Connecticut western news., 1896-12-03

|
 lent. France republic, Switzerland
 republic, and about 50 free constitutions,
 am told, in Europe. Twenty million
 serfs of Russia manumitted. On this
 western continent I can call the roll of
 many epublics-Mexico, Guatemala,
 San Salvador, Costa Rica, Paraguay,
 Uruguay, Honduras, New Granada,
 Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia,
 Chile. Argentine Republic, Brazil. The
 once struggling village of Washington
 to which the United States government
 moved, its entire baggage and equip
 ment packed up in seven boxes which
 got lost in the woods near this place,
 now the architectural glory of the con tinent and admiration of the world. Good Word For Newspapers.
 The money power, so much denounced and often justly criticised, has covered
 this continent with universities and free libraries and asylums of mercy. The newspaper press, which at the be- ginning of the century was an ink roller, by hand moved over one sheet of paper
 at time, has become the miraculous
 manufacturer of four or five or six hun dred thousand sheets for one daily news papers issue. Within your memory, O dying century, has been the genesis of nearly all the great institutions evangel- istic! At London tavern, March 2, 1902,
 British and Foreign Bible society was born. In 1916 American Bible society was born. In 1924 American Sunday School union was born. In 1910 Ameri- can board of commissioners for foreign missions, which has put its saving hand on every nation of the round earth, was born at haystack in Massachusetts.
 The National Temperance society, the Woman's Temperance society and all the other temperance movements born in this century. Africa, hidden to other centuries, by exploration in this century has been put at the feet of civilization,
 to be occupied by commerce and Chris tianity.
 The Chinese wall, once an impossible
 barrier, now is useless pile of stone
 and brick Our American nation at the opening of this century only slice of
 land along the Atlantic coast, now the whole continent in possession of our schools and churches and missionary stations. Sermons and religious intelli- gence which in other times, if noticed at all by the newspaper press, were al- lowed only paragraph of three or four lines, now find the columns of the secu- lar press in all the cities thrown wide open, and every week for 26 years, with out the omission of single week. I have been permitted to preach one entire gospel sermon through the newspaper press. thank God for this great oppor- tunityl Glorious old century, You shall not be entombed until we have, face to face, extolled you. You were rocked in rough cradle, and the inheritance you received was for the most part poverty and struggle and hardship and poorly covered graves of heroes and heroines, of whom the world had not been worthy,
 and atheism and military despotism and the wreck of the French revolution. You inherited the influences that result ed in Aaron Burr's treason, and another
 war with England, and battle of Lake Erie, and Indian savagery, and Lundy's
 Lane, and Dartmoor massacre, and dis sension bitter and wild beyond meas
 urement, and African slavery, which
 was yet to cost national hemorrhage
 of four awful years and million pre-
 cious lives. Yes, dear old century, you
 had an awful start. and you have done
 more than we'll, considering your paren
 tage and your early environment. It is
 a wonder you did not turn out to be the
 vagabond century of all time. You had bad mother and bad grandmother. Some of the preceding centuries were
 not fit to live in-their morals were so bad, their fashions were so outrageous, their ignorance was so dense, their in- humanity so terrific.
 Years of Progress.
 O dying nineteenth century, before you go we take this opportunity of tell ing you that you are the best and the mightiest of all the centuries of the Christian era except the first, which gave us the Christ, and you rival that century in the fact that you, more than
 all the other centuries put together, are giving the Christ to all the world. One hundred and twelve thousand dollars at one meeting few days ago contributed
 for the worlds evangelization. Look at what you have done, O thou abused and depreciated century. All the Pacific isles, barred and bolted against the gos-
 pei when you began to reign, now all open, and some of them more Christian ized than America. No more, as once written over the church doors in Cape | Colony, "Dogs and Hottentots not ad- mitted." The late MT. Darwin con- l tributing $25 to the Southern Mis- | slonary society. Cannibalism driven off l the face of the earth. The gates of all | nations wide open for the gospel entrance when the church shall give up it's intel | lectual dandyism and quit fooling with | higher criticism and plunge into the work as at a life saving station the crew | pull out with the lifeboat to take the sailors off ship going to pieces in the | skerries. l thank you, old and dying
 century; all heaven thanks you, and
 surely all the nations of the earth ought
 to thank you. put before your eyes,
 soon to be dim for the last sleep the
 facts tremendous. take your wrinkled
 old hand and shake it in congratula-
 tion. I bathe your fevered brow and
 freshen your parohed lips from the foun- | tains of eternal victory.
 Things to Be Done.
 | But my text suggests that there are
 some things that this century ought to
 do before be leaves us. Thus saith the Lord, set thine house in order, for thou
 shalt die and not live. " We ought not
 to let this century go before two or three
 things are set in order. For one thing,
 this quarrel between labor and capital.
 The nineteenth century inherited it from
 the eighteenth century, but do not let
 this nineteenth century bequeath it to
 the twentieth. What we want" says
 labor, ito set us right is more strikes
 and more vigorous work with torch and ! dynamite. '' "What we want" says