Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1905-08-28
hole communities will be born in a
A Personal History.

whole communities Will be born in a
day.
Personal History
Never was l more impressed with
this conviction than on one occasion
by the recital of a personal history of
a great American minister whom I
love we'll. For some years he had
been preaching in one of our southern
cities. The church seemed to be spir-
itually dead. The people loved him
with all the cordiality of the south
and socially did everything for him;
still he could not move them with the
message of his Master. One day a
friend came to him and said: DOC
tor the reason you cannot move this
city for God is not because the men
of the world do not believe in the
Saviour, but they do not believe in
the men and the women who are men,
bers of your church. Your church
people, they say, are no different from
any other kind of people. They gam
BILE, they drink wine, they dance, they
go to the theater, their names are the
most prominent among the society COL
umns of the city newspapers" Then
that friend told his pastor this story:
Some Of the chief members Of the
church had formed themselves into a
play cards. Each member was to con-
tribute weekly so much money, and
this money was to be taken by the
hostess of the week and a prize was
to be bought, to be presented to the
winner of the night. One week the
hostess forgot to buy the prize. In
stead she took the money and piled it
up on the center of the table, and
the winner of the evening took the
cash instead Of the prize which ought
to have been purchased. The winner
that night was the president of the
Christian Endeavor society of his
church and the wife of one of the
elders. 1.-THE history of that nights
play has gone all over the town." said
the informant. "Now, doctor, what is
the difference between those women
playing for cash and playing for a
picture or a vase? They are gamblers
any way you look at it,
My friend went into his pulpit next
Sunday and told that story. In his
sermon he said: Friends, are not
church members to be any different
from the men and women of the
world? Will you stand in the way of
the spiritual success of this church by
the worldliness of your own lives?' A
mighty reaction set in. Those church
members at once ceased their worldli
ness, their card playing, theater going,
dancing and other destroying acts Of
sin They gave themselves to Gods
work. The result-a wave Of spirit
ual influence swept over the city and
the whole state. Men and women,
shall we have this spiritual upheavaI
in our own churches? AS a conquer
ing army terrible with banners, shall
this church membership move out
upon this city? We can move thus if
we consecrate our own lives. The sin
full world today is not doubling Christ;
it is doubling our professions. We
soy lONC oOh, yet VIC dLS AOS w LII
ing to live for God.
Reasons For Failure.
The scenes of a great church tri-
umph which shall yet be witnessed in
our land if church members are true to
their discipleship will be marvelously
witnessed in the triumphs of the
church of the Lord Jesus Christ in
foreign lands. The reason our foreign
missionaries are not accomplishing
what they should is not due to their
1t is not due to any defect in the doc
trine they are preaching. It is due
almost entirely to the sinful white
man who enters heather lands along
side Of the Christian missionary. With
every ship that sets sail from our
shores carrying the white mans Bible
there go also the white mans cask
of whisky and the white mans sins.
If the white man were true to God, it
would not be fifty years, nor twenty
years hence, before the whole world
would be captured for Christ.
IL LAC A4SAl NOAO uAiSOo LII
Christ this capture of the heather lands
would be like the wonderful march
of Napoleon Bonaparte when he land
ed on the French coast from the island
of Elba in February, 1915. He had not
with him even a corporaps guard, but
the French people believed In him. Nc
sooner did the dethroned emperor star
for his old capital than King Louis
Philippes soldiers opened for him theil
fortresses. The people welcomed him
in their streets AS a king coming
back to his own he entered again his
palace of the Tuileries. As soon as
the church captures our own land fol
Christ foreign lands will welcome
Christ China will welcome him. Japan
will receive him, Korea and India will
receive him, Africa and South Amer.
lea and the islands of the seas will re
ceive him. AS an army terrible with
banners the church will march Oh
to capture the whole world for Christ
when we, as true Christian disciples
purify her and do our duty by her here
at home.