Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1919-09-24
NATIONS, INDIVIDUALS, CHURCHES,
CITIES FACE CRISES OF BIG MOMENT

, members that won't come to the
meeting They may be looked up
/ to and respected in the commun-
. ity and you will find, perhaps, they
are living dual lives, they don't
want the sword of the spirit to lay
, bare their rottenness; they don't
want to have their conscience dis
turbed.
No. They have been crying,
Peace, peace" when there is no
peace, saith God to the wicked,
For the wicked are like the trou-
! bIed sea-" they don't want the
smell of birthstone and hell fire as
it yomits from the inferno below.
They want the deodorized, disin-
fected sermons of the tabloid sis
| ter, they want the sermons about
! the birds that sing in the woods
and flowers that bloom in the
spring, tra-Ia, about the babbling
brooks that sing on their way to
the sea, rather than the sermons
about the songs of the redeemed,
the Rose of Sharon and the waters
of life.
Oh! There are some women of
culture, perhaps and of society
who won't come because their
pink teas and their bridge and
their theatre parties and their
cocktails and the care of their
poodles and the pomeranians, they
have not time to come. Oh! No!
No! No! Why should they cut out
such a thing and sit on a wooden
bench with their feet in baled
shavings and saw dust, to hear a
man preach righteousness and
temperance and judgment to come.
when there are still pieces of cut
a-brac to be won by shutting the
paste boards?
Oh! there is a kind of a preach
ing under which men will sleep
and the devil will never be aroused
to roar, but the gospel rightly IN
derstood and faithfully preached
and proclaimed, interferes with
every form of iniquitous business,
every species of Illicit pleasures.
1t makes war upon every false
faith, and peace is a thing great
ly to be priced but not peace at
any price.
Too much of the preaching now
a-days is too pretty, it is too
dainty, it doesn't kill, it is given
to the literary excellence of the
production and if you got an ad-
verb or an adjective or a noun or
pronoun out OF joint, then it is ali
off.
We admire whoever tells US the
truth and tries to help US live for
/ Christ. The hour has come for
I plainness of speech, the hour has
come to believe in REVEALS. Some
people don't; some preachers
| don't; neither does the devil, so
they are like their daddy. Put me
down in favor of everything the
devils against, put me down
against everything the devils in
favor of. Put me down against ev-
erything the devil gets most of his
recruits out of, put me down
against it with every brain cell,
molecure, artery, joint, marrow.
cuticle and corpuscle! No sir. o,
1 know there are some stiff-necked,
twentieth century, theological,
homiletical, high-browed, exegeti-
| cal, bell wethers for the devil, hyp-
ocrites that don't believe in a re-
vivaI They say, 20, well, we don't
approve of your methods"
Nothing good was ever accom-
plished without sensation. Sensa-
ton is life. Stagnation is damna-
/ ton. The bounding, rushing, tum-
! bling, roaring, plunging mountain
stream is sensational, yes; the
stagnant pool breeding miasmatic
germs and miasma, that is vile. l
choose Christian enthusiasm in
place of putrid stagnation any day.
1 would rather be a guide post than
a tombstone any day.
! One reason why sin triumphs, 1
think is because it is treated as
though it were a cream puff in
stead of a rattle snake. You can't
brush away sin with a feather dus-
| ter. Prudery is no more a sign
( of virtue than a wig is of hair
both are used to cover a bald spot
( Religion, / think, is too often as
! ISOLATED with dollars.
I believe sir, in everyone there
/ is an ambition to be better and do
better than you ever have. And
God Almighty wants to help you,
wants to help you realize that am
bition, my friends, to do it That
is the object of all this great work
and of this campaign here for you
and for Christ
l have been sent to this city as
Gods recruiting officer, to recruit
men and women for the standard
of Jesus Christ, to show your faith
and your loyalty to him, to do his
will The hour is come for us to
show our stand for God and for his
truth.
the life of shame and disgrace,