The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-09-24

ttct Is to lift the nations toward God and prepare them for heaven.
 Meeting Public Needs.
 An. my friends, churches will he largely attended just in proportion as we nnniS- ,I; ferings,, meet their bereavements ana meet their sympathies. If there be church with small help small auoa snce, help. large audience If there be a fam inc in a city and three depots or bread and one depot has 100 ''oaves and @ another 800 loaves and another depo. aovS ,,i iobaes hMs applicants. the depot that has 5o0 loaves will have far more applicants. ana the depot that has 10000 loaVes VIII nave throngs, throngs, throngs.
 Oh, my brethren in the Christian min istry. we must somehow. get our shoui- der under the burden of the people on the hords day and giTe them Ws bs~e gooe t s'II alI our own way. It is a great pity 1T. with the floor clear and no Interruption, we cannot during the course or an hour get our hymn or our prayer or our sermon under such momentum we can by the help of God lift the people. body, mind and soul. clear out of their sins. tempta- tions and troubles.
 I think that ministerial laziness often empties the church of auditors. Hearers. who are intelligent through reading news papers and by active associauon m pusi. ness circles, will not on the Sabbath sit and listen to platitudes. Hearers VIII not come to sermons which have in them no important facts. no information, no stirring power, no adaptation, no fire. The pew will not listen to the pulpit unless the pulpit knows more than the pew. Ministerial laZinesS has cleared out many churches. Such ministers saunter around from parlor to parlor under the name Of pastoral visitation and go gadding about through the village or the city on er- railds of complete nothfngness and wrap their brains around cigar and smoke them and then Saturday afternoon put few crude thoughts together and on Sunday morning wonder that the theme of Christ and him crucihed does not bring large audience, ana on Mon day sit down and write jeremiads for the religious newspapers about the decadence of church attendance.
 ChurI nSolng as a Duty.
 People will not go to church merely as Sabbath be a thousand people in any city who will get up in the morning and say: ''The Bible says must go to church. II will go to church" The vast multitude of people who go to church. go to church because they like 1t, and the multitude Of people who stay away from ,; church stay not speaking about the way the world ought to be; I am speaking about the way the world is. Taking things as they are, we must make the centripetal force of the church mghtier than the centrifugal.
 We must make our churches magnates to draw the people thereunto. so that a man will feel uneasy 1T re does not go this morning. I wonder if can't dress yet and get there in time: It Is Il o'clock; !; now they are singing. It is half past Il i; now they are preaching. I wonder when the folks will be home to tell us what was said, what has been g5ing on." When the impression is confirmed that our churches, by architecture, by music, by sociality and by sermon, shall be made the most attractive places 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 peo- pie.
 say to the young men who are enter ing the ministry, we must put on more force, more energy and into our religious people to come. You look into a church court of any denomination of Christians. First you will ind the men of large com mon sense and earnest look. The educa- ton 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 denomina- tion a group of men who utterly amaze you with the fact that such seml-tm- becility 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; always in | stagnant But I say to all Christian workers. to all Sunday school teachers. to all eYangelsts, to all ministers of the and our prayer meetings and our churches to gather the people. we must freshen up. The simple fact is the peo- pie are tired of the humdrum of relig- ionists. Religious humdrum is the worst of all humdrum. You say over and over again Come to Jesus" until the phrase means absolutely nothing Why do you not tell them a story which will make them come to Jesus in five minutes? You say. that all Sunday school teach CTS and all evangelists and all ministers hrinu illIISfroffOn 70 Bible. Christ did not when he preached. The most of the Bible was written before Christ's time, but where did he get his illustrations? He drew them from the lilies, from the ravens, from salt, from a candle, from a bushel. from long-faced hypOcrites. from gnats. from. moths from large, gates and small gates. from a In the dough of bread, from a mustard seed, from fishing net, from debtors and creditors That is the reason multitudes so easy and so understandable. There fore, my brother Christian worker. if you and find two illustrations for religious subject and the one Is a Bible illustration take the latter because I want to be like the Master. Looking across to hill. Christ saw the city of Jerusalem. Talk ing to the people about the conspicuity of Chrustian example. he said: ''The world is | looking at you. Be careful. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid" While he l was SpeaklnS or the ulNlne care Ol Oou children bird flew past: He said, Be Be into the valley. all covered at that sea son with flowers. he said. Consider the 1 lilies" Oh, my brother Christian work CTS, what Is the use of going away off In some obscure part of history or on the | other side of the earth to get an illustra- | tion when the earth and the heavens are | full of illustrations?
 VicaT!ous Suffering.
 Why should W go away of to get an | illustration of the Vicarious suffering Of | Jesus Christ when at Bloomfield, N J., 1 two little children were walking on the | rail track and train was coming; but they were on bridge of trestlework, and 1 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 hurt in the fall and might be picked up by those Who were standing near by; while doing that the tram struck her, and hardly enough of her body was left to gather into funeral casket? What was that? Nlca- rious suffering. Like Christ. Pang TOT TOT others. Death for others. what IS tne use of our going away off to hnd an II. lustra tion in past ages when in Michlgah mail carrier on horseback, riding on. pursued by those flames which had swept over a hundred miles, saw an old man by the roadside, dismounted. helped the old man on the horse. saving. NOW, NOW got away, but the mail carrier perlshed. Just Ike Christ dismounting from the glories of heaven to put us on the way of deliverance then falling back into the flames of sacrifice for others. Fang TOT others Voc for others DeSh TOT is use of going away off in ancient history | to find an illustration of the fact that IL