Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-11-21

your sorrows are no worse than the
SORROWS of others. We all have our
griefs. and all have our heartbreaks."
Laugh and the world laughs with you:
! Weep. and you weep alone;
| For the sad old earth must borrow its mirih
| But has trouble enough of lis own.
We hear a great deal of discussion
now all over the land about why peo-
pie do not go 10 church. Some say it is
because Christianity is dying out and
because people do not believe in the
truth of Gods word. and all that.
| They are false reasons. The reason is
because our sermons and exhortations
are not interesting and practical and
| helpful. Some one might as well tell
| the whole truth Oh this subject. and so
/ will tell it. The religious discourse
of the future. the gospel sermon to
come forth and shake the nations and
lift people out of darkness. will be a
popular sermon. just for the simple
reason that il will meet the woes and
| the wants and the anXiaties of the peO
| pie.
| There are in all our denominations
ecclesiastical mummies sitting around
TO frown upon the fresh young pulpits
| of America TO try to awe them down.
| to cry out: tut. tut, tut! Sensation
all They stand today preaching 10
| churches that hold a thousand people,
and there are hundred persons pres
ent. and if they cannot have the world
saved in their way it seems as if they
do not want it saved at all.
| do not know but the old way of
making ministers of the gospel is bet
ter-a collegiate education and an ap-
premiership under the care and home
attention of some earnest. aged Chris
tian minister, the young man getting
the patriarch's spirit and assisting him
in his religious service. Young law
yers study with old lawyers, young
physicians with old physicians, and
believe it would be a great help if ev
cry young man studying for the gospel
ministry could put himself in the home
and heart and sympathy and under the
benediction and perpetual presence Of
a Christian minister.
Religious Awakening.
But | remark again, the religious
discourse of the future will be an
awakening sermon. From altar rail TO
the front doorstep, under that sermon,
an audience will get up and start for
heaven. There will be in it many
staccato passage. 1t will not be lul-
laby. 1t will be n battle charge. Men
will drop their sins, for they will feel
the hot breath of pursuing retribution
on the back OF their necks. 1t will be
sympathtic with all the physical dis
tresses as well as the spiritual dis
tresses of the world. Christ not only
preached. but he healed paralysis. and
he healed epilepsy. and he healed the
dumb and the blind and the lepers.
That religious discourse of the future
will be an everyday sermon. going
right down into every mans life. and 1t
will teach him how to vote, how to bar
gain, how to plow, how to do any work
he is called to do. how to WELD trowel
and pen and pencil and yardstick and
plane. and it will teach women how to
preside over their households and how
to educate their children and how to
initiate Miriam and Esther and Vashti
and Eunice. the mother of Timothy,
and Mary, the mother of Christ, and
those women who on northern and
southern battlefields We're mistaken by
the wounded for angels of mercy, fresh
from the throne of God.
Yes. | have to tell you. the religious
discourse Of the future will be re-
ported sermon. If you have any idea
that printing was invented simply to
print secular books. and stenography
and photography were contrived mere
ly to set fosth secular ideas, you are
mistaken. The printing press is to be
the great agency of gospel proclama-
ton. 1t is high time that good men,
instead Of denouncing the press. en-
ploy it to scatter forth the gospel of
Jesus Christ. The vast majority of
people in our cities do not come to
church, and nothing but the printed
sermon can reach them and call them
to pardon and life and peace and
heaven.
So cannot understand the nervous
ness OF some of my brethren of the
ministry. When they see Il newspaper
man coming in, they say, Alas, there
is a reporter" Every added reporter
is 10000, $4,000, 100000 immortal souls
added to the auditory. The time will
come when all the village, town and
city newspapers will reproduce the
gospel of Jesus Christ, and sermons
preached Oh the Sabbath will rever-
berate all around the world. and, some
by type and some ly voice. all nations
will be evangelical.
The practical bearing of this is upon
those who are engaged in Christian
work, not only upon theological stu
dents and young ministers, but upon
all who preach the gospel and all who
eXhort in meetings and all of you if
you are doing your duty Do you eX
hort in prayer meeting? Be short and
spirited. Do you teach in Bible class?
Though you have to study every night, |
he interesting. Do you accoSt people |
on the subject of religion in their
homes or in public places? Study
adroitness and Use common sense. The
most graceful and most beautiful thing |
on earth is the religion of Jesus Christ |
and if you awkwardly present it it is
defamation. We must do our work |
rapidly, and we must do it effectively. |
Soon our time for work will be gone.
Now Is the Time.
A dying Christian took out his watch |
and gave it to friend and said: Take
that watch. | have no more use for it.
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