The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1899-11-22

modes of preaching the gospel in the flu
ture; text, Romans xii, Z, 'Or ministry,
let us wait on our miniStering.
While l was seated on the piazza OF a
hotel at Lexington, KY, one summer
evening, a gentleman asked me, what
do you think of the coming sermon!'
supposed he was asking me in regard 10
some new discourse OF DR.. Cumming OF
London, who sometimes preached start
ding sermons, and l replied, Il have not
seen it." But I found out afterWard
that he meant to ask what l thought
would be the characteristics of the COM
ing sermon of the world, the sermons Of
the future, the word Cumming" as a
noun pronounced the same as the word
coming" as an adjective. But my mis-
take suggested to me a very important
and practical theme, The Coming Ser
mon"
Before the world is converted the style
of religious discourse will have to be con-
verified. You might as we'll go into the
modern Sedan or Gettysburg with bows
and arrows, instead of rifles and bomb
shells and parks of artillery, as to expect
to conquer this world for God by the old
styles of eXhortation and sermonology.
Jonathan Edwards preached the sermons
most adapted to the age in which he
lived, but if those sermons were preach
ed now they would divide an audience
into two classes-those sound asleep and
those wanting to go home.
But there is q discourse of the future.
Who will preach it l have no idea. In
what part Of the earth it will be born [
have no idea. In which denomination of
Christians it will be delivered cannot
guess. That discourse of exhortation may
be born in the country meeting house on
the banks of the st. Lawrence or the
Oregon or the Ohio or the TOmbigbee
or the Alabama. The person who shall
deliver it may this moment be in cradle
under the shadow of the Sierra Nevadas
or in a New England farmhouse or amid
the rice fields of southern savannas, or
this moment there may be some young
man in one of our theological seminaries,
in the Junior or middle or senior class,
shaping that weapon of power, or there
may be coming some new baptism of the
Holy Ghost on the churches, so that
some of us who now stand in the watch
towers of Zion, waking to realization
of our present inefficiency, may preach it
Il
not be fifty years off. And let us pray
God that it's arrival may be fastened
while | announce to you what l think
will be the chief characteristics Of that
discourse or eXhortatiOn when it does
arrive, and / want to make my remarks
appropriate and suggestive to all classes
of Christian workers.
The Living Christ.
First of all, remark that that future
religious discourse will be full of a living
Christ in contradistinction to didactic
technicalities. A discourse may be full
of Christ though hardly mentioning his
name, and a sermon may be empty of
Christ while every sentence is repeti-
tious of his titles. The world wants
living Christ, not Christ standing at
the head of a formal system Of theology,
but Christ who means pardon and sym
pathy and coincidence and brotherhood
and life and heaven, poor mans Christ,
a rich mans Christ, an overworked
mans Christ, an invalid's Christ a farm
er's Christ, a merchants Christ, an arti-
sans Christ, an every mans Christ.
A symmetrical and fine worded system
of theology is well enough for theological
classes, but it has no more business in a
pulpit than have the technical phrases Of
an anatomist or a psychologist or ply
sician in the sick room Of a patient. The
world wants help, immediate and world
uplifting, and it will come through a dis
course in which Christ shall walk right
down into the immortal soul and take
everlasting possession Of it, filling it as
full of light as is this MONDAY frma-
ment.
That sermon or exhortation of the flu
ture will not deal with men in the thread
bare illustrations Of Jesus Christ. In
that coming address there will be in
stances of yicarious suffering taken right
out Of everyday life, for there is not
day when somebody is not dying for 9TH
ers-as the physician saving his diph-
theritic patient by sacrificing his own
life; as the ship captain going down with
his vessel while he is getting his passen-
gers into the lifeboat; as the fireman con-
Stunning in the burning building while he
is taking a child out of fourth story
window; as in summer the strong swim
mer at East Hampton or Long Branch
or Cape May or Lake George himself
persisted trying to rescue the drowning:
as the newspaper boy one summer, sup
porting his mother for some years. his in
valid mother, when offered by a gentle
man 50 cents to get some special paper,
and he got it, and rushed up in his anx-
iety to deliver it and was crushed under
the wheels of the train and lay on the
grass with only strength enough to say,
"Oh, what will become Of my poor, sick
mother now! Vicarious suffering-the
world is full Of it. An engineer said to
me on a locomotive in Dakota: "We men
seem to be coming to better appreciation
than we used to. Did you see that ac-
count the other day Of an engineer who
to save his passengers stuck to his place,
and when he was found dead III the loco
motive, which was upside down, he was
found still smiling, his hand on the air
brake" And as the engineer said it to
me he put his hand on the airbrake to IL
lustrate his meaning, and / looked at him
and thought, you would be just as
much Of a hero in the same crisis" Oh,
in that religious discourse of the future
there will be living illustrations taken
out from everyday life of yicarous suf-
fering-illustration that will bring to
mind the ghastlier sacrifice of him who