Morris tribune., 1906-02-10
CHURCH COLUMN.
By j. G. shetland.
The rleetings.

meetings. The Congregational church
has been holding meetings since the
first week in January. The Rev. O..
B. Fellows came at the end of the first
two weeks and is today closing a
three wee ks campaign. He has
preached ably and with success. Rev.
Charles G.. Smith and talented singer
are coming to begin next Sunday.
The more prominent feature of these
meetings is not the immediate number
of conversions, though there have
been quite good many. 1t is the
steady wheeling into line of every Cos
pei element in Morris with a quiet, unit
ing, persistent determination to gain
followers for Christ. The opposers are
not so quiet. On every hand they are
quite busy in their anxiety about ex-
element. Business and professional
men who lose heavily in "poker" are
afraid to go to such exciting and dan
gerous meetings. The very word
t'revivaP' has been so twisted that it's
meaning ought. to be restated.
A return of life, of growth, of beauty,
of power to the good things represent
ed by these evangelical churches, the
prosperity of our city in honesty, in
purity, in kindness, in doing good is
much to be desired. When there is a
time of drought, when the soil is dry,
the crops whitening, the trees dying,
people and cattle suffering, the show
er which revives all the face of the
land is welcome. When our winter
fire is almost out and we are shiver-
ing with cold and we fan the dying
embers till the wood bursts into
cheerful blaze, we are glad of the re-
vival of the fire. When business is
dull, when times are hard, when the
poor have nothing to do and are suf-
fering, when the rich have so little
business that they are discouraged,
then all the better men in the COM
munity desire a revival of business.
So when any town is morally Or spirit
ually wilted, Or the better sympathies
are frozen, or the really religious ele-
ment is weak, when there is but little
Christian work being done, when the
church members do not desire to be
any more like Christ than they are
now, and the candid observer cannot
see that they are very much like Him,
when young people are more anxious
about their pleasures than about their
souls, when che sinfnl are dying in
their sins, when the greatest peril in
business is the lack of good faith
among business men; then revival
of christly behaviour is needed.
There is a good story told of an old
fashioned 'raising" in the city of
Rochester, N. Y. The tiE1bers of the
big -four mill we'll framed were being
lifted by many men on spikes. When
they came to the heavy "big bent"
they were not quite strong enough to
lift that to it's place. The foreman
saw that if it fell back on the men it
would kill them. He called out, "Lift,
men or die" They tried their best
but could not do it. He turned and !
called to the women who stood anx-
iously watching at the other end of |
the bridge, "Wives, if you would have
your husbands safe at home tonight |
instead of mangled corpses, girls, if
You want your brothers to live instead
of being crushed and dead; come and
lift" They came on run, took hold,
and the timber went up to its place.
The work of promoting morals and
religion is never out of place. That
work does not proceed too rapidly
here Amy little town of two thousand
possessed with ten saloons, with
teachers annoyed by the lack Of NOR
ais; any little city with several gam
bling places, officials abused because
they try to conduct clean admins
tration, "poker" called "smear" when
the officers are in sight till the good
name of the town is badly besmeared;
any little town with the brothel ele
ment none too retiring; any little
town that is being blighted with the
lie that the church stands in the place
of Christ, that belonging to the church
is just as good as being christian;
till the whole city is in danger of sink
ing to the drunkenness, the illegltl-
macy, the semi barbarism which pre-
walls in any country where churchism
reigns instead of Christianity; any
town where men and women who are
leaders in society do not acknowledge
that they have any principles what
ever; such a town, or city, or place is
about the spot where evangelical
Christianity must either Gift or die"
Any true friend of pure homes, of the
higher type of civilization, of good
society will help lift.