The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-09-20
centripetal force of the church

that man will feel uneasy if he does
not go to church, saying: II wish !
had gone this morning. / wonder if
1 can't dress yet and get there in
time. 1t is IL o'clock; now they are
singing. 1t is half past IL; now they
are preaching. 1 wonder when the
folks will be home to tell us what
was said, what has been going on"
When the impression is confirmed
that our churches, by architecture. by
music, by sociabIlity and by sermon,
shall be made the most attractive
place on earth, then we will want
twice as many churches as we have
now, twice as large, and then they
will not half accommodate the people.
l say to the young men who are en-
tering the ministry, we must put on
more force, more energy and into our
religious services more vivacity if we
want the people to come. You look
into a church court of any denomi-
nation of Christians. First you will
find the men of large common sense
and earnest look. The education of
their minds, the piety of their
hearts, the holiness of their lives,
qualify them for their work. Then
you will find in every church court
of every denomination group of
men who utterly amaze you with the
fact that such semi-imbecility can
get any pulpits to preach in! Those
are the men who give forlorn sta
tistics about church decadence. Frogs
never croak in running water; al
ways in stagnant. But I say to all
Christian workers, to all Sunday
school teachers, to all evangelists, to
all ministers of the Gospel, if we
want our Sunday schools and our
prayer meetings and our churches
to gather the people we must fresh
en- up.
Why should we go away to get an
illustration of the vicarious suffering
of Jesus Christ when at Bloomfield,
n. j., two little children were walk
ing on the rail track and a train was
coming; but they were on a bridge
of trestlework, and the little girl
took her brother and let him down
through the trestlework as gently as
she could toward the water, very
carefully and lovingly and cautious
ly, so that he might not be hurt in
the fall and might be picked up by
those who were standing near by;
while doing that the train struck
her, and hardly enough of her body
was left to gather into a funeral
casket? What was that? Vicarious
suffering. Like Christ. Pang for 9TH
ers. Woe for others. Suffering for
others. Death for others. What is
the use of our going away off to find
an illustration in past ages when in
Michigan a mail carrier on horse
back, riding on, pursued by those
flames which had swept over a hun
dred miles, saw an old man by the
roadside, dismounted, helped the old
man on the horse, saying: "Now,
whip up and get away?" The old
man got away, but the mail carrier
persisted. Just like Christ dismount-
ing from the glories of Heaven to
put us on the way of deliverance,
then falling back in the flames of
sacrifice for others. Pang for others.
Woe for others. Death for others.
Nicarious suffering. What is the use
of our going away off in ancient his
tory to find an illustration of the
fact that it is dangerous to defy God
when in the Adirondacks l saw
flash of lightning and bolt so vivid
/ said: THAT strHdk something very
near?" A few hours afterward we
found that two farmers that Monday
morning had been seated under a
tree, the one boasting how that the
day before-on the Lords day-he
had got his hay in and so cheated
the Lord out of that part of the time
anyhow, and both of them laughing
over the achievement by which they
had wronged tire Lord of His holy
day, when the lightning struck one
dead instantly, and the other had
been two weeks in bed when we left
the Adirondacks and has become an
invalid, L suppose, for life. He did
not make as much out of the Lord s
he thought he did. Was it any less
an illustration for my soul because
1 met the clergyman on his way home
from the funeral, and he told me OF
the facts and said the body of the
man who had been destroyed was
black with the electricity?
o Christian workers, we have got
to freshen up. What is the use of
our going back in the Christian clas-
sizes to find an illustration of the VIC
torious Christian deathbed when my
personal friend, Alfred Goodman, a
few years ago went away in as inn
perial grandeur as did Edward Pay
son? Is it any less an illustration to
me and to you because l met him a
few weeks before in front of Trinity
church, Broadway, and 1 said
Goodman, you look as if you were
working too hard?" Where in all
the classics is there such story as
that \of Goodman when, in his last
moment, he cried: 81 am sweeping
through the gates washed in the
blood of the Lamb?'
Oh, fellow Christian workers, what is
the use of our being stale and obsolete
and ancient when all around us are
these evidences of Gods grace, Gods
deliverance, Gods mercy and Gods
wisdom? We have got to freshen up
in our sermons, freshen up in our
songs, freshen up in our zeal, freshen
up in our consecra ton, snd if we do it,
my brethren and sisters, we will no
more have to coax people to come TO
church than if you throw corn on the
ground you have to coax pigeons to
come and eat it, no more than you
would have to coax tired horse to eat
oats you throw in his manger. Yes,
we must freshen up IN our Sunday
and in our pulpits.