The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-01-27

the two cities as he answered, you will
construct the line So" Thus God draws
for US a straight line of duty, and until
we are willing to follow that straight
line of our own accord we will never be
in harmony with the divine will.
But we must not halt here. Jonah's
answer stands as the symbol of the
small souled Christian that we see some
times on a throne or In a bishops chair,
who says: IF the world cannot be saved
through me, then / shall do all in my
power to destroy it. If I cannot make all
Christians surround my chancel or study
my cateehism or listen to my preaching,
then I will do everything in my power to
debar them from entering any other
church or studying any other catechism
or listening to any other preaching. What
we want in religious work is great
church trust. And the man who we want
at the head of that great church trust
is man of our own denomination or Sc
lection. In other words, IL l and mine
are not going to get the credit for saw
ing the world, then I and mine will do all
in our power to keep the world from
DcluB bdNtd Is HOl NlldI cAdClly lHc
position of Jonah when he got angry with
God because God had repented of the
evil that he had said he would do unto
the Ninevites and he did it not?
Jonah DspIeased.
There" can hear Jonah say 1T knew
1t. I knew it. Here was, the greatest
prophet in all the east. The crowds ev-
erywhere ran after me. Whenever lift
ed up my voice / could see mems cheeks
pale and their limbs tremble. They were
afraid to have me speak one word lest
I might hurl a divine thunderbolt at
them l gloried in my power When
went to faroff Nneveh, even there the
people had heard of my fame And when
! entered into that city and began to cry,
Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be de-
stroyedn pandemonium reigned every
where. The people got as frightened as
a lot of fawns being chased by the fall
cons which are trying to pick out their
eyes They Immediately fell down upon
their knees and began to pray. l was the
biggest man in that town. What l said
was quoted by every lip. But now God
has gone back upon that prophecy. The
forty days have passed, and every wall
is standing, and the homes are all filled
with happy families. He has ruined all
my prophecy business. If l go back into
Nineveh the little children will follow
me and laugh at me. But it displeased
Jonah exceedingly, and he was very an
cry" Angry for what? Because God
had saved a city? No. Angry because
the people might not think him a great
prophet, as they did a few days ago,
when he cried out yet forty days and
Nineveh shall be destroyed" and yet,
my brother, 1 want to ask you a ques-
ton. Is Jonahs sinful, childish anger
any different from the mean, despicabe
and repugnant jealouses of many of our
modern Christian workers?
Here. for instance, are an old minister
and an old church which for years have
occupied the most influential position in
the religious life of a small city. Most
of the wealthy and prominent men of
that town go to that church. One day
there comes into that town a young min
lister who takes broken down church
Upon side street. 1t is almost mis-
sion. Suddenly the power of the Holy
Ghost comes down upon that little con-
gregation. 1t grows and grows. 1t widens
its influence. lie begins to gather in the
young people by scores and hundreds.
The little church is now packed to the
doors. The growing congregation has to
move into a larger building. It's infu-
ence grows wider and wider until It
spreads out over the state and the nation.
Do that old minister and that old estab-
lished church clasp hands and rejoice at
the multitudes which being saved in
the church just around the corner? Per-
haps so. But, as a rule such old estab-
lished churches act very much as Jonah
did when Nineveh was being saved. They
act Just as did most of the old conserva-
tive churches of London when Charles
III. Sturgeon started his work there and
when Joseph Parker started his work,
and when Rowland Hill started his work,
and when John Wesley started his work.
These old conservative churches wanted
sinners to be saved in their own way or
they did not wish them saved at all.
Seifishness in Churches.
Oh, that we could one and all so sink
our selfish personalities in gospel work
that we did not care by what means the
sinners should be led to the cross, as long
as the wayward and the lost were aple
thereby TO find Christ. Henry Ward
Beecher once gave this beautiful parable