The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1898-05-02

| giving Oub 6dys tn6 meCnhnlCI y
put rotten beam into that structure, an
the whole thing has got to come down.
Here Is an estate that seems to be all rigt
now. It has been building great man
years But Is years ego there was di'
honest transaction in that oommercil
house. That one dishonest transactio
will keep on working ruin in the Who'll
structure, until down the estate will com
in wreck and ruin about the possessor'
ears--ons dishonest dollar In tho estat
demolishing all his possessions. hav
seen 1t again and again, ard SO have you
Hero is your money safe The manu-
facturer and yourself only know how
can DO opened. You have the key. Yol
touoh the lock, and the pondsrous doc
swings back. But let me tell you that
however firmly barred and bolted you
money safe may be, you cannot keep Got
out. He will come some day into you
counting room, and he will demand
"Where did that note Of hand come from
How do you account for this security
Where did you get that mortgage from
What does this mean9" II 1t is all right
God will say: swell DONE good and faith
full servant. Be prospered in this world
Be happy in the world to come" If it Ii
all wrong, he will say: depart. ye cursed
Be miserable for your iniquities In this
life, and then go down and spend your
eternity with thieves and horse jockeys
and pickpockets.
You have an old photograph of the signs
on your street. Why have those signs
nearly all changed within the last 90
| yearsP Does the passing away Of gener-
alton account for 1t? Oh, no. Does the
fact that there are hundreds Of honest
men who go down every year account for
itP Oh, no. This is the secret: The Lord
God has been walking through the COM
mercial streets of our great cities, and he
has been adjusting things according to the
principles Of eternal rectitude.
The time will come when, through the
revolutionary power Of this gospel, a false.
hood, instead Of being called exaggeration,
equiyooation or evasion, will be branded
lie, and stealings that now sometimes
go under the head of percentages and com.
missions and bonuses will be put into tho
catalogue of state prison offensesl Society
will be turned inside out and upside down
and ransacked Of Gods truth until bust.
ness dishonesties shall come to an end, and
all double dealing, and God will overturn
and overturn and overturn, and CONNER
cial men In all cities will throw up their
hands, crying out, "Tbese that have
turned the world upside down are come
hither."
The religion Of Jesus Christ will pro-
duce revolution In our churches. The
noncomnittal, do nothing policy of the
church of God will give way to spirit of
bravest conquest Pety In this day seems
to me to be sailed down just so as to keep.
1t seems as If the church were chiefly anx-
ious to take care Of itself, and If we hear
Of want and squalor and heathenism out
side we say, "What pityl' and we put
our hands in our pockets, and we feel
around for 2 cent piece, and with great
flourish We put 1t upon the plate and arc
amazed that the world Is not converted In
six weeks. Suppose there were a great
war, and there were 100000 soldiers, but |
all Of those 300, 900 soldiers, excepting ten
men, were in their tents or securing their
muskets or cooking rations. You would
say, "Of course defeat must come in that !
case." 1t is worse than that in the
church. Millions of the professed soldiers |
Of Jesus Christ are cooking rations or
asleep In their tents, while only one man
here and there goes out to do battle for
the Lord.
But" says some one 1--WE are estab-
fishing great many missions, and think
they will save the masses" No; they will
not. Five hundred thousand Of them will
not do 1t. They are doing a magnificent
work, but every mission chapel is a con-
fession of tho disease and weakness Of the
nh \ t1 Il x,sl t,,ph n-I |
tween the classes. 1t Is saying to the rich
and to the we'll conditioned, "If you can
pay your pew rents, come to the main au
dience room." 1t is saying to the poor
man: "Your coat is too bad ard your
shoes are not good enough. II you want
to get to heaven, you will have to go by
the way of the mission chapel" The mis-
sion chapel has become the kitchen, where
the church does Its sloppy work. There
are hundreds and thousands Of churches
in this country-gorgeously built and sup
ported-that even on bright and sunshiny ,
days arc not half full of worshipers, and
yet they arc building mission chnpels be-
cause by some expressed or implied rogu ,,
lation the great masses Of the people are ..
kept out of the main audience room.
Now, say that any place of worship
which is appropriate for one class is ap- -.
propriate for all classes. Let the rich and =,
tho poor meet together, the Lord the Maker ;;
of them all. Mind you that I say that =
mission chapels are a necessity, the way q,
churches arc now conducted, but may God !
speed the time when they shall cease to DO =
a necessity. God will rise up and break :,
down the gates of the church that have
kept back the masses, and WOO ba to those
who stand in tho way They will DO tram !,
pied under foot by tho vast populations y
making stampede for heaven. -
saw in somo paper an account Of II
church In Boston in which, it is said, 6
there woro great many plain people. r
The noxt week the trustees of that church r
came out in the paper and said 1t was not c
so at all; "they were elegant people and n
highly conditioned people that went s.
there" Then I laughed outright, and i
when I laugh laugh very loudly. "Thoso ~
people," said, are afraid of the sickly ~
of the churches. Now, h
my ambition is not to preach TO you so
much. 1t seems to me that you must be :.
faring sumptuously every day, and the Il
marks of comfort are all about you. You :,
do not neod the gospel half as much as do II
some who never como here. Rather than =,
be priding myself on a church in front Of =,
which there shall halt so splendid equi- d
pages on the Sabbath day would havo +.
,hurch up to whose gates there should ~
come long procession of the suffering, y,
and the stricken, and the dying, begging
'Or adnittanCe. You do not need tho gos-
pei SO much as they. You have good
jbings in this life. WhateyS may be your u,
,uture destiny, you have had a pleasant a,
lime here. But those dying populations sc
If which speak, by reason of their want D
md suffering, whatever may be their fu tc
ure destiny are in perdtiUn now, and If u,
here be any comfort in Christ's gospel for TT
Gods sake give it to them!
Revolution! The pride Of tho church tc
must come down. The exclusivcness of l.
he church must como down. The fnan- O,
'ial boastings of tho church must como tt
Town! If monetary success were the chief di
dea in the church, then l say that tho I'll
resent mode Of conducting finances is "
he best If it Is to see how many dollars
ou can gain, then the present mode is the pl
,cst But If it Is the saving Of souls from to
in and death and bringing the mighty n
populations Of our cities to the knowledge IN
f God, then cry revolution 1t is COM at
mo- fnSt fool IN in tho min 7 boor tim A.,