The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-06-13

played his Tyre until 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 tenn
pies of eternal joy, and lift the round earth
into sympathy-with the skies
1 tarried many nights in London, and 1
used 20 hear the bells, the small bells of
the city. strike the hour Of night-One, two
three four, and among them the great St
Pauls Cathedral would come in 10 mark
the hours, making all the other sounds
seem utterly Insignificant as with mighty
tongue il announced the hour Of the night
every stroke an overmasterug boom. My
friends il was intended that all the lesser
sounds of the world should be drowned
out in the mighty tongue of congreg
tional song beating against the gates Of
heaven. Do you know how they mark
the hours in heaven? They have 10
clocks, as they have no candles. but
great pendulum of hallelujah swinging
across heaven from eternity to eternity.
Let those refuse 10 sing
Who never knew our God;
But children of the Heavenly King
Should speak their joys abroad
Again [ remark, that sanctuary help
ought 10 come from the sermon. OF a
thousand people in any audience, how
many want sympathetic help? DO you
guess a hundred? DO you guess five
hundred? You have guessed wrong i
win tel you just the proportion. out Of
a thousand people in any audience there
are just one thousand who need sympa-
thetic help. These young people want It
just as much as the old. The old people
sometimes seem to think they have a
monopoly of the rheuma tisms, and the
neuralgias, and the headaches, and the
physical disorders of the world; but tell
you there are no worse heartaches 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 thirty
seven Richelieu at thirty-one; Gustavus
Adophus died at thirty-eight; innocent
III came to his mightiest influence at
thirty-seven; Cortez conquered Mexico
at thirty; Don John won Lepanto at
twenty-five; Grotius was encouragement
at twenty-four; and I have noticed amid
all classes of men that some of the Sc
verest battles and the toughest work
comes before thirty. Therefore we must
have our sermons and our exhortauonS IN
prayer-meeting all sympathetic with the
young. And so with the people further
on In life. What do these doctors and
lawyers and merchants and mechanics
care about the distractions of religion!
What they want is help to bear the
whimsicalties of patients, the browbeat-
ing of legal opponents, the untalrness OF
customers who have plenty of fault-dndins
for every ImIefIeCtlOtl Oh udhuiNOi n, bHt
no praise for twenty eXcellences. What
does the brain-racked, hand-blistered
man care for Zwingle's Doctrine of orig
inal Sin" or Augustine's "RetractationsF
You might as well go to man who has
the pleurisy and put on his side a plaster
made out of Doctor Parr 1reause ou
Medical Jurisprudence"
While all of sermon may not be help
-ful alike to ALL if it be a Christian sermon
preached by a Christian man, there will
be help for everyone somewhere. we go
into an apotheCary's store. We see others
being waited on: we do not complain be-
| cause We do not Immediately get the medl-
cine; we know our turn Will come aIler
awhile And so while all parts OF a ser
! mon may not be appropriate to our case, II
We wait prayerfuliy, before the sermon Is
| through, we shall have the divine pre-
! scrlption. / say TO young men who are
| going to preach the Gospel; we want III
| our sermons not more metaphysics, nor
| more imagination, nor more logic, nor moro
| profuudity What we want in our SER
| mons and Christian celebrations IS more
sSmpathy When Father Taylor preached
| in the Sailors Bethel at Boston, the JACK
! tars felt they had help for their duties
| among the ratines and the forecastles
! When Richard Weaver preached to the
operatives in oldham England, all the
| workmen felt they had more grace for the
| spindles When Doctor South preached &c
kings and princes and princesses, all tbs
! mighty men and women who heard MN
felt preparation for their high station,
People will not go TO church merely as G
| matter Of duty. There will not next SAB
! bath be "a hundred people in this city who
| VIII get up In the morning and say; "Th'
Bible says I must go TO church: 1t is m4
duty to go to church, therefore ] will go (
church" The vast multitude of people wh'
| go to church, go to church because the9
like It, and the multitude of people wh'
! shay away from church, stay away be
| cause they do not ike it. l am not speak
ing about the way the world ought TO be
l am speaking about the way the world is
| Taking things as they are, we must maxi
| the centripetal force of the church might
Ter than the centrifugal. We must max
our churches magnets to draw the peopi
thereunto. so that man will feel uneas,
If he does not go to church, saying; -
wish / had gone this morning. / wonder
I can't dress yet and get there in time.
Is eleven o'clock; now they are singing
1t is half-past eleven; now they are preach
ing. / wonder when the folks Will be nom
TO tell us what was said, what has bee
going on When the impression is con
hrmed that our churches, by architecture
by music, by sociality and by sermon, sha
be made the most attractive places o
earth, then we viii want twice as man
| churches as we have now, twice as large
and then they will not half accommodate
the people.
/ say 10 the young men who are enter
ing the ministry. we must put on NOR
force, more energy, and into our religion
services more viVacity, If we want the pee
5 pie to come You look into a church couI
of any denomination Of Christians. FRS
! you viii find The men of large common
sense and earnest look The education {
their minds, the pety Of their hearts, tn
7 holiness of their lives qualify them fo
2 their work. Then you WIN find in ever
I church court of every denomination
e group of men who utterly amaze you wit
I The fact that such semi-imbecility can &c
I any pul9!ts 10 preach in! Those are III
! men who siVe forlorn statistic
about church decadence. Frogs nevt
. croak in running water: always in staa
e nant But 1 say 20 all Christian workers
[ to all sunday school teachers to all evar
e gelsts, to all ministers of the Gospel
4 We want our Sunday schools and OF
s prayer meetings and our churches
@ gather the people, we must freshen up III
- simple fact is, the people are tired of III
= hundrum of religionists. Religion
= hundrum is the worst of all hundrum Yo
y say over and over again, Come 10 Jesus
@ | until the phrase means absolutely mott