Greenfield Evening Republican, Greenfield, Hancock County, 4 March 1895 — Page 3

1895 MARCH. 1895

Su. Mo. Tu. We. Th. Fri. Sat. 1 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

BE. J.

9

DR. C. A. BELT,I

Office with I). VV. R. K:ag, WOM Street, Greenfield, I nil.

Practice limited to diseases of t^

NOSE, THROAT, EYE am! EAR.

dpeSd-

h. B. GEIFFIi, K. 3.,

PHYSICIAN & SlTIvGEO

All calls answered pi-om|tly. Office- •!.--•

lence

No. 88 Wast Main Si.., (oue-bsif 3«:v.::r. westof postotlice) (jreenfield, Ind. 'J3-13.-I/

M. LOCH1IEAD,

ilOMEOPAilliC PIIVSICI.iN and SMIV

Office at 23)-2 W". Maiu street, ov.«j Early's drug store. Prompt attention to calls in city or country.

Special attention to Children?. Women*" and Chronic Diseases. Late resident physician St. Louis Cliildreus Hospital. :v.itiy

C. W. MORRISON & SOX,

UNDERTAKERS.

27 W. MAIN ST.

Greenfield, Indiana,

ELMER J. BINFORD,

LAWYKR.

Special iittonfion given to collections, n: 'och estates, tfuardiau busine.-s, eonveyamr'ng fit Notary always in office.

Ollice— Wilson block, opposite court-nousa.

THE-i

PLAGE 10 BUY!

YOUR

4t"-i

N

Are You Reading

Those Interesting Monographs on

Napoleon

BY

John Clark Ridpath

IN THIS PAPER?

The Greatest Warrior

Described by one of

The Greatest Historians

N

Groceries,

Fine Fruits,

ii.

\\.

b'

Is at

J!)

Main St. Gant B!K.

Special atientiou given to children. Kind reader, we earnestly solicit a share of your pa'rename. Goods delivered I'ref of chance.

URIAH GflRRIS

1G. MUSIS.

Tlios. Orr the old reliable music dealer, has put in a stock of

New and Second-hand Organs,

•^"4'

And wants people desir. ing any kind of an instrunient to call and see him. Money saved sure.

THOMAS

J.

ORR.

West Maiu St., Greenfield.

TILLING NEW GROUND

REV. DR. TALMAGE PLEASED WITH HIS PRESENT WORK, MMRN

Special Attention Given In His Sermon to

Skeptics -The Cause of Goethe's Irre-

ligion—Fields of Usefulness Seldom Oc­

cupied by the Church.

NKW YORK, March 3.—Public interest in tho services at the Academy of Music is something phenomenal. Although the arrangement is an innovation in religious methods in New York, both as to time and place, there is no church in the city to which so many people go or where so much eagerness to secure admission is displayed. The usual immense audience was present this afternoon to hear the famous preacher. Dr. Talmage's subject was "New Ground" and his text Romans xv, 20, "Lest I should build upon another man's foundation."

After, with the help of others, I had built three churches in the same city, and not feeing called upon to undertake the superhuman toil of building a fourth church Providenco seemed to point to this place as the field in which I could enlarge my work, and I feel a sense of relief amouniing to exultation. "Whereunto this work will grow I cannot prophesy. It is inviting and promising beyond anything I have ever touched. The churches are tho grandest institutions this world ever saw, and their pastors have no superiors this side of heaven, but there is a work which must bo done outside the churches, and to that work I join myself for awhile, Lest I build on another man's foundation 4 Service Iu the Open Field.

The church is a fortress divinely built. Now, a fortress is for defense, and for drill, and for storing ammunition, but an army must sometimes be on tho march far outsido tho fortress. In the campaign of conquering this world for Christ tho time has como for an advance movement, for a "general engagement, for massing the troops, for an invasion of tho enemies' country. Confident that the forts are well manned by the ablest ministry that ever blessed the church, I propose, with others, for awhile, to join the cavalry and move out and on for service in tho open field.

