The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1898-08-06

the cnurcn OF UOu was never iutcuuco
for war barrack. People are afraid
of riot. You go down the street and
you see an excitement and missiles
flying through the air, and you hear
the shock of firearms. Do you, the
peaceful and industrious citizen, go
through that street. Oh, no! you will
say, "I'll go around that block" Now,
men come and look upon this narrow
path to Heaven, and sometimes see the
ecclesiastical brick bats flying every
whittier, and they say: well, guess
I'll take the broad road; there is sc
much sharpshooting on the narrow
road, guess I'll try the broad roadl"
Francis l. SO hated the Lutherans
that he said that il he thought that
there was one drop of Lutheran blood in
his veins he would puncture them and
let that drop out. Just as long as
there is so much hostility between de.
nomination and denomination, or be-
tween one professed Christian and an
other, or between one church and an
other, so long will men be Disguised
with the Christian religion, and say:
IF that is religion, l want none OF it."
Again, bigotry and .sectarianism do
great damage in the fact that they
hinder the triumph of the Gospel. Oh,
now much wasted ammunition! How
many men of splendid intellect have
given their whole life to controversial
disputes, when, if they had given their
life to something practical, they might
have been vastly useful! Suppose,
while l speak, there were a common
enemy coming up the bay, and all the
| forts around the harbor began to fire
into each other you would cry out:
National suicide! Why don't those
| forts blaze away in one direction and
that against the common enemy?"
Ane vet | sometimes see in the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ strange
thing going on. Church against
church, minister against minister,
denomination against denomination,
| firing away into their own fort, or the
| fort which ought to be on the same
side, instead of concentrating their
energy and giving one mighty and
| everlasting volley against the navies
of darkness riding up through, the bayl
But now, my friends, having shown
you the origin of bigotry and Sec
tarianism, and having shown you the
damage it does, / want briefly to show
you how we are to war against this
terrible evil, and l think we ought to
begin our war by realizing our own
weakness and our imperfections. Ii
we make SO many mistakes in the com
mon affairs of life, is it not posi- BILE
that we may make mistakes in regard
to our religious affairs? Shall we take
n man by the throat or by the collar
! because he can not see religious
truths just as we do? In the light
of eternity 1t will be found out. l
think, there was something wrong in
| all our creeds, and something right in
all our creeGs, but since we may make
mistakes in regard to things of the
world, do not let us be SO egotistic and
so pulled up as to have an idea that
we can not make any mistake in re-
gard to religious theories. And then l
think we will do great deal to over
| throw the sectarianism from our heart,
and the sectarianism from the world,
by chiefly charging in those things in
which, we agree, rather those on which
we differ.
Now, here is great Gospel platform.
"A man comes up on this side of the
platform and says: Il don't believe in
baby sprin king" Shall / shove him
off? Here is a man coming up on this
side of the platform, and he says; IL
don't believe in the perseverance of the
saints" Shall | shove him off ? No.
will say: ''Do you believed in the Lord
Jesus as your Saviour? Do you trust
Him for time and for eternity?" Yes. "
"Do you take Christ for time and for
eternity?" Yes" l say: Come on,
brother; one in time and one in
eternity; brother now, brother for
ever" Blessed be God for Gospel
platform so large that all who receive
Christ may stand on it!
l think we may overthrow the severe
sectarianism and bigotry in our hearts,
and in the church also, by realizing
| that all the denominations of Chris
tians have yielded noble institutions
| and noble men. There is nothing that
| so stirs my soul as this thought. One
denomination yielded a Robert Hall
and an Adoniram Judson; another
yielded Latimer and Melville;
another yielded John Wesley and
the blessed Summerfeld, while our
own denomination yielded John
Knox and the Acknowledgement of
whom the world was not worthy.
Now, say, If we are honest and fair
minded men, when we come up in the
presence OF such churches and such de-
nominations, although they may be
different from our own, we ought to
admire them, and we ought to love and
honor them. Churches which can pro-
duce such men, and sach large hearted
charity, and such magnificent martyr
dom, ought to win our affections-at
| any rate, our respect. So come on,
we six hundred thousand Episcopalians
in this country, and we fourteen hundred
thousand Presbyterans and we four mill
ion Baptists, and we five million Method
ists-come on; shoulder to shoulder we
will march to the worlds conquest; for
all nations to be saved, and God de-
mands that you and l help. Forward,
| the whole line. In the Young Mems
| Christian associations, in the Bible So
ciety, in the Tract society, in the mis-
sionary society, shoulder to shou, der,
n Il