Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-04-05

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SO much that there is no spot on earth
so sacred unless it be your own Preside
The church has been to you so much
comfort and illumination that there is
nothing that makes you SO irate as to
have it talked against.
If there have been times when you
have been carried into captivity by sick
ness, you longed for the church, our
holy Jerusalem, just as much as Neke-
miah longed for his Jerusalem, and the
first day you came out 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 scott at the church as an
obsolete affair, as a 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 il
it were needful you would die in its de-
fense You can take the words of the
kingly poet as he said, eff I forget
thee, o Jerusalem, let my right hand
forget her cunning" You understand
in your own experience the pathos, the
inconsistencies, the courage, the holy en-
thusiasm of Nehemiah in his midnight
moonlight ride around the ruins of his
beloved Jerusalem.
Exploration.
Again, my text impresses 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
stabbed in the midnight? 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
denominations and go to the penlten-
tiary is because they first do not learn
the ruin of their own heart. They have
not found out that "the heart is deceit
full above all things and desperately
wicked They had an idea that they
were almost right, and they built reli
gion as a sort of extension, as an orna-
mental cupola. There was superstruc-
ture of religion built on substratum of
unrepented sins. The trouble with
good deal Of modern theology is that
instead of building on the right founda-
ton 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-
illness of the ruin. They have such a
poor foundation for their religion that
the first northeast storm of temptation
blows them down. I have no faith in a
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, Paul's way, Christ's way,
Gods way. A dentist said to me, Does
that hurt?'' Said I: ''Of course it hurts.
It is in your business as in my profess
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. 1t makes no impress
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 l ask him is,
"Do you feel yourself to be a sinner?'
If he says, well, Yes, . the hesitancy
makes me feel that that man wants
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
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 GCd, according to thy loving
kindness, according unto the multitude
of thy tender mercies! Blot out my
for I acknowledge my
and my sins are ever be-
fore thee. All. my friends, you see
this is not mplimentary gospel.
That is what makes some people SO
mad 1t comes to a man Of 81, 900, 900
and impenitent in his sins and says,
ssYou,re a nauner.'' 1t comes to WOm-