The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1898-02-05

luted with the laughter that breaks
up from the 10, 900 saloons of dissipa-
ton and abandonment, when the fires
of the second death already are kindled
il the cheeks of some who, only a lit
tie while ago, were incorrupt. Oh,
never since the curse fell upon the
earth has there been a time when it
was such an unwise, such a cruel, such
an awful thing for the church to sleep.
The great audiences are not gathered
in Christian churches; the great audi
ences are gathered in temples of sin
tears of unutterable woe their baptism,
the blood of crushed hearts the awful
wine of their sacrament. blasphemies
their litany, and the groans of the lost
world the organ dirge of their wor-
ship.
Again, If you want to be qualified to
meet the duties which this g de-
mands of you, you must, on the one
hand, avoid reckless iconoclasm, and,
on the other hand, not stick too much
to things because they are old. The
air Is full of new plans, new projects,
new theories of government, new the
ologies, and l am amazed to see how
so many Christians want only novelty
in order to recommend a thing to their
confidence; aud so they vacillate and
swing to and fro, and they arc useless,
and they are unhappy. New plans
secular, ethical philosophical, religious,
cisatlantic, transatlantic-long enough
to make a line reaching from the Ger
man universities to Great Salt Lake
City. All, my brother, do not take hold
of a thing merely because it is newt! Try
1t by the realities of the Judgment day.
But, on the other hand, do not adhere
to anything merely because it is old.
There Is not a single enterprise of the
church or the world but has sometime
been scoffed at. There was a time
when men derided even Bible socie-
ties, and when a few young men met
in Massachusetts, and organized the
first missionary society eve organized
In this country there went laughter
and ridicule all around the Christian
church. They said the undertaking
was preposterous And SO also the
work of Jesus Christ was assailed.
People cried out: who ever heard
of such theories of ethics and
government? Who ever noticed
such a style of preaching as Jesus
has?" Ezekiel had talked of mysteri-
GUS wings and wheels. Here came a
man from Capernaum and Genuessaret,
and He drew His illustrations from the
lakes, from the sand, from the noun
tain, from the lilies, from the corn
stalks How the Pharisees scoffed!
How Herod deridedl And this Jesus
they plucked by the beard, and they
spat in His face, and they called Him
''this fe,low~ All the great enter
prises in and out of the church nave at
- G-1 - - 49, I-w-
been a great multitude who have
thought that the charlotte OF Gods truth
would fall TO pieces II it once got out
of the old rut. And so there are
those who have no patience with any
thing like improvement in church
architecture, or with anything like
good, hearty, church singing,
and they deride any form of reli-
gious discussion which goes down
walking among everyday men. rather
than that which makes an excursion
on rhetorical stills. Oh, that the
church of God would wake up to an
adaptability of work. We must admit
the simple fact that the churches of
Jesus Christ in this day do not reach
the great masses. There are 80, 700
people in Edinburgh who never hear
III gospel. There are 1000. 600 peo-
pie in London who never hear the gos-
pei. The great majority of the inhab-
itants of this capital come not under
the immediate ministrations of Christ's
truth, and the church of God in this
day, instead of being a place full of
living epistles, known and read of all
men, is more like a dead-letter post
Office.
Il -,r, 4-ia.Io kHara fo rr11~lr Co. w,A,N
to do and for me to do to attain this
pulpit. l preach in it. Your pull
pit is the bank. Your pulpit is the
store. Your pulpit is the editorial
chair. Your pulpit is the anvil. Your
pulpit is the mechanics shop. 1 may
stand in my place and. through cow
ardice or through self-seeking, may
keep back the word 1 ought to utter;
while you, with sleeve rolled up and
brow besweated with toll, may utter
the word that will jar the foundations
of Heaven with the shout of a great
victory. Oh, that we might all feel
that the Lord Almighty is putting
upon us the hand of ordinationi | tell
you, every one, go forth and preach
this gospel. You ave as much right
to preach as l have or any mar living.
Hedley Wears was a wicked lar in
the English army. The grace of God
came to him. He became an earnest
and eminent Christian. They scoffed
at him and said: you are a hypo-
critic; you are as bad as eve you
were" Still he kept his faith in /
Christ, and after a while, finding that
they could not turn him aside by call
ing him a hypocrite, they said to him:
''Oh, You are nothing but a Methodist"
This did not disturb him. He went
on performing his Christian duty
until he had formed all his troops
into a Bible class, and the whole
encampment was shaken with the
Of God. So Havelook went
into the heather temple in India while
the English army was there and put a
candle into the hand of each of the
heather gods that stood around in the
heather temple, and by the light of
those candles held up by the idols Gen.
Hayelock preached righteousness, tenn
perauce, and Judgment to come. Aud
who will say on earth or in Heaven
that Havelock had not the right to
preachP
I remark again that in order to be
qualified to meet your duty in this
particular age you want unboupded
faith In the triumph of the truth and
the overthrow of wickedness- How
dare the Christian church ever get dis
c~ouraged? Have we not the Lord
Almighty on our side? How long did
it take God to slay the hosts
of Sennacherib or burn Sodom or
shake down Jericho? How long
will it take God, when he once
arises In his strength, to overthrow
NIL the forces of iniquity? Between J
this time and that there may be long
seasons of darkness, and the chariot
of Gods gospel may seem to
drag heavily; but here is the promise
and yonder is the throne, and when
omniscience has lost its eyesight and
falls back impotent and
Jehovah Is driven from His throne,
then the church OF Jesus Christ a af-
ford to be Respondent but never until
then. Despots may plan and armies
may march and the conRres5e of the
nations may seem to think they are
all the affairs of the world,