In laying out the plan for his missionary tour Paul, with more brain than any of his contemporaries or predecessors or successors, sought out towns and cities which had not yet been preached to. He goes to Cornith, a city mentioned for splendor and vice, and Jerusalem, where tho priesthood and sanhedrin were read}* to leap with both feet upon tho Christian religion. Ko feels ho has a special work to do, anrl he means to do it. What was the result? The grandest lifoof usefulness that man overlived. We modern Christian workers are not apt to imitate Paul. We build on other people's foundations. If we erect a church, we prefer to havo it filled with families all of whom have been pious. Do we gather a Sunday school '.'lass, we want good boysand girls, hair combed, faces washed, manners attractive. So a church in this city is apt to bo built out of other churches. Some ministers spend all their timo in fishing in other people's ponds, and they throw the line into that church pond and jerk oil! a Methodist, and throw the line info another church pond and bring out a Pn sbyterian.or there is a religious row in some neighboring church, and the whole school of fish swim off from that pond, and wo take them all in with one sweep of the net. What is gained? Absolutely nothing for the general cause of Christ. It is only as in an army, wheu a regiment is transferred from one division to another, or from the Fourteenth regiment to the Sixt3'-ninth regiment. What strengthens the army is new recruits.

This la a Big World.

The fact is, this is a big world. When in our schoolboy days wo learned the diameter and circumferenco of this planet, wo did not learn half. It is the latitude and longitude and diameter and circumference of want and woo and sin that no figures can calculate. This ono spiritual continent of wretchedness reaches across all zones, and if I were called to give its geographical boundary 1 would say it is bounded on tho north and south and cast and west by the great heart of God's sympathy and love. Oh, it is a great world. Since 6 o'clock this morning at least 80,000 have been born, and all these mnltiplied populations are to be reached of tho gospol. In England or in eastern American cities we are boing much crowded, and an acre of ground is of great value, but out west 500 acres is a small farm, and 20,000 acres is no unusual possession. There is a vast field hero and everywhere unoccupied, plenty of room more, not building on another man's foundation. We need as churches to stop bombarding the old ifonclad sinners that have been proof against 30 years of Christian assault, and nim for the salvation of those who have never yet had one warm hearted and point blank invitation. There are churches whoso buildings might, be worth $200,000, who are not averaging five now converts a year and doipg'less good than many a 'log cabin meeting liouso with tallow candle stuck in •wooden socket and a minister who has tievor seen a college or known the difference between Greok and Choctaw. We need churches to get into sympathy withthegreatoutsideworld,and letthem know that none are so broken hearted or hardly bestead that they will not be welcomed. "No!" says some fastidious Christian "I don't like to be Crowded in church. Don't put any one in my pew. My brother, what will you do in heaven? When a great multitude that no man can number assembles, thoy will put 50 in your pew. What are the select few today assembled in the Christian churches compared with tho mightier millions outside of them?

At l«ast Jt, 000,000 peoplo in tliia^uster of seaboard cities, and not more than 200,000 in the churches. Many of the churches are like a hospital that should

advertise that its patients must have nothing worse than toothache or "run arounds," but no broken heads, no crushed ankles, no fractured thighs. Give us for treatment moderate sinners, velvet coated sinners and sinners with a gloss on. It is as though a man had a farm of 3,000 acres and put all his work on one acre. He may raise never so large ears of corn, never so big heads of wheat, he would remain poor. The church of God has bestowed its chief care on one acre and has raised splendid men and women in that small inclosure, but the field is the world. That means North and South America, Envope, Asia and Africa and all tho is-, lands of the soa.

Something to Know.

It is as though after a great battle there were left 50,000 wounded and dying on tho field and three surgeons gavo all their time to three patients under their charge. The major general comes in and says to the doctors, "Como out here and look at the nearly 50,000 dying for lack of surgical attendance." "No," say tho three doctors, standing:, there and fanning their patients "we have three important cases here, and we are attending them, and when we are not positively busy with their wounds it takes all our timo to keep the flies off. In this awful battle of sin and sorrow, where millions have fallen on millions, do not let us spend all our timo in faking care of a few people, and when the command comes, "Go into the world," say practically: "No I cannot go. I havo hero a few choice cases, and I am busy keeping off the flies." There aro multitudes today who havo never had any Christian worker look them in the eye, ana with earnestness in tho accentuation say, "Come!" or they would long ago havo been in the kingdom. My friends, religion is either a sham or a tremendous reality. If it bo a sham, let us cease to have anything to do with Christian association. If it bo a reality, then great populations are on their way to the bar of God unfitted for the ordeal, and what are we doing?

