The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1900-10-11
REV. DR.. TALMAGE
DISCOURSE By 'cIE EMINENT Dt
VINE LAST SUNDAY
Subject Spread the Gospel-Efforts OF
the Churches Should Be Directed
Toward Saving Sinners-They Should
Get in Sympathy With Strangers.
copyright 1901


that are not yet thoroughly cultivated,
and shows the need Of more activity. The
| text is Romans XIV, 20, Lest l should
build upon another mans foundation"
In laying out the plan of his missionary
tour Paul sought out towns and cities
| which had not yet been preached to. lie
| goes to Corinth, a city famous Tor splen-
dor and vice. and Jerusalem, where the
| priesthood and the sanhedrin were ready
| to leap with both feet upon the Christian
religion. He feels he has especial work
to do, and he means to do it. What. was
the result? The Grandest life of usefulness
| that a man ever lived. We modern Chris
tan workers are not apt to initiate Paul.
We build on other peoples foundations.
If we erect a church, we prefer to have IL
| filed with families all of whom have been
pious. Do we gather a Sabbath-schooi class,
we want good boys and girls, hair combed,
faces washed, manners attractive. 50
church in this day is apt to be built out
of other churches Some ministers spend
all their time in fishing in other peoples
ponds, and they throw the line into that
church pond and jerk out o Methodist,
| and throw the line into another church
pond and bring out Presbyterian, or
there is religious row in some nelghhor-
ing church. and a whole school OF hsh
swim off from that pond, and we take
them all in with one sweep OF the net.
What is gained? Absolutely nothing for
the cause of Christ What strengthens an
army is new recruits. While courteous to
those coming from other focks, we should
build our churches not out of other
churches. but out of the world, lest we
| build on another mans foundation.
The fact is this is big world. When
in our schooboy days we learned the dla-
meter and circumference Of this planet we
did not learn half. II is the latitude and
longitude and diameter and circumference
of want and woe and sin that no figures
can calculate. This one spiritual cont,
nent of Indebtedness reaches across all
| zones and if | were called to give its geo
| graphical boundary | would say it was
! bounded on the north and south and east
| and west by the great heart of Gods sym
pathy and love. Oh, it is a great world!
Since o'clock this morning 60S0O persons
| have been born, and all these multiplied
| populations are to be reached by the Cos
| pei. In England or in our Eastern Amerl-
| can cities we are being much crowded,
and an acre of ground is of great value,
| but in Western America 800 acres Is a
| small farm, and 10000 acres Is no unusual
possession There is a vast field here and
everywhere unoccupied, plenty OF room
more, not building on another mans toun-
| dation.
We need as churches to stop lombard
| ing the old iron-clad sinners that have
been proof against thirty years of Chris
tan assault. Alas for that church winch
| lacks the spirit of evangelism, spending
! on one chandelier enough to hight 30O
souls to glory, and in one carved pillar
enough to have made thousand men
pillars in the house of our God forever,
and doing less good than many log
cabin Westinghouse with talloW candles
stuck in wooden sockets and minister
who has never seen a college and does
net know the difference between Greek
| and Choctaw! We need as churches to
get into sympathy with the great outside
world, and let them know that none are
so broken-hearted or hardly bestead that
some fastidious Christian; Il don't like to
be crowded in church. Don't put any one
in my pew"
My brother. what will you do in heaven?
| When a great multitude that no man can
number assemblies, they will put fifty IN
your pew. What are the select few to-day
assembled in the Christian churches com
| pared with the mightier millions outside
| of them? Many of the churches are like
a hospital that should advertise that its
patients must have nothing more than
| toothache or run rounds, but no broken
| heads, no crushed ankles, no fractured
| thighs. Give us for treatment moderate
sinners, velvet-coated sinners and sinners
with a gloss on. 1t is as though man
work on one acre. He may raise ever so
large ears of corn, ever so big heads OF
| wheat - he would remain poor. Inc
church of God has bestowed its chief care
on one acre, and has raised splendid men
women in that small Enclosure, but the
field is the world. That means North
| and South America, Europe, Asia and
Africa and all the islands OF the sea-, 1t
is as though, after great battle, there
were left 80, 000 wounded and dying on the
| field and three surgeons gave all their
time to three patients under their charge
The major general comes in and says to
the doctors, Come out here and look at
cal attendance" No" say the three doc
tors, standing there tanning their, patients,
I'VE have three important case; here, and
we are attending to them, and when We
| are not positively busy with their wounds
it takes all our time to keep the flies off,
| In this awful battle of sin and sorrow,
where millions have fallen on millions, do
care of few people, and when the com
mand comes, Go into the world" say
practically: "No, L cannot. l have here
| few choice cases, and | am busy keepln1
off the flies There are multitudes to-
day who have never had any Christian
worker look them in the eye and with
earnestness in the accentuation say,
|
been in the kingdom. My friends, reh-
| gon is either a sham or a great reality.
Ii it be a sham, let US disband our
churches and Christian associations. II
| it be a reality, then great populations are
on the way to the bar of God untitled for
| the ordeal. And what are we doing?
In order to reach the multitude of out
siders we must drop all technicalities out
OF our religion. When we talk to people
about the hypostatic union and French
encyclopedianism and Erastinianism and
| COMPREHENSION, we are impolite and as
little understood as if physician should
talk to an ordinary patient about the per-
icardium and intercostal muscle and scor-
butte 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 people to know
as much as we know, and ct 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 dehni-