The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-04-24

q decent public to right the wrong
and any community that would rather
have wrong than Righteousness In Il
10 q coed community to move out Of,
I Most people are decent, most men
and most women are honest, most
men and women are virtuous. most
men and women are truthful, 1t Is
only now and then you find. my
friends, the libertine, and the thief
AID the thug. Most people are sober
most people belive In God, all the
riff.raff, bobtail. rag-shag, pugly-ugly
society are In the minority.
! Il like my minister" said a friend
OF mine, because he tells me where
/ am wrong"
like my physician because he tells
me what Is the matter with me and
what Is the remedy I need-T like
MIN. You admire anybody that shoots
the truth at you although he may
snoot your old carcass full of holes
while he is on the job.
Some VIII Always
Hang Back
OF course, there are some church
members that won't come to the meet
ing. They may be looked up to and
respected in the community and Won
VIII find, perhaps, they are living dual
lives, they don't want the sword of the
spirit to lay bare their rottenness:
tney don't want to have their con-
science. disturbed.
No! They have been CRYING.
Peace, peace" when there is no
! peace, saith God to the wicked "for
the wicked are like the troubled see. !"
they don't want the smell of brirn.
stone and hell fire as it vomits from
the inferno below. They want the de.
odorized, disinfected sermons of tha
tabloid sister. they want the sermons
ABOUT the birds that sing in the woods
ana flowers that bloom in the spring.
tra-la, about the babbling brooks that
sing on their way to the sea, rather
IMAM the sermons about the songs Of
the redeemed, the Rose of Sharon and
the waters of life.
Oh, There are some women of cul.
ture. perhaps and of society who
wont come because their pink teas
and the bridge and their theatre par
ties and their cocktails and the care
OF their poodles and the pomeranians,
they have not time to come. Obi
NO! No! Mol Why should thew cut
out such thing and sit on a wooden
bench with their feet in baled shaving
and sawdust, to hear a man preach Of
righteousness and temperance and
judgment to come, when there are
still pieces of cut glass and chocolate
pots and bric-a-brac to be won bv
shuffling the pasteboards.
Good Preaching
Brings Results.
When Finney went to London to
preach noted infideI went around IN
hear him and his wife noticed a DIFF
ference in his actions. One day she
ventured the opinion as to the cause,
by saying:
I know what is the occasion Of this
change in you, which is to me such a
blessing, you have been to hear that
man from America, Finney, preach"
He said, you insult him. That
man, Finney, doesn't preach. He
makes plain what other follows
preach"
l wish you might say that about
me while / am here.
If good preaching makes you be
good; if good preaching had saved
you, you would have been in heaven
long ago.
You need something else, now. but
good preaching
And the foremost preacher of his
day was the apostle Paul. What he
preached was not so much an ideal
lty or a practically or a theology or
didactics, or an exegesis but a way
of life-Ha! Ha! and read about his
ministry in Ephesus that there was no
small stir that way.
| tell you things got a move on
them when Paul was on the Job for
God. Paul was no perfunctory par.
son dealing out soothing syrup to a
fashionable congregation in a silver
plated spoon. careful not to rebuke
their sins lest they might reduce his
salary.
Oh, there is a kind of preaching I'M!
der which men will sleep and the
devil will never be aroused to roar.
but the gospel rightly understood and
faithfully preached and proclaimed
interferes' with every form of in
1quitous business, every species of il !
licit false faith and peace is a thing
greatly to be priced but not peace at
any price.
God Orders Him
To Come Down.
| read where the parish priest of |
Osterty climbed up in a high church
steeple SO that he might be near God
and hand down His word to his peo-
pie, and in sermon script he daily
wrote what he thought came down
from heaven and he dropped it down
on the peoples heads-two times ono
day in seven and in his day God said
Come down"
And the parish priest of Osterty
cried out from the steeple Where art
Thou, Lord?"
And the Lord made reply, 81 am
down here on terra flrma, Come
Town."
Too much of the preaching nova
lays is too pretty, 1t is too dainty, 1t
doesn't kill, it Is given for the liter
ary excellence Of the production and
f you got an adverb or an adjective
81 noun or pronoun out of Joint,
hen it is all off. i
| had a friend and when / tell you
newspaper boys that he reported the
Japanese and the Chinese war and the 4,
Brazilian rebellion you will get an
dea of his brilliancy. He was con-
Terted and he was in great demand to
ell his story out in the west. One
ime he was approached by a pastor
If very rich and fashionable church i
nut in one of our elite, little suburbs to ,
,ome out and give his story, and they
lat on the platform waiting for tho ;
.boir 70 fiOicb nm fhoir U0caI Ovmnor