The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-11-20

ARRIVE, and l want to make my remarks
appropriate and suggestive to all classes
Of Christian workers.
! The Living Christ.
First of all, I remark that that future
religious discourse will be full Of living
Christ in contradistinction to didactic
technicnlities 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 a
living Christ, not Christ standing at
the head of formal system of theology,
but Christ who means pardon and SYM
patty and coincidence and brotherhood
land life and heaven, n poor mans Christ,
"a rich mans Christ, an overworked
mans Christ, an invalid's Christ, farm
er's Christ, a merchants Christ, an arti-
sans Christ, an every mans Christ.
A symmetrical and fine worded system
lof theology Is well enough for theological
classes, but It has no more business in
pulpit than have the technical phrases Of
an anatomist or psychologist or ply
sician in the sickroom of 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 1t, filling it as
full of light as Is this monday armament.
That sermon or exhortation of the fu-
ture will not deal with men in the thread
bare illustrations of Jesus Christ. In
that coming address there will be in
stances of vicarious suffering taken right
81 Iat, f,,rf tnpa &c mot "a
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
ibis vessel while he is getting his passen-
gers into the lifeboat; as the fireman con-
Stunning in the burning building while he
is taking child out of a 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;
Jas the newspaper boy one summer, sup
porting his mother for some years, his in
valid mother, when offered by gentle
man so cents to get some special paper,
,and he got it, and rushed up in his anx-
iiicty to deliver it and was crushed under
the wheels Of the train and lay on the
grass with only strength enough to say,
l"Oh, what will become Of my poor, sick
mother nowT Vicarious suffering-the
world is full of it. An engineer said to
me on Il locomotive IN Dakota: 1--WE men
seem to be coming to better appreciation
than we used to. Did you see that &C.
lcount the other day of an engineer who
No save his passengers stuck to his place,
and when he was found dead in the loco
motive, which was upside down, he was
found still smiling, his hand on the air.
brake" And rs the engineer said it to
me he put his hand on the airbrake to H.
Illustrate his meaning, and looked at him
and thought, "You would be just as much
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 vicarious suffering-illus-
trations that will bring to mind the ghast-
lier sacrifice of him who In the high
places of the field, on the cross, fought
Our battles and endured our struggle and
died our death.
The Loving Christ.
A German sculptor made an image of
Christ, and he asked his little child, 2
years old, who 1t was, and she said, THAT
must be some very great man." The
sculptor was displeased with the criti-
5cism, 80 he got another block Of marble
land chiseled away on 1t two or three
Years, and then he brought In his little
child, 4 or 8 years Of age, and said to
her, "Who do you think that isl" She
said, THAT must be the one who took
little children in his arms and blessed
them" Then the sculptor was satisfied.
Oh, my friends, what the world wants is
not cold Christ, not an intellectual
Christ, not severely magisterial Christ,
but loving Christ, spreading out his
arms Of sympathy to press the whole
world to his loving heart!
But / remark again that the religious
discourse of the future will have to be
short. Condensation Is demanded by the
age in which we live. No more need of
long introductions and long applications
and so many divisions to n discourse that
1t may be said to be hydra headed. In
other days men got oil their information
from the pulpit There were few books,
and there were no newspapers, and there
was little travel from place to place, and
people would sit and listen two and
half hours to a religious discourse, and
"seventeenthly" would find them fresh
and clipper In those days there was
enough time for man to take an hour
to warm himself up to the subject and
mn hour to cool of. But what was a ne
cessity then is a supcrfuity now. Con-
gregations are full Of knowledge from
books, from newspapers, from rapid and
continuous intercomnunication and long
. ~
will not be abided. II religious teacher
cannot compress what he wishes to say
to the people In the space Of 45 minutes,
hattar adio,irn II IN ANNA other dav