the old sun
light. So this glorious Gospel is just
what We want to photograph the image
of God on one soul, and daguerreotype
it on another soul. Not new Gospel
but the old Gospel put to new work
In our time we have had the telegraphia
invention and the telephone invention.
and the electric light invention; but
they are all children of old electricity,
an element that the philosophers have
a long while known much about. So
this electric Gospel needs to flash its
light on the eyes and ears, and souls
of men. and to become telephone
medium to make the deaf hear; tele-
graphic medium to dart invitation and
warning to all nations; an electric light
to illumine the eastern and western
hemispheres. Not new Gospel, but
the old Gospel doing a new work.
Farmers who take their religion into
their occupations: Why, this minute
their horses and wagons stand around
all the meeting houses in America.
They began this day by a prayer to
God and when they get home at noon.
after they have put their horses up,
will offer prayer to God at the table.
seeking blessing, and next summer
there viii be in their fields not one
dishonest head of rye, not one dishon-
est ear of corn. not one dishonest ap-
pie. Worshiping God to-day away up
among the Berkshire Hills, or away
down amid the lagoons of Florida, or
away out amid the mines of Colorado.
or along the banks of the Potomac.
and the Raritan, where l knew them
better because I went to school with
them.
Mechanics who took their religion In
to their occupations: James Brindley.
the famous millwright, Nathaniel Bow
ditch the famous ship-chandler, Elihu
Burritt, the famous blacksmith, and
hundreds and thousands of strong
arms which have made the hammer and
the saw and the adze and the drill and
the axe sound in the grand march Of
our national industries.
Give your heart to God and then fill
your life with good works. Consecrate
to him your store, your shop, your
banking house, your factory, and your
home. They say no one will hear it.
God will hear 1t. That Is enough. You
hardly know Of anyone else than Well
ington as connected with the victory at
Waterloo; but he did not do the hard
fighting. The hard fighting was done
by the Somerset cavalry and the Ry-
land regiments, and Kemp's infantry.
and the Scotch Grays. and the Life
Guards. Who cares. II only the day
was won?