In order to teach the multitude of outsiders we must drop all technicalities out of our religion. When we talk to peoplo about the hypostatic union and French encyclopedianism and erastianism and complutensianism, wo are as impolitic and little understood as if a physician should talk to an ordinary patient about the pericardium and intercostal muscle and scorbutic symptoms. Many of us come out of the theological seminaries so loaded up that we take the first ten years to show our people how much we know, and the next ten years get our people to know as much as we know, and at the end find that neither of us knows anything as wo ought to know. Here are hundreds of thousands of sinning, struggling and dying people who need to realizo just one thing—that Jesus Christ came to save them and will save them now. But wo go into a prufound and elaborate definition of what justification is, and after all the work there are not outsido of tho learned professions 5,000 peoplo in the United States who can toll what justification is. I will read you the definition: 'Justification is purely a forensic act, the act of a judge sitting in the forum, in which tho Supremeliuler and Judge, I who is accountable to none, and who alone knows tho manner in which tho ends of his universal government can best bo attained, reckons that which was done by the substitute, and not on I account of anything done by them, but purely upon account of this gracious method of reckoning, grants them the full remission of their sins.

The Multitude of Skeptics.

Now, what is justification? I will tell you what justification is. When a sinner believes, God lets him off. Ono summer in Connecticut I went to a large factory, and I saw over the door written tho words, "No admittance." I entered and saw over the next door, "No admittance." Of course I entered. I got inside and found it a pin factory, and they were making pins, very serviceable, fine and useful pins. So tho spirit of exclusiveness has practically written over the outsido door of many a church, "No admittance." And if the stranger enter ho finds practically written over tho second door, "No admittance," and if ho goes in over all the pew doors seems written, "No admittance," while the minister stands in the pulpit, hammering out his little niceties of belief, pounding out the technicalities of religion, making pins. In the most practical, common sense way, and laying aside the nonessentials and the hard definitions of religion, go out on the God given mission, telling the people what they need and when and how they can get it.

Comparatively little effort as yet has been made to save that large class of persons in our midst called skeptics, and he who goes to work here will not be building upon another man's foundation. There is a great multitude of them. They are afraid of us and our churches, for the reason we do not know how to treat them. Ono of this class met Christ, and hear with what tenderness and pathos and beanty and success Christ dealt with him: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is tho first commandment, and the second is like to this—namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no othor commandment greater than this. And the scribe said to him, "Well, master, thou hast said the truth, for there is ono God, and to love him with all the heart, and all the understanding, and all the 60ul, and all the strength, is moro than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly he said unto him, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. So a skeptic was saved in one interview. But few Christian people treat tho skeptic in that way. Instead of taking hold of him With the gentle hand of lovo, wo aro apt to take him with the iron pinchers of ecMosiasticism.

You would not bo so rough on that lian if you knew by what process he

had lost his faith in Christianity? have known men skeptical from the fact that they grew up in houses where religion was overdone. Sunday was the most awful day of the week. They had religion driven into them with a trip hammer. They were surfeited with prayer meetings. They were stuffed and choked with catechisms. They were often told they were the worst boys tho parents ever knew because thoy liked to ride down hill better than to read Bunyair "Pilgrim's Progress. Whenever father and mother talked of religion, they drew down the corners of their mouth and rolled up their eyes. If any one thing will send a boy or girl to rnin sooner than another, that is it. If

I had had such a father and mother, I fear I should have been an infidel. When I was a boy in Sunday school, at one time we had a teacher who, when wo were not attentive, struck us over the head with a New Testament, and there is a way of using even the Bibio so as to make it offensive.

Others wero tripped up of skepticism' "from being grievously wronged by some man who professed to bo a Christian.

They had a partner in business who turned out to be a first class scoundrel, though a professed Christian. Many years ago they lest all faith by what happened in an oil company which was formed amid tho petroleum excitement. Tho company owned no land, or if they did there w.°s no sign of oil produced, but tho president of the company was a Presbyterian elder, and the treasurer was an Episcopal, vestryman, and one director was a Methodist class leader, and the other directors prominent members of Baptist and Congregational churches. Circulars were gotten out telling what fabulous prospects opened beforo this company. Innocent men and women who had a littlo money to invest, and that little their all, said, "I don't know anything about this company, but so many good men aro at tho head of it that it must bo excellent, and taking stock in it must be almost as good as joining tho church."

