The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-09-03

0s ANGELES. Cal, August 27.-In
 this sermon the preacher takes to
 task the spiritual indifference of professors of religion and shows the evil results of their example in social and bus mess life. The text is Revelation if, b. T would that thou vert cold or hot.
 God is love. The Bible declares 1t. Whether the Divine Fathers children are saints or sinners they are still enshrined in his parental affections. Gods love IS like unto that of the earthly parent Wno one day overheard his little girl saying to her brother Now. Charley. be gooo boy. or papa will not love you. "ath that. the father answered: NO, Nelhe' you must not tell your brother that. dd not love you children because you are, good or hate you because you are bad. love you, whether you are good or. bad. because you are my children. When you are good then you make me very happy. When you are bad, then vou make me very sad. But l still love you just the same.' God loves his nrodirals. but he loves his saints with a delighted joy.
 there is one class about whom he is espe- ciallv concerned. As the worried mother four or five times during the night lgnts her lamp and goes to look at the httle sick patient and to feel the brow or the Hevered child God again and again turns his anxious eyes toward certain of his wavward ones And where do you think Hhese divine eyes are most pleadingly hooking? Toward the social outeasts Oh. mol Toward the drunkards who are staggering and hiccoughing toward thelr filthy tenements? No. Toward the hur- derers in the criminal dock about to De tried for their lives? No. Toward the thief who in the evening hours knocks down the pedestrian or toward the sa1e- breaker who with his dark lantern IS making his way through the cellars or the bank he intends to rob? No, no, no! These sinners by the very enormity of their crimes may be lead to the mercy seat if we only go after them in the right way Gods most earnest looks are not turned toward those who are in open re- bellion against his name, but toward those who are chronically and system atically indifferent Those who are sim DIV negative to the divine call of love are harder to reach than those who deride God or cure him. Can you make any other deduction than this from Christs message to the church members at Laool- eea? Of all the seven churches Tn Asa there was not one more excoriated Tn Revelation than was this church. UT all the eastern churches there was not one from outside appearance whose trans gressions were not more heinous.
 Modern Laodiceans.
 Modern Laodiceans, these sinners or lukewarm Christianity and tepid moral uhy, at a distance can be likened to beautifully polished mahogany or rose wood table To the casual observer It seems to be worth almost it's weight Tn gold, but when you closely examine the same you find it Is simply yeneered with rosewood or mahogany, cut as tnln as paper They are like contrary winds, tantalizing the sea captain becalmned near the equator. Here it is little pun of wind, wonder it Is a little puff, off to the west Is another little puff. All these little puffs come from different direc- tions But before the ships sail can be trimmed and filled, like the cheeks Of schoolboy blowing soap bubbles, those puffs of wind die away and the ships keel moves not. They are like people Of shallow Christian experience whom Christ describes under the figure of grain grow ing on stony ground which, on account of the scarcity of soil covering the roots. dies before the next meridian has been reached by the sun In the heavens. Now the purpose of this sermon is to de- ecribe some of the causes of the languid condition of these modern Laodiceans. 1 am today not going to preach to the great sinners or to the great saints, but to those who are simply lukewarm or negative or appallingly indifferent to God st love and Gods commandments May God help me to move some out of their sinful lethargy. May he fire with holy zeal the lukewarm hearts of our modern Laodiceans, whom Christ de- nounces with Gods bitterest contempt and scorn and opprobrium.
 The appalling negativeness of my text