The Greenville times., 1900-02-10

was kept under the hills. Well, this is
the difficulty with the church of God
al this day. Its talent is not developed.
If one-half of its energy could be
brought out, it might take the public
iniquities of the day by the throat and
make them bite the dust. If human
eloquence were consecrated TO the Lord
Jesus Christ, il would in few years
persuade this whole earth to surrender
10 God. There is enough undevcioped
energy in this city to bring all the
United States to Christ-enough of un-
developed Christian energy in the Unit
ed States to bring the whole world to
Christ, but it is buried under strata
of indifference and under whole noun
tains of sloth. Now is ii not time for
the mining to begin, and the plckaxes
to plunge, and for this hurried metal to
be brought out and put into the fur
naces and be turned into howitzers and
carbines for the Lords host?
The vast majority of Christians in
this day are useless. The most of the
Lords battalion belong to the reserve
corps. The most of the crew are asleep
in the hammocks. The most of the
metal is under the hills. Oh, is it not
time for the church OF God to rouse up
and understand that we want all the
energies, all the talent and all the
wealth enlisted for Christ's sake? |
like the nickname that the English sol
diers gave to Blucher, the commander.
They called him "Old Forwards" We
have had enough retreats in the church
of Christ; let us have glorious ad-
vance. And 1 say to you rs the general
said when his troops were affrighted-
rising up in his stirrups, his hair flying
in the wind, he lifted up his voice until
10000 troops heard him crying out:
Forward, the whole line!" We want
all the laymen enlisted. Ministers are
numerically too small. They do the
best they can. They are the most over
worked class on earth. Many ofthem
die of dyspepsia because they cannot
get the right kind of food to eat, or,
getting the right kind, are so worried
that they take it down in chunks. They
die from early and late exposure.
If novelist or historian publishes
one book a year, he is considered in
dustrious. but every faithful pastor
must originate enough thought for
three or four volumes year. Minis
ters receive enough calls in year from
men who have maps and medicines and
lightning rods and pictures to sell to
exhaust their vitality. They are
bored with agents of all sorts. They
are set in drafts at funerals and pois-
oned by the unventilated rooms of in
valids and waited upon by committees
who want addresses made until life
becomes a burden to bear. 1t is not
hard study that makes ministers look
pale. 1t is the infnity of Interruptions
and deliberations to which they are
subjected. Numerically too small! 1t
is no more the work of the pulpit to
convert and save the world than it is
the work of the pew. If men go to
ruin, there will be as much blood on
your skirts as on mine.
Let us quit this grand farce of trying
to save the world by few clergymen,
and let all hands lay hold of the work.
Give us, in all our churches, two or
three aroused and qualified men and
women to help. In most churches to-
day five or ten men are compelled to do
all the work. A vast majority OF
churches are at their wits end how to
carry on prayer meeting If the minis
ter is not there, when there ought to be
enough pent up energy and religious
force to make a meeting go on with
such power that the minister would
never be missed. The church stands
working the pumps of few ministerial
cisterns until the buckets are dry and
choked, while there are thousands of
fountains from which might be dipped
up the waters of eternal life. Before
YOU and l have the sod pressing our
eyelids we will, under God, decide
whether our children shall grow up
amid the accursed surroundings of vice
and shame or come to an inheritance
of righteousness. Long, loud, bitter,
will be the curse that scorches our
grave if holding within the church to-
day enough men and women to save
the city we act the coward or the drone.
1 wish I could put enough moral eX-
plosives under the conven'tionalities
and majestic stupidities of the day to
blow them to atoms and that then, with
$4,000 men and women from all the
churches knowing nothing but Christ
10 hrir oil 70 world
him, we might move upon the enemy's
works. For little while Heaven
would not have trumEets enough to
celebrate the victories.
Again, learn from this subject that
we sometimes do well to take advantage
of the worlds grindstones. These Is
raelites were reduced to file, and so
they went over to the garrison of the
Philistines to get their axes and their
goads and their plows sharpened. The
Bible distinctly states it = the text
which l read at the beginning of the
service-that they had no other in
struments now with which to do this
work, and the Israelites did right when
they went over to the Philistines to use
their grindstones. My friends, is it not
right for us to employ the worlds
grindstones? If there be art, if there be
logic, if there be business faculty on the
other side, let us go over and employ it
for Christ's sake. The fact is we fight
with too dull weapons and we work
with too dull implements. We hack and
we maui when we ought to make a
clean stroke. Let us go over among
sharp business men and among sharp
literary men and find out what their
tact is and then transfer it to the cause
of Christ. If they have science and art,