Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1889 — THIS CENTURY. [ARTICLE]

THIS CENTURY.

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE FOR THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. ’ y ’ ■> ' ' ■ '■ v ' ' And What Will Follow the Work of the Faithful —Tljc Redemption Cttming?? \ * Rev. Dr. Talrhage preached at thh Brooklyn Tabernacled last Sunday.' Text: Revelations xix.,M. He said’. The nineteenth century is departing After it has taken a few more steps, if each year be a step, it will begone into the eternities. In a short time we shall be in the last decade of thia century, which fact makes the solemnest book outside the Bible the almanac, and'the most tremendous piece of machinery in all theearth (the clock. Thelast decade Of this centhry upon which we shall soon enter will the grandest, mightiest and most decisive decade in all the I am gla)l it S not to come imrtjHmatwj' for we need by a new baptism of tSielHoly Ghost to prepare for it. That last ten years of the nineteenth ceutury, may we all live to See them!, J>oes any one car'that this division of (time is-arbitrary K Ob, no; in other ages the divisions of time may have been arbitrary, but our years date from Christ. Does any one say that the grouping of ten together is an arrangement arbitrary? Oh, no; next to the figure seven, ten is with God a favorite number. Abraham dwelt ten years in Caanan. Ten righteous men would have saved Sodom. In the ancient tabernacle were ten curtains, their pillals ten and their sockets ten. In the ancient temple were ten lavere, and ten candlesticks, and ten tables, and a molten sea of ten cubits. And the commandments written on the granite of Mount Sinai were ten, and the kingdom of Go<J»was likened- to ten virgins, and ten men should lay hold of him that, was a Jew, and the reward of the greatly! faithful is they shall reign over tgw cities, and in the effort to take the census of the New Jerusalem the number ten swings around the thousands, crying “ten thousand tirnpes ten thousand.” So I come to look toward the closing ten years of the nineteenth century with an intensity of invest i can hardly describe. I have also noticed that the favorite time in many of the centuries for great events was the closing fragment century. Is America to be discovered, it must beyfi thb. last decade of the fifteenth century, namely 1492. Was free constitutional government to be wel'E-established in America, the last years of the eighteenth centuiy must achieve it. Were three cities to oe submerged by one pitch of scoriie. Herculaneum and Strabim anH Pompeii in the latter part of the first century must go under. The fourth century closed with the most agitating ecclesiastical war of history, Urban the Sixth against Clement the Seventh. Alfred the Great cleseg.X&w ninth century and Edward eleventh century with thqjr resounding deeds. The sixteenth century closed with the establishment of religious independence in the United Ijetherlands. Aye, almost every century has had its peroration of overflowing achievements. As the closing years *» of . the centuries seem a favorite time for great scenes of emancipation or disaster, and as the number ten seems a favoritenumber in the Scriptures, written by divine direction, and as we are soon to enter upon the last ten years of the nineteenth century, what does the world propose? What dpes the Cfiurch of Christ propose? What do the reformers propose? i know not; but now in the presence of this consecrated 1 nropose that we make ready, get all our batieries planted and all our plans well laid in what remains of this decade, and then in the last decade of the nineteenth century march up and take this round world for God. Is it audacious for me to propose it? Ob, no! A captive servant in the kitchen of Naaman told the Commander-in-Chief where he could get rid of the blotches of his awful leprosy, and his complexion became as fair as a babe’s. And didn’t Christ, in order to take the opthalmia outof the eyes of the blind man, use a mixture of spittle and dust? And'who showed Blucher a short cut for his army so that, instead of taking the regular road by which he would have come up too late, he came up in time to save Waterloo and Europe? Was it not an unknown lad who, perhaps, could not write his own name? And so I, “who am less than the least ot all saints,” propose a short cut to victory, and am willing to be the expectoration on some blind eye, and tell some of the Brigadier Generals Of the Lord of hosts how this leprosied world may in the final decade of the nineteenth century have its flesh come again as the flesh of a little child. Is there anything in prophecy to hinder thi§ speedy consummation? No. Some one begins to quote from Daniel about “time, times and a half time,” and takes from Revelation the seven trumpets, blowing them all at once in my ear. But with utmost reverence I take up all the prophecies and hold'them toward heaven and say, God never has