Connecticut western news., 1901-09-19

SoSDtl thdl " VII hitIi dll tAlN "NNn and help them forever?
 Young ministers are told they must preach Christ and him crucified. Yes, but not as an abstraction. Many minister has preached Christ and him crucitied In such way that he preach ed an audience of 500 down to POO and from POO to 100 and from 100 to 90 and from 50 to 20 and on down until there was but little left save the sexton, who was paid to stay until the service was over and lock up! There Is great deal of cant about Christ and him crucitied. It Is not Christ and him crucified as an abstraction. but as an omnipotent sympathy applied to all the wants and woes of our immortal nature, Christ who will help us in every domestic, so- cial, financial, political. national strug- gle. Christ for the parlor, Christ for the nursery. q Christ for the kitchen, Christ for the barn, Christ for the street, Christ for the store, Christ for the banking house, Christ for the factory, Christ for the congressional assembly, Christ for the courtroom, Christ for every trial and every emer- gency and every perturbation.
 It is often the case that the difficulty begins clear back in the home circle, with misapprehension as to which child ought to be consecrated to the minis try. John Is a keen, bright boy. He is good at bargain. When he trades at school, he always gets the best of 1t. Make him a merchant. He will soon gather a fortune and go right up to take his place among the commercial princes. George has great cerebral de- velopment Phrenologically, language is large. Make him lawyer. He will argue his way to the front, and he will take his place among the Manstields and the Storys. Henry has large girth at the chest and Is military in his step and bearing. Send him to West Point. We shall see him yet a brigadier gen. eral. William Is fond of sketching, es- pecially of sketching ships, and he knows as much about a vessel as an old sailor. Make him a shipbuilder. The vessel that he builds will success fully wrestle with the Caribbean whirl- wind. Aleck Is not very well. He has never had very good digestion. Since that last malarial attack his spleen Is enlarged. He has morbid way of looking at things. He will sit for hours looking at one figure In the carpet. His manners are so mild. so soft, so gentle, so affectionate, so heavenly, and he cries easily. Make him a minister. Now, my friends, that Is a great mis- take. If you want to consecrate one of your sons to the gospel ministry, take the one widest awake, the DraNn- iest the most brilliant, the most ire sistible, the most potent A tremen- dous work opens before profession whose one object is to lift the nations toward God and prepare them for heaven.
 Ministerial Lnziness Denounced.
 An, my friends, churches will bc largely attended just in proportion as we ministers can meet their wants meet their sufferings, meet their be- reavements and meet their sympathies. If there be a church with small help, small audience; medium help, medium audience; large help, large audience. If there be a famine In a city and three depots of bread and one de pot have hundred ioaves and an- other depot five hundred loaves and an- other depot ten thousand loaves, the depot that has a hundred loayes will have applicants, the depot that has five hundred loaves will have far more ap- plicants, the depot that has ten thou sand loaves will have throngs, throngs, throngs.
 Oh, my brethren In the Christian ministry, we must somehow get our shoulder under the burden of the peo- pie on the Lords day and give them a good stout lift, and we can do it. We have 1t all our own way. It Is great pity if, with the floor clear and no in- terruption, we cannot during the course of 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, temptations and troubles.
 I think that ministerial laZiness often empties the church of auditors. Hear CTS who arc intelligent through reading newspapers and by active association in business circles will not on the Sab bath sit and listen to platitudes. Hear CTS will 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 at least on the subject that day under discussion, the pulpit knows more than the pew. Ministerial laziness has cleared out ter around from parlor to parlor under the name of pastoral visitation and go gadding about through the village or the city on errands of complete noth- ingness and wrap their brains around a cigar and smoke them up and then on Saturday afternoon put a few crude thoughts together and on Sunday morning wonder that the theme of Christ and him crucified does not bring a large audience and on Monday sit down and write jeremiaGs for the re- ligious newspapers about the deca- dence of church attendance.
 Advice to Young Preachers.
 People will not go. to church merely as a matter of duty. There will not next Sabbath be a thousand people in any city who will get up in the morn ing and say: 'The Bible says I must go to church. It Is my duty to go to church; therefore I 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 away be- cause they do not like 1t. I am not speaking about the way the world ought to be; am speaking about the way the world is. Taking things as they are, we must make the centripetal force of the church mightier than the centrifugal. We must make our church.
 es magnets to draw the people there
 unto, so that a man will feel uneasy If
 he does not go to church, saying: q wish l had gone this morning. l won. der If l can't dress yet and get there in time. It is Il o'clock; now they are singing. It Is half past II; now they are preaching. 1 wonder when the folks will be home to tell HIS what was