Connecticut western news., 1898-06-16

the mountains were moved and the walls of Thebes arose, but religion has a mightier story to tell of how Christian song may build whole temples of eter- nal joy and lift the round earth into sympathy with the skies.
 A Heavenly Clock.
 I tarried many nights in London, and I used to hear the bells, the small bells of the city, strike the hour of night, 2, 3, 4-and among them the great St. Paul's cathedral would come in to mank the hours, making all the other sounds seem utterly insignificant as with mighty tongue 1t announced the hour of the night, every stroke an overmaster- ing boom. My friends, it was intended that all the lesser sounds of the world should be drowned out in the mighty tongue of congregational song beating against the gates of heaven. Do you know how they mark the hours in heaven? They have no clocks as they have no candles, but great pendulum of halleluiah swinging across heaven from eternity to eternity.
 Let those refuse to sing
 Who never knew our God,
 But children of the Heavenly King
 Should speak their joys abroad.
 Again, I remark that sanctuary help ought to come from the sermon. Of LOGO people In any audience how many want sympathetic help? Do you guess 100? Do you guess 800? You have guessed wrong. will tell you just the proportion. Out of 1, ,000 people in any audience there are just 1000 who need sympathetic help. These young people want it just as much as the old. The old people sometimes seem to think they have q monopoly of the rheumatism. and the neuralgias, and the headaches, and the physical disorders of the world, but tell you there are no worse heart aches than are felt by some of the young people. Do you know that much of the work is done by the young? Raphael died at 37, Richelieu at 31, Gustavus Adolphus died at S8, Innocent III came to his mightiest influence at 87. Cortes conquered Mexico at 80, Don John won Lepanto at 25, Grotius was attorney general at 24, and have noticed amid all classes of men that some of the se- verest battles and the toughest work come before 30. Therefore we must have our sermons and our exhortations in prayer meeting all sympathetic with the young. And so with these people farther on in life. What do these doo- tors and lawyers and merchants and mechanics care about the distractions of religion? What they want is help to bear the whimsicalities of patients the browbeating of legal opponents, the un- fairness of customers who have plenty of fault finding for every imperfection of handiwork, but no praise for 20 ex- cellences What does the brain racked, hand blistered man care for Zwingli' 8 Doctrine of Original Sin" or Angus tines "Retractions?' You might as we'll go to a man who has the pleurisy and put on his side plaster made out of Dr. Paris "Treatise on Medical Ju- risprudence.
 Divine Prescription.
 While all of a sermon may not be helpful alike to all, if it be Christian sermon, preached by a Christian man, there will be help for every one some- where. We go into an apothecary's store We see others being waited on. We do not complain because we do not immediately get the medicine. We know our turn will come after awhile. And so while all parts of sermon may not be appropriate to our case, if we wait prayerfully before the sermon is through we shall have the divine pre- scription. l say to young men who are going to preach the gospel, we want i'll our sermons not more metaphysics, nor more imagination, nor more logic, nor more profundity. What we want ill our sermons and Christian exhortations Is more sympathy. When Father Tay- Tor preached fin the Sailors Bethel at Boston, the Jack Tars felt they had help for their duties among the ratlines and the forecastles When Richard Weaver preached to the operatives ill Oldham, England, all the workmen felt they had more grace for the spindles. When Dr. South preached to kings and princes women who heard him felt preparation for their high station.
 People will not go to church merely as matter of duty. There will not next Sabbath be 100 people ill this city who will get up ill the morning and say: 'The Bible says I must go to church. It is my duty to go to church, therefore Twill go to church" The vast multitude of people who go to church, go to church because they like it, and the multitude of people who stay away from church stay away because they do not like it. am not speaking about the way the world ought to be. am speak ing about the way the world is. Taking things as they are, we must make the centripetal force of the church mightier than the centrifugal We must make our churches magnets to draw the peo- pie thereunto, so that man will feel uneasy if he does not go to church, say Ing: 1T wish I had gone this morning. l wonder if I can't dress yet and get there ill time. It is Il o'clock; now they are singing. It is half past II; now they are preaching. wonder when the folks will be home to tell us wkat was said, what has been going on." When the impression is confirmed that our | churches, by architecture, by music, by sociality and by sermon, shall be made the most attractive places on earth, then we will want twice as many churches as we have now, twice as large, and then they will not half accommodate the people
 Forceful Religion I say to the young men who are en- tering the ministry we must put on more force, more energy and into our | religious services more vivacity if we | want the people to come. You look into church court of any denomination of Christians First you will find the men of large common sense and earnest look. The education of their minds, the piety | of their hearts, the holiness of their | lives qualify them for their work. Then A,,I j,. v1l, x~f