and neve/ will stop consecrated effort and holy de* termination and magnificent resolve,and that if the Cnurch of God will rise up to its full work it can make Daniel’s time twenty years and his half time ten years. Neither Isaiah, nor Ezekiel, nor Micah, nor Malachi, nor Jeremiah, nor any ofthe major or minor prophets will hinder us a second. Suppose the Bible had announced the millenitim to begin 3889, that would be no hinderance. In one sense God never changes his mind, being the same yesterday, to-day and forever. But in another sense he does change his mind, and times without number every day, and that is when his people pray. Didn’t He change His mind about Nineveh? By God’s comimand, Jonah, at the top of his voice, while standing on the steps of the merchants’ exchange and the palatial residences of that city, cried out, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Was it overthrown in forty days? No. The people gave up their sins and cried for mercy, ana though .Jonah got mad because his whole course of sermons had been spoiled <hd went into a disgraceful pouting, we have the record so sublime I can not read it without feeling a nervous chill running through me. “God saw their works, thatthev turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that He had said He would do unto them, and He did it no< God is a father, and some of us krffiw what that means, and some time when we have promised chastisement and the child deserved it, the little darling has put

berarms around our neck and expresses suclrsorrow and such promises of doing better that her tears landed on the lips of our kiss, and we held her a half hour after on otir knee and would: as soon think of slappingan angel in the face as />f even Striking her with the weight of our little finger. God is a father, afid while he has promised (his world sccurgings, though they were for a thousand years or five thousand years, he would, if the world repeated, substitute ibenediction and divine i God changed his mind aboiit Sdjforn I six times. He had determined an its destruction. Abraham ashed Hirn it He would notspare it if fiftjr righteous people, were found thete; ana!, narrowing down the number, if forty people; if thirty people; if twenty people; if ten people could be found there. Arid each Of the six times; the Lord answered yes. Oh; why didn’t Abraham go on jpst two stjeps further and qay if five be found there and it one be found there, forthen lori’-e sake of Lot, it’s one good citizen, I thank Sodom would have been spared. Eight times does the Bible say that God repented when he had promised punishments and withheld the stroke. Was it a slip'of Paul’s pen when he spoke of God’s' cutting short the work in righteousness? No, Paul’s pen pever slipped. There is nothing in the way of prophecy to hinder the crusades I have proposed of the nineteenth century. . . The whole trouble is that we put off the completion of the world’s redemption to such long and indefinite distances. The old proverb that “Whafi is everybody’s business is. nobody’s business,” might be changed a little and be made truthfully to jsay what js the Gospel business of all the ages is the Gospel business of this age. We are so constitutefijhat we can not get much enthusiasmaoout something five hundred years from now or a thousand yparsdxmn now. We are fighting at too 'Tong a range. That gun called a “Swamp Angel” ws nuisance. It shot six miles but it hardly ever hit anything. It did jji/chief destructive work when it burst and killed those who were setting it off. Short range is the effective kind of work, whether it be for worldly or nagrtious purpose. Some man with hig, ■ewre half shut drones out to Jme the Bible quotation: “A thousand years are as one day;” that is, ten centuries are not Jong for the Lord. But why do yoir not quote (ne previous sentence, which says that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years? That is, he could do the work of ten centuries in twenty-four hours. The mightiest obstacle to Christian work is the impression that the world’s evangelization is away off. And we take the telescope and look on and on,, through centuries until we see two objects near each other and we strain our vision and guess what they are and we call great conventions to guess what thev are, and we get down our heaviest theological works and balance our telescope on the lid and look and look and finally conclude that they are two beasts that we see, and the one has hair and the other has wool, and we guess it must be the lion and the lamb lying down together. In that great cradle of postponment and somnolence we rock the church as though it were an impatient child and say, “Hush, my dear, don’t be impatient! Don’t get excited by revivals! Don’t cry! ° Your Father’s coming! Don’t get uneasy! He will be here in two or three or ten or twenty thousand years.” And we act as though we thought that when Macaulay’s famous New Zealander in the far distance is