Connecticut western news., 1898-06-16

moths, from large gates and small gates, from camel, from the needles eye, from yeast in tho dough of bread, from mustard seed, from fishing net from debtors and creditors. That is the req son multitudes followed Christ. His il- lustrations were so easy and so under standable. Therefore, my brother Chris tian worker, if you and find two illus trations for religious subject, and the one is Bible illustration and the other is outside the Bible, will take the lat ter because I want to be like my mas ter. Looking across to a hill, Christ saw the city of Jerusalem.
 Talking to the people about the con-
 spicuity of Christian example, he said:
 'The world is looking at you. Be care- ful. A city that is set on hill cannot
 be hid" While he was speaking of the divine care of God 8 children bird flew past. He said, Behold the ravens" Then looking down into the valley, all covered at that season with flowers, he said, Consider the lilies.'' Oh, my
 brother Christian workers, what is the
 use of our going away off in some ob-
 scure part of history or on the other
 side of the earth to get an illustration
 when the earth and the heavens are full of illustrations? Why should we go away off to get an illustration of the vicarious suffering of Jesus Christ when as near us as Bloomfield, N. J., two little children were walking on the rail track, and train was coming, but they were on bridge of trestlework, and the little girl took her brother and let him down through the trestlework as gently as she could toward the wa ter, 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 a funeral casket. What was
 that? Vicarious suffering. Like Christ. Pang for others. Woe for others. Suf. fering for others. Death for others
 Help In Prayer.
 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 100 miles, saw an old man
 by the roadside, 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, I 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 are
 many people spending their first Sab
 bath after some great bereavement. What will your prayer do for them? How will it help the tomb In that mans heart? Here are people who have not been ill church before for ten years. What will your prayer do for them by l rolling over their soul holy memories? Here are people in crises of awful temp | tation. They are on the verge of despair 1 or wild blundering or theft or suicide. What will your prayer do for them in the way of giving them strength to re-
 sist? Will you be chiefly anxious about I the fit of the glove that you put to your forehead while you prayed? Will you be chiefly critical of the rhetoric of the pastors petition? No. no. A thou I sand people will feel, "That prayer is
 for me" and at every step of the prayer
 chains ought to drop off, and temples of sin ought to crash into dust, and jubilees of deliverance ought to brandish their | trumpets In most of our churches we
 have three prayers-the opening pray
 1T, 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 I prayer" in wishing it Svere through and spend the last prayer ill preparing | to start for home. The most insignifi-
 cant part of every religious service is | the sermon. The more important parts are the Scripture lesson and the prayer.
 The sermon is only man talking to ] man. The Scripture lesson is God talk | ing to man. Prayer is man talking to God Oh, if we understood the grandeur
 and the pathos of this exercise of pray
 CT, instead of being a dull exercise, we
 would imagine that the soopl was full
 of divine and angelic appearances
 Church Must Progress.
 But, my friends, the old style of
 church will not do the work. We might
 as well now try to take all the passen-
 gers from Washington to New York by
 stagecoach, or all the passengers 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 exigencies of this day. Unless the church in our day will adapt itself to the time it will become extinct. The people reading newspapers
 and books all the week, in alert, pictur-
 esque and resounding style, will have 1 no patience with Sabbath humdrum. l We have no objection to bands and sur
 plice and all the paraphernalia of cler- | ical life, but these things make no inn 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 minister. Some of
 the poorest preachers wear the best
 clothes, and many baekwoodsman has
 dismounted from the saddlebags, and
 in his linen duster preached 8 sermon
 that shook earth and heaven with its
 Christian eloquence. No new gospel,
 only the old gospel in way suited to
 the time. Nonew church, but church
 to be the asylum, the inspiration, the
 practical sympathy and the eternal help
 of the people.
 But while half of the doors of the
 church are to be set open toward this