The Progress., 1897-11-27
SERMON OF THE FUTURE.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Describes Its
Probable Characteristics.
1t VIII be Full OF Living Christ, and
VIII Contain No Didactic Techni-
calieies-It Will bo Short, Pop
ular and Powerful.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, in the fol-
lowing sermon, presents theme that
will be found full of interest to Chris
tian workers. The text is.
Go thou and preach the kingdom OF Cod
Luke tx. 60
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 univer-
sal Kingdom, and just as wide as that
will be the realm sernonic. "Go
thou and preach the kingdom of God"
We hear great deal in these days
about the coming man, and the coming
woman, and the coming time. Some
one ought to tell us of the coming SER
mon. It is a simple fact that every
body Knows that most of the sermons
of to-day do not reach the world. The
vast majority of the people OF our
great cities never enter church.
The sermon OF to-day carries along
with it the deadwood of all ages. Hun
dreds of years ago it was decided what
q sermon ought to be, and it is the at
tempt of many theological seminaries
and doctors of divinity to hew the
modern pulpit utterances into the same
old-style proportions. Booksellers will
tell you they dispose OF a hundred his
tories, q hundred novels, a hundred
poems, to one book of sermons. What
is the matter? Some say the age is the
worst of all ages. 1t is better. Some
say religion is wearing out, when 1t is
wearing in. Some say there are so
many despise the Christian religion.
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 hun
dred to one. What is the matter, then?
It is simply because our sermon of to-
day is not suited to the age. It is the
canal boat 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
sermon will have to be converted.
You might as we'll go into a modern
Sedan or Gettysburg with bows and
! arrows instead of rifles and bomb
shells and parks of artillery as to ex-
| pect to conquer tho world for God by
the old styles of sermonology. Jona-
than 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.
But there is coming sermon-who
will preach it have no idea; in what
what part of the earth it will be born
l have no idea; in which denomination
of Christians it will be delivered, can
not guess That coming sermon may
be born in the country meeting house
on the banks of the st. Lawrence, OF
the Oregon, or the Ohio, or the Tom
, bigbee, or the Alabama. The person
who shall deliver it may this moment
lie in a cradle under the shadow of the
Sierra Nevadas, Or in a New England
farm house, or amid the rice fields o.
southern savannas. Or this momen
, there may be some young man
in some of our theological
seminaries in the junior, or middle, OF
aenior class, shaping that weapon O