Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-10-01

flHSUOm- My IFlouuS, religion Is Ell
ther q sham or 2 great reality. If it be
a sham, let us disband our churches
and Christian associations. If it be q
reality, then great populations are on
the way to the bar of God untitled for
the ordeal. And what are we doing?
Drop Religious Technicalities.
In order to reach the multitude Of
outsiders we must drop all technicali-
ties out of our religion. When we talk
to people about the hypostatic union
and French encyclopedianisma and Eras-
tinianism and Complutensianism, we
are ,impolitic and as little understood
as if a physician should talk to an or
binary patient about the pericardium
and intercostal muscle and scorbutic
symptoms. Many of us come out of
the theological seminaries SO loaded
up that we take the first ten years to
show our people how much we know
and the next ten years to get our peo-
pie to know as much as we know, and
at the end we find that neither of us
knows anything as we ought to know.
Here are hundreds Of thousands of
shining, struggling and dying people
who need to realize just one thing
that Jesus Christ came to save them
and will save them now. But we got
into a profound and elaborate defini-
ton of what justification is, and after
all the work there are not, outside Of
the learned professions, 10000 people
who can tell what justification is. I
will read you the definitions: "Justifi-
cation is purely a forensic act, the act
of a judge sitting in the forum, in
which the Supreme Ruler and Judge,
who is accountable to none and who
alone knows the manner in which the
ends of his universal government can
best be obtained, reckons that which
was done by the substitute in the
same manner as if it had been done by
those who believe in the substitute and
purely on account of this gracious
method of reckoning grants them the
full remission of their SINS"
Now, what is justification? 1 will
tell you what justification is-when Il
sinner believes. God lets him Off One
summer in Connecticut I went to a
large factory and | saw over the door
written the words, mo Admittance."
l entered and saw over the next door,
mo Admittance." Of course | enter
ed | got inside and found it a pin
factory, and they were making pins
very serviceable, fine and useful pins.
So the spirit of eXclusiveness has prac-
tically written over the outside door
of many church, mo Admittance."
And if the stranger enters he finds
practically written over the second
door. mo Admittance," and if he goes
in over all the pew doors seems writ
ten, mo AGmittance," while the min
lister stands liz the pulpit hammering
out his little niceties of belief. pound
ing out the technicalities of religion,
making pins. In the most practical
common sense way and laying aside
the nonessentials and the hard defni-
lions of religion go out on the God CIV
en- mission. telling the people what
they need and when and how they call
get it.
Save the SLeptics.
Comparatively little effort as yet has
been made to save that large class of
persons in our midst called skeptics,
and he who goes to work here will not
be building upon another mans foun-
dation There is a large number Of
them They are afraid of us and our
churches. for the reason we do not
know how to treat them. One of this
class met Christ and heard with what
and pathOs and beauty and
success Christ dealt with him: ''Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart. and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind and with all thy
strength This is the first and great
commandment, and the second is like
unto it namely. Thou shalt love thy
neighbor rs myself. There is none
other commandment greater than
these And the scribe said to him,
well. Master, thou hast said the
truth for there is one God. and to love
him with ali the heart, and all the I'M
derstanding. and all the soul, and all
the strength is more than whole burnt
offerings and sacrifices" And when
Jesus saw that he answered discreetly
he said unto him, ''Thou art not far
from the kingdom Of God" So
skeptic was saved in one interview.
But few Christian people treat the
skeptic in that way. Instead of taking
hold of him with the gentle hand of
love we are apt to take him with the
pinchers of ecclesiasticism.
You would not be SO rough on that
man if you knew how he lost his faith
in Christianity. | have known men
skeptical from the fact that they grew
up in houses where religion was over
done. Sunday was the most awful day
in the week. They had religion driven
into them with a trip hammer; they
were surfeited with prayer meetings;
they were stuffed and choked with cat
echisms; they were often told that they
were the worst boys the parents ever
knew because they liked to ride down