The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-06-15

and let him down through the trestle
work as gently as she could towarS
the water, very carefully and lovingly
and cautiously, so that he might not
be hurt in the fall, and might be
picked up by those who were standing
near by. While doing that the train
struck her, and hardly enough of her
body was left to gather into funeral
casket. What was that? Vicarious
suffering. Like Christ. Pang for 9TH
ers. Woe for others. Suffering for
others. Death for others.
What is the use of our going away
off to find an Illustration in past age,
when during the great forest fires in
Michigan, mail carrier on horseback,
riding on, pursued by those flames
which had swept over a hundred
miles, saw an old man by the road
side, dismounted, helped the old man
on the horse, saying: "Now whip up
and get away" The old man got
away, but the mail carrier perished.
Just like Christ dismounting from the
glories of Heaven to put us on the way
of deliverance, then falling back into
the flames of sacrifice for others.
Pang for others. Woe for others.
Death for others. Vicarious suffering.
Again / remark that sanctuary help
ought to come through the prayers OF
all the people. The door of the eternal
storehouse is hung on one hinge,
gold hinge, the hinge of prayer, and
when the whole audience lay hold of
that door, it must come open. There
vet
| Sabbath after some great bereave-
ment. What will your prayer do for
them? How will it help the tomb in
that mans heart? Here are people
who have not been in church before
for ten years; what will your prayer
do for them by rolling over their soul
holy memories? Here are people in
crises of awful temptation. They are
on the verge of despair, or wild blum
dering, or theft, or suicide. What will
your prayer do for them in the way of
| giving them strength to resist? Will
you be chiefly anxious about the fit
of the glove that you put to your fore
head while you prayed? WI. you be
chiefly critical of the rhetoric of the
pastors petition? No. No. A thou
|
for me-" and at every step of the
prayer chains ought to drop off, and
temples of sin ought to crush into
dust, and jubilees of deliverance ought
to brandish their trumpets. In most
of our churches we have three prayers
the opening prayer, what is called
the "long prayer" and the closing
prayer. There are many people who
spend their first prayer in arranging
their apparel after entrance, and
spend the second prayer, the "long
prayer" in wishing it were through,
and spend the last prayer in preparing
to start for home. The most insignifi-
can't part of every religious service is
the sermon. The more important parts
are the scripture lesson and the
prayer. The scripture lesson is God
talking to man. Prayer is man talk
ing to God. Oh, if we understood the
grandeur and the pathos of this eX-
ercise of prayer, instead of being a
dull exercise, we would imagine that
the room was full of divine and an
gelic appearances.
But, my friends, the old style of
church will not do the work. We
might as well now try to take all the
passengers from Washington to New
York by stage coach, or all the pas
sengers from Albany to Buffalo by
canalboat, or do all the battling of the
world with bow and arrow as with the
old style of church TO meet the exi-
gencies of this day. Unless the church
in our day will adapt itself to the
time, it will become extinct. The peo-
pie reading newspapers and books all
the week, in alert, picturesque, and
resounding style, will have no pa
tience with Sabbath humdrum. We
have no objection to bands and sur
plice and all the paraphernalia of cler-
ical life; but these things make no i'm
pression-make no more impression
on the great masses of the people than
the ordinary business suit that you
wear on Pennsylvania avenue or Wall
street. A tailor cannot make minis
ter. Some of the poorest preachers
wear the best clothes; and many a
backwoodsman has dismounted from
the saddlebags, and in his linen duster
preached q sermon that shook earth
and heaven with it's Christian elo-
quence. No new gospel, only the old
gospel in a way suited to the tirle.
No new church, but church to be
the asylum, the inspiration, the practi-
cal sympathy, and the eternal help OF
the people.
Through the church gates set Heav-
onward how many of your friends and
mine have gone? The last time they
were out of the house they came to
church. The earthly pilgrimage end
, ed at the pillar of public worship, and
then they marched out to bigger and
brighter assemblage. Some of them
, were so old they could not walk with
out a cane or two crutches; now they
have eternal juvenescence. Or they
were so young they could not walk eX'
cept as the maternal hand guided
/ them; now they bound with the hilar'
{ ties celestial. The last time we saw
, them they were wasted with malarial
or pulmonic disorder, but now they
have no fatigue and no difficulty OF
respiration in the pure air of heaven
How / wonder when you and | will
cross over! Some of you have had
about enough of the humping and
! HalInS Ol llllS me- n uIduSHU llohi
the fountains of Heaven would do you
: good. Complete release you could
stand very well. If you got on the
| other side, and had permission to
; come back, you would not come
Though you were invited to come
l back and join your friends on earth
: you would say: "No, let me tarry
) here until they come; l shall not risk
, going back; if man reaches Heaven
he had better stay here"
In Freybourg, Switzerland, there is