Connecticut western news., 1897-04-08

miah longed for his Jerusalem, and the first day you came cut you came to the
 house of the Lord. When the temple
 was in ruins, like Nehemiah, you walk ed around and looked at it, and in the
 moonlight you stood listening if you could not hear the voice of the dead or
 gan, the psalm of the expired Sabbaths. What Jerusalem was to Nehemiah the church of God is to you. Skeptics and infidels may scoff at the church as an obsolete affair, as relic of the dark ages, as a convention of goody goody people, but all the impression they have
 ever made on your mind against the church of God is absolutely nothing. You would make more sacrifices for it today than any other institution, and if it were needful you would die in it's de- fense. You can take the words of the kingly poet as he said, ''If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning" You understand in your own experience the pathos, the homesickness, the courage, the holy en- thusiasm of Nehemiah in his midnight moonlight ride around the ruins of his beloved Jerusalem.
 Exploration.
 Again, my text iInpresses me with the fact that, before reconstruction, there must be an exploration of ruins. Why was not Nehemiah asleep under the covers? Why was not his horse stabled in the midniCh ht2 Let the police of the city arrest this midnight rider, out on some mischief No. Nehemiah is going to rebuild the city, and he is making the preliminary exploration. In this gate, out that gate, east, west, north, south. All through the ruins. The ruins must be explored before the work of reconstruction can begin.
 The reason that so many people in this day apparently converted do not stay converted is because they did not first explore the ruins of their own heart. The reason that there are so many professed Christians who in this day lie and forge and steal and commit abominations and go to the peniten- tiary is because they first do not learn the ruin of their own heart. They have not found out that "the heart is deceit ful above all things and desperately wicked" They had an idea that they were almost right, and they built reli- zion as a sort of extension, as an orna- mental cupola. There was a superstruc- ture of religion built on substratum of unrepented sins. The trouble with a good deal of modern theology is that instead of building on the right founda- tion it builds on the debris of an unre- generated nature. They attempt to re- build Jerusalem before, in the midnight of conviction, they have seen the ghast- liness of the ruin. They have such a poor foundation for their religion that | the first northeast storm of temptation blows them down. have no faith in 6 mans conversion if he is not converted in the old fashioned way-John Bun yan's way, John Wesley's way, John Calvin's way. Paups way, Christ's way, Gods way. A dentist said to me, Docs that hurt?" Said I: 'Of course it hurts. It is in your business as in my profes- sion. We have to hurt before we can help" You will never understand re- demption until you understand ruin. A man tells me that some one is a mem Der of the church. It makes no impres- sion on my mind at all. I simply want to know whether he was converted in the old fashioned way or whether he was converted in the new fashioned way. If he was converted in the old fashioned way, he will stand. If he was converted in the new fashioned way, he will not stand. That is all there is about it.
 A man comes to me to talk about re- ligion. The first question ask him is,
 "Do you feel yourself to be sinner?" If he says, Well, Ives" the hesitancy makes me feel that that man wants a ride on Nehemiah's horse by midnight | through the ruins-in by the gate of his affections, out by the gate of his will and before he has got through with that midnight ride he will drop the reins on the horses neck and will take his right hand and smite on his heart and say, "God be merciful to me, sinner" and before he has stabbed his horse he will take his feet out of the stirrups, and he will slide down on the ground, and he will kneel, crying: Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy loving | kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender merciesl Blot out my | transgressions, for I acknowledge my transgressions. and my sins are ever be- | fore thee." An, my friends, you sea | this is not a complimentary gospel. That is what makes some people so mad. It comes to a man of $1, GOO, 900 and impenitent in his sins and says,
 You're pauper. It comes to wom- of fa.r oba ho hoe l pented and says, You re a sinner. !" It comes to man birding himself on his independence and says, "You re
 bound hand and foot by the devil" It comes to our entire race and says.
 You're a ruin, ghastly ruin, an it. | limitable ruin." Satan sometimes says l to me: "Why do you preach that truth ? Why don t you preach gospel with no repentance in it? Why don't you fatter mems hearts so that you make them feel all right2 Why don't you preach a humanitarian gospel, with no repent
 ance in it, saying nothing about the
 ruin, talking all the time about the re- demption?" I say, "Get thee behind me, satan" would rather lead five souls into safety than 90, 900 into perdi- tion. The redemption of the gospel is 8 perfect farce if there is no ruin. ''The
 whole need not physician, but they that are sick" If any one, though he
 be an angel from heaven, preach any | other gospel than this" says the apos- | tie, 'let him be accursed There must
 be the midnight ride over the ruins be-
 fore Jerusalem can be built. There must
 be the clicking of the hoofs before there
 can be the ring of the trowels.
 Triumphant Sadness,
 Again, my subject gives me speci-
 men of busy and triumphant sadness.
 If there was any man in the world who
 had right to nope and give up every