The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1905-06-20

those young people will drift off aaa
drift away and be gone forever.
Let Them Have Fun.
I am today pastor Of a church Of the
| boulevard. would not conduct my
! church any differently from the old
/ fashioned, conservative way Of my
forefathers If l could But l want to
tell the pastors Of the halfway
clurches' In the boarding house dis
tricts Of a great city that If l was
| again pastor of such Il church would
| do entirely different from what l once
did. l would change my policy entire
ly and make my church attractive to
the young men and the young women
who live in those boarding houses. My
present principle of raising my chill
| drcn is to let them have all the games,
| all the fun, all the friends, they want
! if they will only play those games at
my home. My principle of carrying on
halfway church, would be to keep
the young people at the church or In
the lecture room all | could. l would
preach on Sunday Jesus Christ just as
earnestly as God would give me pow
err Then on week nights | wouid have
| StereOpticOn lectures. | would have
debating societies. l would have read
ing rooms and libraries and social
! gatherings. In other words, as the sa-
looms Of those regions fight for my
| young men and women at all times
and during all the week nights l would
! fight for them day In and day out also
May God today give our halfway
churches grace enough to throw off
the old hidebound, conservative lines
Of church work and fight sin along the
lines upon which alone sin in those
boarding house regions can be success
fully fought Social utilization must go
side by side with spiritual upliftment.
Lastly, l remark that these half
way churches" need the very best min
| listers the world affords They need
the ablest In brain power. in organic
ing power, IN preaching ability and
in conservation. Our presbyteries
should select the finest young men who
come out Of our seminaries and say:
Here, young men, we want you for
a halfway church, We will support
you. We will not simply put you in
charge Of a church and then let you
starye. We will stand by you after
you are Installed. While you work we
will see that you have something to
live upon" Then the strong young
men Of our Summaries will enter these
halfway pulpits" and consider they
are on the honor list Of the gospel war
riors of the ages instead Of among the
unfortunates who are making failure
| Of life because from an outside stand
point their churches seem to be going
down.
! What Will Happen
"Well," says some one to me, Sup
posing you do not look after these
halfway churches,' then what will
happen?" l will tell you by recitins
to you simple incident which occur
red during one of my travels. We were
riding over the hills Of Palestine At
was passed around, "Some Americans
are here; they can cure u.s. Then
just as In olden times, these people
| brought to me their sick. but l can
not cure them,' l said. II am no doc
tor" Then l turned to my dragonfan
and said, What becomes Of these sick
| people when they cannot find doc
| tor" son. he answered, nonchalunt
| ly, "of course they die, that is all; they
die How do they die? The same
as one Of my muleteers nearly died
when going through the heavy sand.
| After we had been out about ten days
he was taken very sick. He became SC
sick he could not sit upon his horse.
but we had to ride on: there WAS no
place to stop. He would ride along &
little while, swaying like IL drunken
man. Then he would fall off. W..
would put him back upon hl*, mule nm:
try to hold him there Then he would
again fall off. If he died he would
have to die, that was all
What will become of these !usll-
men and women about tic "haifWa
churches" If we do not save t!tn: The
will spiritually die. Instead OF lt.n.
brought to the feet of the Master The!
will drift out and many Of them VIZ
become gamblers and dcbauchrc:' ll'
drunkards and outra5ts Many
them will land up IN tie t!rI:'A alto
Of the slums. Many of tMrln u,". H..
haps most Of them will be To-. fu: e..
The work Of the downtown char, h; i
important The work Of thu. b)u.tvar
church Is also important. Bu, 1lr
mightiest work Oh cath VIII ch T., ri e..
to any church to do Is given to The
halfway church, which touches, foi
the most part. class of young people
at the vitality important time Of their
spiritual lives. May God help those
churches and help US to help them IN
the name of Jesus Christ
During the late civil war III q certain
battle the Union soldiers had fought all
day long and were completely ex-
hausted. One Of the Indiana regiments
was almost ready to mut!ny and turn
and fee But in the dark hours Of the
night one Of the officers called to his
men as he said: Boys, look! We are
tired, but look at those nurses those
a