So they bought the stock and perhaps received one dividend so as to keep them still, but after awhile they found that the company had reorganized and had a different president and different treasurer and different directors. Other engagements or ill health had caused the former offices of the company, with many regrets, to resign. And all that the subscribers of that stock had to show for their investment was a beautifully ornamented certificate. Sometimes that man looking over his old papers comes across that certificate, and it is so suggestive that ho vows he wants none of tho religion that the presidents and trustees and directors of that oil company professed. Of courso their rejection of religion on such grounds was unphilosophical and unwise. I am told that many of the United States army desert every year, and there are thou-J sands of court martinis every year. Is" that anything against tho United States government that swore them in? And if a soldier of Jesus Christ desert, is that anything against tho Christianity which he .swore to support and defend? I IIow do you judge of tho currency of a country? By a counterfeit bill? Oh, you must havo jiatience with those who havo been swindled by religious pretenders.

Live in the presence of others a frank, honest, earnest Christian life, that they may bo attracted to the samo Saviour upon whom your hopes depend.

Ouestiojis Unanswered.

Remember skepticism always lias some reason, good or bad, for existing. Goethe's irreligion started when tho news came to Germany of tho earthquake at Lisbon, Nov. 1, 1775. That GO,000 peoplo should have perished in that earthquake and in tho alter rising of the Tagus so stirred his sympathies that ho throw up his belief in the good- I ness of God.

Others havo gone into skepticism from a natural persistence in asking tho reason why. They havo been fearfully stabbed of tho interrogation point. There aro so many things thoy cannot get explained. They cannot understand the Trinity or how God can be sovereign and yet man a free agent. Neither can I. They say, "I don't understand why a good God should have let sin come into the world." Neither do I. You say, "Why was that child started in life with such disadvantages, while others have all physical and mental equipnient?" I cannot tell. They go out of I church on Easter morning and say, "That doctrine of the resurrection confounded me." So it is to mo a mystery beyond unravelinent. I understand all tho processes by which men got into the dark. I know them all. I havo travoled with burning feet that blistered way. The first word which most children learn to utter is. "Papa," or "Mamma," but I think tho first word I ever uttered was, "Why?" I know what it is to have a hundred midnights pour their darkness into one hour. Such men are not to bo scoffed, but helped. Turn your back upon a drowning man when you have the rope with which to pull him ashore, and lot that woman in the third story of a house .perish in the flames when you have a ladder with which to help her out and help her down, ratlior than turn your back ecofiingly on a skeptic whose soul is in more peril than the bodies of those other endangered ones possibly can be. Oh, skepticism is a dark land. There are men in this house who would give a thousand worlds if they possessed them to get back to the placid faith of their fathers and mothers, and it is our place to help theiu, and we may help them, never through their heads, but always through their hearts. These skeptics, when brought to Jesus, will be mightily effective, far more so than those who never examined tho evidences of Christianity.

Thomas Chalmers was once a skeptic, Robert Hall a skeptic, Robert Newton a skeptic, Christmas Evans a skeptic. But when onoo with strong hand thoy took hold of tho chariot of tho gospel thoy rolled it on with what momentum! If I address such men and women today, I throw out no scoff. I implead them by the memory of the good old

days, when at their mother's knee they said, "Now I lay me down to sleep," and by thoso days and nights of scarlet fever in which she watched you, giving you the medicine at just tho right time and turning your piilow when it was hot, and with hand. that many years ago turned to dust soothed away your pain, and with voice that you will never hear again, unless you join her in the better country, told you to never mind, for you would feel better by and by, and by that dying couch, where she looked so ale and talked so slowly, catching her breath between tho words, and you felt an awful loneliness coming over your soul—by all that I beg you to como back and take the same religion. It wiis good enough for her. It is good enough for you. Nay, I have a better plea than that. I plead by all the wounds and tears and blood and groans and agonic-' and death throes of the Son of God, who appro,aches you t^iis moment with torn brow,

anrl

lacerated

hand, and whipped back, and saying, "Come unto me. all ye who are weaiy and heavy .laden, an.d.1 will give you rest. l.if

Savers.

