The Yale expositor., 1900-08-17

j
all cities impress upon me and ought
to impress upon you three or four very
important lessons. all of them agree
ing in the same thing. II does not
make any difference in what part of
the country We walk the streets of a
great city there is one lesson l think
which ought to strike every intelligent
Christian man. and that is that the
world is a scene of toll and struggle.
Here and there you find a man in the
street who has his arms folded and
who seems to have no particular err
rand, but If you will stand at the cor
ner Of the street and watch the coun-
tenances of those who go by you will
see in most instances there is an in
timation that they are on an errand
which must be executed at the earliest
moment possible, so you are jostled
hither and thither by business men, up
this ladder with a hod of bricks, out
of this bank with a roll of bills, dig
ging a cellar, Singing a roof. binding
a book, mending a watch. Work with
its thousand eyes and thousand feet
and thousand arms. goes on singing
its song, Work. work, work." while
the drums of the mill beat it and the
steam whistles fife it. In the carpeted
aisles of the forest, in the woods from
which the eternal shadow is never lift
ed, on the shore of the sea over whose
iron coast losses the tangled foam,
sprinkling the cracked cliffs with a
baptism Of whirlwind and tempest, is
the best place to study God, but in the
rushing, swarming, waving street is
the best place to study man.
Going down to your place Of bust
ness and coming home again l charge
you look about; see these signs of pow
erty, of wretchedness, of hunger, of
sin, Of bereavement, and as you go
through the streets, and come back
through the streets, gather up in the
arms of your prayer all the sorrow, all
the losses. all the sufferings, all the
bereavements of those whom you pass
and present them in prayer before an
all sympathetic God. In the great day
of eternity there Will be thousands Of
persons with whom you in this world
never exchanged one word will rise
up and call you blessed; and there
will be a thousand fingers pointed at
you in heaven. saying: That is the
man, that is the woman who helped
me when l was hungry and sick and
wandering and lost and heart-broken.
That is the man. that is the woman"
and the blessing will come down upon
you as Christ shall say: Il was hun
CRY and We fed me, was naked and we
clothed me. | was sick and in prison
and we visited me; inasmuch as ye
did it to these poor waits of the streets
We did it unto me-"
Wicked ExclusIvsness-
Again, in all cities l am impressed
with the fact that all classes and con-
ditions of society must comminSle. We
sometimes cultivate a wicked eXclu-
siveness. Intellect despises ignorance.
Refinement will have nothing to do
with boorishness. Gloves hate the sun
burned hand, and the high forehead
despises the fat head, and the trim
hedgerow will have nothing to do with
the wild copsewood, and Athens hates
Nazareth. This ought not so to be. l
like the democratic principle of the
gospel of Jesus Christ which recog-
nizes the fact that we stand before
God on one and the same platform.
DO not take on any airs. Whatever
position you have gained in society,
you are nothing but man. born OF
the same parent. regenerated by the
same spirit ,cleansed in the same blood,
to lie down in the same dust, to get
I'D in the same resurrection. 1t is
high time that we all acknowledged
not only the fatherhood of God, but
the brotherhood of man.
Again, in all cities / am impressed
with the fact that it is a very hard
thing for man to keep his heart right
and to get to heaven. Infinite temp
tations spring upon us from places OF
public concourse. Amid so much aflu-
ence. how much temptation to covet-
BUSINESS and to be disconnected with
our humble lot! Amid so many OPP
portunities for overreaching. what
temotation to extortion! Amid so
much display, what temptation to van
ity! Amid so many saloons of strong
drink, what allurement to dissipation
In the maelstroms and hell gates OF the
street, how many make quick and
eternal shipwreck! If a man-of-war
comes back from a battle and is towed
into the navy yard. we go down to look
at the splintered spars and count the
bullet. holes and look with patriotic
admiration on the flag that floated in
victory from the masthead But that
man is more Of curiosity who has
gone through 80 years of the sharp
shooting of business life and yet sails
on, victor over the temptations of the
street. Oh. how many have gone down
under the pressure. leaving not so
much as a patch of canvas to tell
where they persisted! They never had