The Washington herald., 1918-01-09

afternoon meeting weeping their way
from sin to salvation"
Three more. my friends, than they
had had for years IN that great relig-
ious refrigerator.
The man who magnifies the word
of God and the blood OF Jesus Christ
in his preaching Is q man that God
will hurl like q thunderbolt against
the mountains Of sin that dare lift
their heads against the forces Of
truth
why is 1t that the names Of wes-
ley and Of Whitfield and of Jonathan
Edwards and Finncy and Moody and
multitudes Of others stand out as
clean-cut as a cameo upon the pages
Of history? will tell you! They
were men who were conspicuous be-
cause Of their fearlessness in their
assaults upon every form OF evil and
OF evil doers. rich, poor. black, white,
native-born OF foreign-born. and they
hurled the anathemas of God into the
ranks Of sin irrespective OF who might
sit and listen. sir, and. that's the man
God will honor, no matter who he
may be. And I want to say to this
city now, right at the kickoff. that
believe the Bible Is the word Of
God from cover to cover.
As to Highbrow Nuts.
/. So you high-brow mutt preachers
know where I stand on this subject
I believe 1t not because ! can un-
derstand It all; not because I can
harmonic It with the philosophy of
men, but because the mouth Of the
Lord hath spoken 1t, and It has deliv-
cred the gods for all those centu-
ries. And when some big-wig who
has dreamed his theories over the
beer mugs, tobacco smoke and the
battle fumes of Heidelburg and Leip-
sig butts into me and says to me,
"Mr. Sunday. the consensus Of the
latest scholarship has decreed thus
and so regarding the devine origin OF
the Scriptures" Isay, "when the
consensus Of the latest scholarship
says one thing and the word of God
says another, the latest scholarship
can go plumb to hell for all we care"
We may determine tonight whether
you will have a spiritual awakening
and put the devil in the hospital be-
fore the Fourth of July. The re-
sponsibility has never been with God,
neveri Never will be! used to
says I could see a revival cloud the
size of a mans hand; / used to say,
There is a coming revival" Oh,
bless God, I've learned that the pro-
mises of God are in the present tense.
You can have it now II you will do
what God tells you to do. And IL
your city says morally. IL men are
staggering and reeling and vomiting
and spewing down the street; If girls
are selling their womanhood. girls
hanging around your cabarets. hotels
and restaurants, over-perfumed, over
jeweled, over-fed and under-dressed.
it's your fault. Why. a man couldn't
look at one Of them with prayer-meet-
ing thoughts very long. Don't you
forget it, wonder there are as many
fellows keep their decency and their
morals as they do with what is fiaunt-
ed in their faces today.
Leg show W. Prayer Meeting.
It the city says morally, oh. the
trouble Is not with God. but with the
citizenship Of that city. Not with
God. It's up to you. No. sir! And
IL the church Is losing her power. de-
genera ting into a third-rate amuse-
ment bureau and reducing religion to
form and ceremony, ritual and an
ethical code, the trouble is not with
God. II the preachers preach to wood
and varnish instead of folks, the
trouble isn't with God. II the devil
can scare up more of his members
at leg show than at prayer-meetng,
the trouble isn't with God-it's with
the members of that church, so you
can't blame the Lord for these things.
No!
I plead not for a modern revival.
don't know anything about your mod
ern dope. Mine is as old as the cross
of Jesus; Ii as old as the nails that
were driven through his hands. I
plead for an old Pentecostal revival
that will make drunkards sober, that
will make thieves to steal no more,
that will make blasphemers to pray.
that will make men that are keep
ing somebody on the side and dis
gracing their wives and children go
home and be decent, that will make
dead beats pay their debts and trans
form this old God-forsaken, whiskey-
soaked, Christ batting, Sabbath
breaking, Lord-6amning, harlot-rid-
den, old world into a paradise of
peace and benediction and blessing.
It's not Objectionable. Some people
say. "A revival is an abnormal con-
diton."
Anu say lou lie.
] say to you that a revival Is a nor
NAL condition; and this low. dead. life
less proposition-that's. an abnormal
God by saying that anything that
makes a man pray, kiss his wife in
stead Of beating her up. pay his debts
do you mean to tell me that that's
an abnormal condition? Do you mean
10 haf rvh hnfraa
drunk that that's normal? Or that
when he is sober and decent that
that's abnormal? Forget it,
b Just Another Lie.
You say. 'Tt Is followed by reaction"
I say. That's a lie." again. s.
It isn't true, and II it were true it's
worth all the money spent, all the en-
ergy put forth, all the sleepless nights
and all the meals you forget. for by
and through a revival the hearts and
minds of a community will be gripped
and turned toward God, and the tide
will be turned from the saloons to-
ward the church, toward the Sunday
school. toward decency, toward So
briefly, toward virtue.
II you have a child that's i'll and
you summon a physician. and he
diagnoses the difficulty. prescribes for
the malady, and the medicine binds up
the disintegrating tissue and puts the
bloom Of health on the cheek of your
little one so that It may say in your
arms twelve months longer than 1t
could have done had the doctor not
come. it's worth every dollar that
you've paid him for the happiness and
the Joy you have had, Of kissing your
baby twelve months longer than you
could have done IL he hadn't come.
And II some man will stagger down
that aisle and give me his hand and
walk home sober for a year and give