Again, there but lit: !o touched are astray in tht ir 1 nations, like those

fuIncjT :o who

a Held of U:•iipied by ti ibits. All northern of North America

and England, and Scotland—that is, in the colder climates—are devastated by alcoholism. They take the lire to keep up tin warmth. In .southern countries, like Arabia and Spain, tho blood is so warm they aro not tempted to

fiery

liq­

uids. The great Roman armies never drank anything stronger than water tinged with vinegar, but under our northern climate the temptation to heating stimulants is most mighty, and millions succumb. When a man's habits go wrong, the church drops him the social circle drops him good influence drops him wo all drop him. Of all the men who get off track, but few ever get on again. Near my summer residence theie is a life saving sta.'ion on the beach. There are all the ropes and rockets, the boats, the machinery for getting people oft shipwrecks. One summer I saw there 15 or 20 men who were breakfasting after having just escaped with their lives and nothing more. Up and down our coasts are built these useful struttures, and the mariners know it, and they feel that if they are driven into tho breakers there will be ape from shore to come a rescue. Tho churches of God ought to bo s! many life saving stations, not so much to help those who aro smooth wat rs, hut those who have been shipwrecked. Come, let us run out the lifeboats! And who will man them? We do not preach enough to such men. We havo not enough faith in their release, Alas, if when they come to hear us we are laboriously trying to show tho difi'ereiK'e between .sublapsariaiiism a .d supralapsarianism, while th-.y have a thousand vipers of remorse and despair coiling around their immnr! spirits!

The chureh is not chiefly for goodish sort of men whoso proclivities are till right, and who could get to heaven pray-:: ing and singing in th' ir own homes. If is on the beach to help the drowning. Those bad eases aro the cases that God likes to take hold of. lie can save a big sinner as well as a small sinner, and when a man calls earnestly to God for lndj) he will go out to deliver such a one. If it were necessary, G'-d would come down from the sky, followed by-r-ail the artii'eryof heaven and a million angels with drawn swords. Get 1'".) such redee:.:u! men in each of your churches, a id nothing could stand before them, for such men aro generally warm hearted and enthusiastic.

A Great mission.

Furthermore, tho destituto children -,. of tho streets oiler a field of work comparatively unoccupied. Tho uucared for children aro in the majority in most of our cities, 'xheir condition was well illustrated by what a boy in this city said when ho was found under a cart gnawing a bone and somo one said to him,,^ "Where do you live?" and ho answered, "Don't livo nowhere, sir!" Seventy thousand of tho children of New York city can neither read nor write. When they grow up, if unreformed, they will outvote your children, and they willgovern your children. Tho whisky ring will hatch out other whisky rings, and grogshops will kill with their horrid--, stench public sobriety, unless tho church of God rises up with outstretched arms and infolds this dying population in her bosom. Public schools cannot do it. Artgalleries cannot do it. Black well's island cannot doit. Almshouses cannot do it. New York Tombs cannot do it. Sing Sing cannot do it. People of God, wako up to your magnificent mission! You can do it. Get somewhere, somehow, to work!

Tho Prussian cavalry mount by putting their right foot into the stirrup, while tho American cavalry mount by putting their left foot into tho stirrup. I don't earo how you mount your war charger if you only got into this battle for God, and get tliero soou, right stirrup, or left stirrup, or no stirrup at all Tho unoccupied fields aro all around us, and why should we build on another man's foundation?

I havo heard of what was called the "thundering legion." It Was in 179, a part of the Roman army to which some Christians belonged, and their prayers, it was said, wero answered by thunder and lightning and hail and tempest, which ovorthrew an invading army and saved the empire. And I would to God that you could bo so mighty in prayer and work that you would become a thundering legion beforo which the forces of sin might be routed and the gates of hell mado to treniblo. All aboard now on tho gospel ship! If yoa cannot be a captain or a first mate, bo a stoker or a deckhand, or ready at command to climb the ratlines. Heave away now, lads! Shako out the reefs in tho foretopsail! Come, O heavenly wind, and fill tho canvas! Jesus aboard will assure our safety. Jesus on tho sea will beckon us forward. Jesus on tho shining sliore will welcome us into harbor. "And so it came to pass that they all escaped safe to land