Connecticut western news., 1897-11-25

Christ, and he asked his little child, 3 years old, who it was, and she said, That must be some very great man. The sculptor was displeaSed with the criticism, so he got another block of marble and chiseled away on it two or three years, and then he brought in his little child, or years of age, and he said to her. Who do you think that is?'' She said, That must be the One who took little children in his arms and blessed them. Then rhe sculptor was satisfied. Oh my friends, what the world wants is not cold Christ, not m intellectual Christ not severely mag isterial Christ, but q loving Christ, spreading out his arms of sympathy to press the whole world to his loving heart
 But I remark again that the coming sermon of the Christian church will be short sermon. Condensation ls de- manded by the age ill which we live. No more need of long introductions and long applications and so many divisions to discourse that 1t may be said to be hydra headed. In other days men got all their information from the pulpit There were few books and there were no news papers, and there was little travel from place to place. and people would sit and listen two and a half hours to reli- gious discourse, and "seventeenthly would find them fresh and chipper. In those times there was enough room for man to take an hour to warm himself eH f0 off But what was necessity then is superfiuity now. Congregations are full of knowledge from books, from newspa- pers, from rapid and continuous inter- communication, and long disquisitions of what they know already will not be abided If religious teacher canno. l compress what he wishes to say to the people in the space of 40 minutes, bet ter adjourn it to some other day.
 The Time to Stop. The trouble is we preach audiences into Christian frame and then we preach them out of it. We forget that every auditor has so much capacity of attention, and when that is exhausted he is restless. That accident on the Long Island railroad came from the fact that the brakes were out of order, and when they wanted to stop the train they could not stop, hence the casualty was terri ] fic In all religious discourse we want | locomotive power and propulsion; we want at the same time stout brakes to let down at the right instant It is a l dismal thing, after nearer has compre- hended the whole subject, to hear man say, Now to recapitulate. and "a few words by way of application, |" and "once more" and finally, land "now ! to conclude. " .... Paul preached until midnight, and Eutychus got sound asleep and fell out of window and broke his neck. Some would say. Good for him. " l would rather be sympathetic. like Paul, and resuscitate him. That accident Is often | quoted now in religious circles as a warning against somnolence in church l It is just as much warning to minis l ters against prolixity. Eutychus was l wrong in his somnolence, but Paul made mistake when he kept on until midnight He ought to have stopped at | II o'clock, and there would have been no accident. If Paul might have gone | on to too great length, let all those of us who are now preaching the gospel remember that there is limit to re- igious discourse, or ought to be, and that in our time we have no apostolic l power or miracles Napoleon, in an ad- dress of seven minutes, thrilled his army and thrilled Europe. Christ's sermon on | the mount-the model sermon-was less than IS minutes long at ordinary mode l of delivery. It is not electricity scatter ed all over the sky that strikes. but electricity gathered into thunderbolt and hurled, and it is not religious truth scattered over, spread out over vast reach of time, but religious truth pro | jected in compact form that flashes light upon the soul and rives it's indifference l When the coming sermon arrives in
 this land and in the Christian church. the sermon which is to arouse the world and startle the nations and usher ill the
 kingdom-it will be Q brief sermon
 Hear it, all theological students. all ye | just entering upon religious work, all ] ye men and women who in Sabbath
 schools and other departments are toll l ing for Christ and the salvation of i'm
 mortals Brevity, brevityl
 I But remark also that the coming ser
 mon of which speak will be popular
 sermon There are those in these times l who speak of popular sermon as
 though there must be something wrong about it. As these critics are dull them
 selves, tho world gets the impression
 that sermon is good in proportion as it is stupid Christ was the most popu-
 lar preacher the world ever saw and,
 considering the small number of the 1 worlds population, had the largest au-
 diences ever gathered. He never preached
 anywhere without making great sen-
 sation. People rushed out in the wilder
 ness to hear him, reckless of their phys
 ical necessities. So great was their anxi-
 ety to hear Christ that, taking no food
 with them, they would have fainted
 and starved hSsd not Christ performed &
 miracle and fed them Why did so
 many people take the truth at Christ s
 hands? Because they all understood it.
 He illustrated his subject by hen and
 her chickens, by bushel measure, by a
 handful of salt, by birds flight and
 by lily's aroma All the people knew
 what he meant, and they focked to him.
 And when the coming sermon of the
 Christian church appears it will not be
 Princetonian, not Rochesterian, not
 Andoverian. not Middletonian, but Oli-
 vetic-plain, practical, unique, earnest,
 comprehensive of all the woes wants,
 sins, sorrows and necessities of an au-
 ditory
 Churches Will Re Thronsed.
 |
 But when that sermon does come
 there will be thousand gleaming scim-
 itars to charge on it. There are in so
 many theological seminaries professors
 telling young men how to preach, them
 selves not knowing how, and am told
 if young man in some of our theologic-
 al seminaries says anything quaint or
 thrilling or unique faculty and students
 fly at him and set him right, and