The Monitor-register., 1897-11-26
THE COMING SERMON.

troprletorS, Lowell, Mass. q
The only pills to take with Hoods Sarsaparilla
THE COMING SERMON.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE TELLS WHAT 1T
OUGHT TO BE.
He Says the Sermon of Today Has Too
Much Dead Wood The Sermon of the
Future Will Be Short, Spirited, and 1t
VIII BE Reported In the Press.
copyright, 1897. by American Press Assoc
ciation.1
WASHINGTON, Nov. 21.-Most appro-
PIRATE to the times we live in IA Dr..
Talmage's discourse of today. AllChris-
tian workers will read it with interest.
His text is Luke *, 60, $50, thou, and
preach the kingdom of God"
The gospel is to be regnant over all
hearts, all circles, all governments and
all lands. The kingdom Of God spoken
of In the text is to be a universal king
dom, and just as wide as that will be
the realm sermonio. go. thou, and
preach the kingdom Of God" We hear
q great deal in these days about the
coming man and the coming woman
and the coming time. Some n ought
to tell us of the coming sermon. 1t is a
simple fact that everybody knows that
most Of the sermons of today do not
reach the world. The vast majority of
the people of our great cities never en-
ter church.
The sermon of today carries along
with it the dead wood of all ages. Hun
dreds Of years ago it was decided what
a sermon ought to be, and it is the at
tempt Of many theological seminaries
and doctors Of divinity to hew the mod
ern pulpit u~tterances into the same old
style proportions. Booksellers will tell
You they dispose of a hundred histories,
a hundred novels, a hundred poems, to
one book of sermons.
What is the matter? Some say the age
is the worst Of all ages. It is better.
Some say religion is wearing out, when
it is wearing in. Some say there are SO
many who despise the Christian reli-
gion. l answer, there never was an age
when there were SO many Christians or
SO many friends of Christianity as this
age has-our age; as to others a hundred
to me-. What is the matter then? 1t is
simply because our sermon of today is not
suited to the age. 1t is the o~analboat in an
age of locomotive and electric telegraph.
The sermon will have to be shaken out
of the old grooves or it will not be heard
and it will not be read.
Before the world is converted the SER
mon will have to be converted. You
might as we'll go into a modern Sedan
or Gettysburg with bows and arrows in
stead of rifles and bombshells and parks
Of artillery as to expect to conquer this
world for God by the old styles Of SER
monology. Jonathan Edwards preached
the sermons best adapted to the age in
which he lived, but if those sermons
were preached now they would divide
an audience into two classes those
sound asleep and those wanting to go
home.
The Sermon of the Future.
But there is a coming sermon. Who
will preach it l have no idea; in what
part Of the earth it will be born I have
no idea; in which denomination of
Christians it will be delivered I cannot
guess. That coming sermon may be
born in the country meeting house on
the banks of the ST. Lawrence, or the
Oregon, or the Ohio, or the Fombigbee,
OF the Alabama. The person who shall
deliver it may this moment lie in a
cradle under the shadow of the Sierra
Nevadas OF in a New England farm
house or amid the ricefields of southern
savannas, or this moment there may be
some young man in some of our theo-
logical seminaries, in the junior or mid
die or senior class, shaping that weapon
Of power. or there may be coming some
new baptism of the Holy Ghost on the
churches, so that some of us who now
stand In the watchtowers of Zion, wax
ing to the realization of our present in
efficiency, may preach it ourselves.
That coming sermon may not be 20
years off. And let us pray God that its
arrival may be FASTENED, while I an
nounce to you what I think will be the
chief characteristics Of that sermon
when it does arrive, and I want to make
the remarks appropriate and suggestive
to all classes Of Christian workers.
First Of all, I remark that that COM
ing sermon will be full of a living
Christ in contradistinction to didactic
technicalities. A sermon may be full of
Christ, though hardly mentioning his
name, and a sermon may be empty Of
Christ while every sentence is repeti-
tious Of his titles. The world wants a
living Christ, not a Christ standing at
the head Of a formal system of theology,
but a Christ who means pardon and
sympathy and coincidence and brother
hood and life and heaven, a poor mans
Christ, an overworked mans Christ, an
tnvalid's Christ, a farmers Christ, a
merchants Christ, an artisans Christ,
an every mans Christ.
A symmetrical and finely worded sys-
tenn Of theology is we'll enough for the
illogical classes, but it has no more bust
ness in a pulpit than have the technical
phrases Of an anatomist or a physician
in the siokroom Of a patient. The world
wants help, immediate and world up
lifting, and 1t will come through a SER
mon In which Christ shall walk right
down into the immortal soul and take
everlasting possession of it, filling it as
full of light as is the monday firma-
ment. That sermon of the future will
not deal with men in the threadbare IL
Illustrations of Jesus Christ. In that COM
ing sermon there will be instances of
vioarious sacrifice taken right out of ev-
eryday life, for there is not a day some
body is not dying for others. AS the
physician, saving his diphtheric patient
by sacrificing his own life; as the ship
captain, going down with his vessel,
while he is getting his passengers into
the ~lifeboat, as the fireman, consuming
IN the burning building, while he is
taking a child out of a fourth story
window; as last summer the strong
swimmer ct Long Branch or Cape May
Or Lake George himself persisted trying
to rescue the drowning; as the newspa-
per boy not long ago. supporting his
mother for some years, his invalid
mother, when offered by a gentleman 90
cents to get some especial paper, and he
got it and rushed up In his anxiety to
deliver it and was crushed under the
wheels Of the train and lay on the grass
with only strength enough to say, "Oh,
what will become Of my poor, sick
mother now?"
A Hopeful Outlook.
Vicarioas suffering? The world is full