Connecticut western news., 1899-11-23

Must Take a Back Seat - Outlines
 His Idea of the Nature of the Com
 Ing Sermon.
 Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1S99.l
 WASHINGTON, Nov. 19.-In this dis course Dr. Talmage addresses all Christian workers and describes what he thinks will be the modes of preach Ing the gospel in the future; text, Ro- mans xii, ', .Or ministry, let us wait m our ministering."
 While I was seated on piazza of hotel at Lexington, Ky, one summer evening gentleman asked me, What do you think of the coming sermon" l supposed he was asking me in regard to some new discourse of Dr. Cumming of London, who sometimes preached startling sermons, and I replied, II have not seen it." But found out aft erward that he meant to ask what thought would be the characteristics of the coming sermon of the world, the sermons of the future, the word Cum ming" as a noun pronounced the same as the word coming" as an adjective. But my mistake suggested to me very important and practical theme. 'The Coming Sermon"
 Before the world Is converted the style of religious discourse will have to be converted. You might as we'll go into the modern Sedan or Gettys- burg with bows and arrows instead of rifles and bombshells and parks of ar tillery, as to expect to conquer this world for God by the old styles of ex- hortation and sermonology. Jonathan Edwards preached the sermons most adapted to the age in which he lived but if those sermons were preached now they would divide an audience into two classes-those sound asleep and those wanting to go home.
 But there is discourse of the future Who will preach 1t I have no idea. In what part of the earth it will be born have no idea. In which denomination of Christians 1t will be delivered l can not guess. That discourse of exhorta- tion may be born p the country meet ing house on the banks of the St. Law renee or the Oregon or the Ohio or the Tombigbee or the Alabama. The per son who shall deliver it may this mo- ment be in n cradle under the shadow of the Sierra Neyadas or in New England farmhouse or amid the rice fields of southern savannas, or this mo- ment 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 watchtowers of Zion, waking to real ization of our present inefHciency, may preach 1t ourselves. That coming dis course may not be 90 years off. And let us pray God that its arrival may be. hastened while I announce to you what I think will be the chief char acteristics of that discourse or exhorta- tion when 1t does arrive, and want to make my remarks appropriate and sug- gestive to all classes of Christian work CTS.
 A Living Christ.
 First of all, remark that that future religious discourse will be full of a liv ing Christ in contradistinction to di- dactic technicalities. A discourse may be full of Christ though hardly men, tiOning his name, and a sermon may be empty of Christ while every sentence is repetitious of his titles. The world wants a living Christ, not a Christ standing at the head of formal sys- tenn of theology, but a Christ who means pardon and sympathy and con- dolence and brotherhood and life and heaven, a poor mans Christ, rich mans Christ, an overworked mans Christ, an invalid's Christ, farm CTS Christ, merchants Christ, an artisans Christ, an every mans Christ.
 A symmetrical and fine worded sys- tenn of theology Is well enough for the 0logical classes, but it has no more business in pulpit than have the technical phrases of an anatomist or a psychologist or a physician in the sick room of patient. The world wants help, immediate and world uplifting, and 1t will come through discourse in which Christ shall walk right down into the immortal soul and take ever lasting possession of it. filling 1t as full of light as is this monday Armament.
 That sermon or eXhortation of the future will not deal with men in the threadbare Illustrations of Jesus Christ In that coming address there will be instances of vicarious suffering taken right out of everyday life, for there is not day when somebody is not dying for others-as the physician saving his diphtheritic patient by sacrificing his own life; as the ship captain going down with his vessel while he is get ting his passengers into the ilifeboat; as the fireman consuming In the burning building while he is taking a child out of fourth story window; as in sum- mer the strong swimmer at East Hampton or Long Branch or Cape May or Lake George himself perished try ing to rescue the drowning; as the newspaper boy one summer, support ing his mother for some years, his in- valid mother, when offered by gentle man 50 cents to get some special pa per. and he got it and rushed up in his anxiety 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" Yicarious 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 account the other day of an engineer who to save his passen- gers stuck to his place, and when he was found dead in the locomotive, which was upside down, he was found still smiling, his hand on the air brakew And as the engineer said it to me he put his hand on the airbrake to illustrate his meaning, and looked at him and thought. You would be just as much hero in the same crisis"
 Oh, in that religious discourse of the future there will be living illustra- tions taken out from everyday life of