Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1901-01-11

come, or in the dark winter night we
look up and we see the northern
lights, the windows of Heaven IL
lumined by some great victory, just
SO we look up from the night of suf-
fering and sorrow and wretchedness
in our cities, and we see a light
streaming through from the other
side. and we know we are on the way
to morning-more than that, on the
way to ga morning without Clouds"
1 want you to understand, all you
who are toiling for Christ, that the
castles of sin are all going to be cap
tured. The victory for Christ in these
great towns is going to be so COM
plete that not a man on earth or an
angel in Heaven or a devil in hell will
dispute it. How do I know? I know
it Just as certainly as God lives and
that this il holy truth. The old Bible
is full of it. The nation is to be
saved It makes a great difference
with you and with me whether We are
toiling on toward a defeat or toiling
on toward a victory.
Now, in this municipal elevation of
which i speak, have to remark there
will be greater financial prosperity
people seem to have a morbid idea of
the millennium, and they think when
the better time comes to our cities
and the world people will give their
time up to psalm singing and the re-
lating of their religious experience,
and as all social life will be purified
there will be no hilarity, and as all
business will be purified there will be
no enterprise. There is no ground for
such an absurd anticipation. In the
time of which I speak, where now one
fortune is made there will be hun
dred fortunes made. We all know
business prosperity depends upon con-
fidence between man and man. Now,
when that time comes of which 1
speak, and all double dealing, all dis
honesty and all fraud are gone out OF
commercial circles, thorough conf
dence will be established, and there
will be better business done and
larger fortunes gathered and mightier
successes achieved.
the great business disasters of this
country have come from the work OF
goddess spectators and infamous
stock gamblers. The great foe to
business is crime. When the right
shall have hurled back the wrong, and
shall have purified the commercial
code, and shall have Numbered down
fraudulent establishments, and shall
have put into the hands of honest
! men the keys of business, blessed time
! for the bargain makers. I am not
| making a guess. 1 am telling you
| Gods eternal truth.
! In that better time also coming to
these cities the churches Of Christ will
be more numerous, and they will be
| larger, and they will be more devoted
to the service of Jesus Christ, and
they will accomplish greater inf1u-
ences for good. Now it is often the
case that churches are envious OF each
other, and denominations collide with
each other, and even ministers OF
Christ sometimes forget the bond OF
brotherhood, but in the time of which
I speak. while there will be just as
many differences of opinion as there
are now, there will be no acerbity, no
hypercriticism. no exc1usiveness.
In our great cities the churches are
not to-day large enough to hold more
! than a fourth of the population. The
! churches that are built-comparative-
! rev OIL IuoIu are 1ul1y OCCuR 1Co. L liz
! average attendance in the churches OF
the United States to-day is not 400.
Now, in the glorious time of which I
speak. there are going to be vast
churches. and they are going to be all
thrcpged with worshipers. Oh, what
rousing songs they will singI Oh,
what earnest sermons they will preach!
Oh. what fervent prayers they will Of
ylnA HID
a fashionable church is a place where
few people having attended very Gaze
fully to their toilet, come and sit
down-they do not want to be crowded
they like whole seat to themselves
and then, if they have any time ief.
from thinking of their store, and from
examining the style of the hat in front
of them. they sit and listen to a ser
mon warranted to hit no mans sins
and lisen to music which is rendered
by a choir warranted to sing tunes
that nobody knows! And then after
they go home refreshed. Every man
feels better that he has had a sleep!
In many of the churches Of Christ in
our day the music is simply mockery
I have not a cultivated ear nor q culiva.
ted voice yet no man can do my singing
for me. I have nothing to say against
artistic music. The two dollars or five
dollars pay to hear one Of the great
queens Of song is good investment
But when the people assemble in re
ligious convocation, and the hymn is
read, and the angels of God step from
their throne to catch the music or
their wings, do not let US drive them
away by our indifference.
Mr.. Eesler, of England. had theory
that if the natural forces of the wind