The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-06-17

Christ dismounting from the glories OF
Heaven to put us on the way of deliv-
erance, then falling back into the
flames of sacrifice for others. Pang
for others. Woes for others. Death
for others. Vicarious suffering.
Again remark, that sanctuary help
ought to come through the prayers of
oil the people. There are many people
spending their first Sabbath after some
great bereavement What will your
prayers do for them? How will it help
the tomb in that mans hearth Here
are people who have not been in church
before for ten years; what will your
PRAYER do for them? How will it help
the tomb in that mans heart? Here are
people who have not been in church be-
fore for ten years; what will your
prayer do for them by rolling over their
soul holy memories? Here are people
in a crisis of awful temptation. They
are on the verge of despair, or wild
laundering, or theft, or suicide. What
will your prayers do for them in
the way of giving them strength to
resist? VIII you be chiefly anxious
about the ii of the glove that you put to
your fore head while you prayed? Will
you be caiehy critical OF the rhetoric of
the pastors petition? No. No. A thou
sand people will feel, that prayer is
for me-" and at every stem of the prayer
chains ought to drop off, and temples
of sin ought to crash INTO aust, and
jubilees of deliverance ought to bran
dish their trumpets. tn most in
significant part of every religious serv-
ice is the sermon. The more impor-
tant parts are the Scripture lesson and
prayer. The sermon Is only a man
talking to man. The Scripture les
son is God talking to man. Prayer is
man talking to God. Oh, if we under
stood the granduer and the pathos OF
this exercise of prayer, instead of be-
ing a dull exercise, we would imagine
that the room was full of divine and
angelic appearances.
Unless the church in our day will
adapt itself to the time it will become
extinct. The people reading news
papers and books all the week. in
alert, picturesque and resounding
style, will have no patience with Sab
bath humdrum. We have no objection
to bands and surplice and all the para
phernalia of clerical life; but these
things make no impression-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 min
lister. Some of the poorest preachers
wear the best clothes: and many a
backwoods man has dismounted from
the saddleba and in his linen buster
preached "a sermon that shook earth
and Heaven with Christian eloquence.
No new gospel, only the old gospel in
way suited to the time. No new
church, but a church to be the asylum,
the inspiration, the practical sympa-
thy and the eternal help OF the people.
In Freybourg, Switzerland, there is
the trunk of tree 400 years old.
That tree was planted to commemo-
rate an event. About ten miles from
the city the Swiss conquered the Bur-
gundians, and a young man wanted to
take the tidings to the city. He took
a tree branch and ran with such speed
the ten miles that when he reached
the city waving the tree branch
he had only strength to cry:
"Victorr| and dropped dead. The
tree branch that he carried was
planted, and it grew to be a great
tree 20 feet in circumference, and the
remains of it are there to this day
My nearer, when you have fought your
last battle with sin and death and
hell, and they have been routed in the
conflict, it will be a JOY worthy of cell
ebration. You will fly to the city and
cry, Victory" and drop at the feet of
the great King. Then the palm branch
of the earthly race will be planted to
become the outbranching tree of ever
lasting rejoicing.