Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1907-04-20

What is true of tlle Industrial world
and the political life is true OF tne
church and of our clesastical anu
spiritual blessings When the hre
crate is always full Of coal and the
cupboard Is always full Of food ana the +
wardrobe is always full or clothes' |
most of us accept the luxuries OF lire
as the ordinary commonplaces. linen
we wonder why any person will grum-
BILE about being cold or hungry. When
we are born under the shadow OF
church spre and are baptized at tne
church affairs and we are sent to her
Sunday schools and are invited 10 sil
at her communion tables, we are very
ant to believe that the church is ike
an indigenous plant that has always
been here and that always Will be mere
Now. nv friends, / want to tell you
that the church Of the LORD Jesus
Christ was never planted anywhere
successfully unless it was first planted
there in blood soaked soil. Ihe plant
ers Of the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ were the heroes who were al
ways looking for the haryests OF the
future and never living for their own
personal benefit and reward.
Great Sacrifices.
| Where did the American church come
from? Did the first great explorers
who came across the seas find the little
white meeting houses in the center OF
every Indian village and planted upon
every hilltop and dotted here and there
over the broad prairies of the west'
ooh. nop YOU say. 1T was only by
the greatest sacrifices Of Marquette
and Eliot and Roger Williams and mis-
sionaries Of such ilk that the churcn
of Jesus Christ was ever planted upon
American shores. Then after tne
churches were established in the east
the backwoods preachers like Peter
Cartwright and Havens and the daring
missionaries like Bishop Whipple led
on their cohorts Of evangellsts. Far
ther and farther west they carried the
cross. and farther and farther west
thev went until at last that cross
reached the Pacific coast The Mora
yians penetrated into the snow ana ice
of the arctic with the news, and by
and bv Sheldon Jackson lifted tue
cross and carried it far north amid the
Alaska SHOWS. SO, step by step, the
brave missionaries have struggled ahl
starved and in many places have dlel
consecrating with their bodies the lanC
they had won" Yes, the American
church came as the results Of the hum
: ble sacrifice Of thousands Of obscur'
ministers of whom the world know
, nothing.
Paul once asserted that in his worl
= he was surrounded by great cloud
witnesses. As we gather about ou
church affairs today cannot we see IN
faces of the noble self sacrificing mis-
sionaries who have made such churc
service as this a possibility? Are the
not standing above this pulpit today
An eyewitness once declared that tn
most beautiful part of all Father TaJ
lor's ministry was his intense reallzs
:. ton of Christ's presence. The thing
y he would say and do might have pee
irrevercnt in another, but in TaylC
- they seemed only evidence Of Christ
reality. Sitting one Sunday at IL
Lords table TO administer the con
munion. he concealed the cup. Then
a deeply solemn tone he said, "Childre'
~ I bring you a gift from Jesus, som
~ thing to remind you Of him." Tnen. d
= voice breaking. he said, at is the VIII
~ of the covenant, his own blood shed II
YOU. and he bids me say, Drink ye
- Of it," And he brought forward u
Il cup. and. looking at it, he wept. fe
., all the good we enjoy has come to
~ ~ as that wine by sacrifice. They liv'
~ their lives Of sacrifice to give US ID
DC gospel sanctuary. We are today gat
~ ering in their ripened harvests. "Ol
Vi man soweth, and another reapeth."
IL