Connecticut western news., 1901-09-19

statistics about church decadenc,
 Frogs never croak in running water, always in stagnant. But I say to all Christian workers. to all Sunday school teachers, to all evangelists, to all min isters of the gospel, if we want our Sunday schools and our prayer meet. ings and our churches to gather the people we must freshen up. The sim
 pie fact is the people are tired of the humdrum of religionlsts.
 You say that all Sunday school teach CTS and all evangelists and all minis
 ters must bring their illustrations from the Bible. Christ did not when he preached. The most of the Bible was written before Clrist's time, but where did he get his illustrations? He drew them from the lilies, from the ravens
 from salt, from candle, from bush el, from long faced hypocrites, iron
 gnats, from moths, from large gates and small gates, from camel, from the needles eye, from yeast in tn, dough of bread, from a mustard seed
 from a fishing net, from debtors and creditors. That Is the reason multi tudes followed Christ. His illustra. tions were so easy and so understand able. Therefore, my brother Christian
 worker, if you and 1 find two illustra- tions for a religious subject, and the one Is a Bible illustration and the oth- CT Is outside the Bible, will take the latter because 1 want to be like my Master. Looking across to hill, Christ saw the city of Jerusalem. Talking to the people about the conspicuity of Christian example, he said: "The world Is looking at you; be careful. A city that Is set on hill cannot be hid" While he was speaking of the divine care of Gods children a bird flew past. He said, Behold the ravens" Then, looking down into the valley, al' covered at that season with flowers, he said, Consider the lilies." Oh, my brother Christian workers, what Is the
 use of our going away off in some oh- scure part of history or on the other side of the earth to get an illustration | when the earth and the heavens are full of illustrations?
 Modern Christianity.
 Why should we go away to get an H. lustration of the vicarious suffering of | Jesus Christ when at Bloomfield, N. J., | two little children were walking on the rail track and train was coming, but they were on bridge of trestlework, and the little girl took her brother and | let him down through the trestlework as gently as she could toward the wa | ter very carefully and lovingly and | cautiously, 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? Yicarious suffering; | like Christ; pang for others; 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 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, saying, "Now whip | up and get away" The old man got away, but the mail carrier perished. | Just like Christ dismounting from the I glories of heaven to put us on the way | of deliverance, then falling back into | the flames of sacrifice for others. Fang I for others; woe for others; death for others; vicarious suffering. What Is | the use of our going away off in an- ] cient history to find an illustration of
 the fact that 1t is dangerous to defy | God when in the Adirondacks saw a flash of lightning and bolt so vivid | said, That struck 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 be- fore, 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 | by which they had wronged the Lord
 of his holy day, when the lightning
 struck one dead instantly and the oth- | CT 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 as
 he thought he did. Was 1t any less an | illustration for my soul because I 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
 electricityi Heaven Very Near.
 Oh, Christian workers, we have got
 to freshen up. What is the use of our | going back in the Christian classics to
 ind an illustration of the victorious l Christian deathbed when my personal | friend, Alfred Goodman, a few years
 ago went away in as imperial grandeur
 as did Edward Payson? Is it any less an illustration to me and to you be,
 cause I met him a few weeks before in
 front of Trinity church, Broadway, and
 1 said, Goodman, you look as if you
 were working too hardY Where In all the classics Is there such a story as
 that of Goodman, when in his last mo-
 ment he cried, II am sweeping through
 the gates washed In the blood of the
 LambY
 What Is the use of going away off to
 ret an illustration when in house on
 Third avenue. Brooklyn, I saw a wo-
 man dying, and she said, MT. Tal.
 mage, heaven used to be to me great
 way off, but 1t now Is just at the foot
 of the bedf" What Is the use of your
 going away off to get illustrations of Q
 victorious deathbed when all Wales
 was filled with the story of the dying
 experience of Frances Ridley Haver.
 gal? She got her feet wet standing on
 the ground preaching temperance and
 the gospel to group of boys and men
 went home with chill, and conges
 ton set in, and they told her she was
 dangerously sick. T thought so," she
 said, but 1t is really too good to be
 true thnt am going. Doctor, do you
 really think I am going?" "Yes.'
 "TodayT Probably" She said, Beau
 tiful, splendid, to be so near the gate
 of heaven" Then after a spasm of