seated on a broken,,arch of London Bridge sketching the ruins of St. Paul’s his grandchild might break in and jolt his pencil by asking him if he thought the millenium would ever appear. Men and women of the enternal God! Sone and daughters of the Lord Almightj! We may have it start in the decade that is soon to commence, and it will be done if we can persuade the people between now and then to get ready, far the work. What makes me think it can be done. First, because God is ready, dy. He needs no longer persuasion to do his work, for if He is not willing that any should perish, He.is not willing that any of the people of the next decade shall perish; and the whole Bible is a chime of bells ringing out “Come, come, come,” and you need not co round the earth to find out how much He wants the world to come, but just to walk around one stripped and bare and leafless tree with two branches, not arched, but horizontal. But He is waiting, as He said He would, for the cooperation of the church. When we are ready God is ready. And He certainly has all the weaponry ready to capture this world for the truth, all the weapons of kindness or devastation. On the one hand the Gospel and sunshifieThna power to orchardize and gardenize the earth, and fountains swinging in rainbow and Chatswortaian verdure and aromas poured out of the vials of heaven, while, on the other hand, he has the weaponry of devastation, thunderbolt and conflagration and forces planetary, solar, lunar, stellar or meteoric, that with Joose rein thrown on the neck for a second would leave constellations and galaxies so many split and shtaered wneels on the boulevards of heaven. And that God is on our side. All on our side. Blessed be His glorious name! Blessed was the hour when through Jesus Christ my sinful soul made peace with Him! If you continue to ask me why I think that the world can be saved ip "the final dbcade of the nineteenth century I reply because it is not a great undertaking, considering the number of workers that will go at it. if once persuaded it can be done. sifted the five hundred million of workers down to four hundred million and three hundred million and two hundred million and one hundred million and to fifty million. I went to work to cipher out how many souls could bring to God in ten years if each one brought a soul every year, and if each soul so brougfit should bring another each succeeding year. I found out, aided by a professor in mathematics, that we did not need any thing like such a number of work era enlisted. You see it’ is simply a question of mathematics and in geometrical progression. Another reason why 1 snow it can be done is that we mav divide the work up among the denominations. God does not ask any one denomination to do the work or any dozm denominations. The work can be divided and is being divided up, not geographically but according to the temperaments of the human family. We cannot say to one denominations you take Persia, and Another, you take China, add another, you take India, because there are alt styles of temperaments in all nations. And some denominations are especially adapted to

work with people of sanguine temperament, or phlegmatic temperament, or choleric temperament, or bilious temperament, or nervous temperament, or lymphatic.temperament. The Episcopal Chuich will ”30 its most effective work with those who by taste prefer the stately and ritualistic. The Methodist Church will do itsbest work among the emotional.and demonetrative. Jhe Presbyterian Church will do its best wprk Among those who like strong dbc--tnne and the etaeiy service softened by the emotional. So each denomination will have certain kinds of people whom it will especially affect. So let the work be divided up. There are the (Seven hundred and fifty thousand Christians of the Presbyterian Church, north, and other hundreds of thousands in the Presbyterian Church,south, and all foreign Presbyterians, more especially Scotch, English and Irish, mdking, I guess, about two million. Presbyterians, the Methodist Church is still larger; the Church of England, on both sides the sea. still larger, and many other denominations as much, if not more, consecratea than any I have mentioned. Divide Up the world’s evangelization an ong these denominations after they are persuaded it can be done before the nineteenth century is dead and the Ipst Hottentot,the last Turk, the last Japanese, the last American, the last European, the last Asiatic, the last African will see the salvation of God before he sees the opening gates of the twentieth century. Again, I feel the whole world can be saved in the rime specified, because we have all manner of machinery requisite. It is not as though we had to build the printing presses. They are all built and running day and night, those printing religious papers (925 of those religious papers in this country), those printing religious tracts and those pprrmfg religious books. And thousands of printing presses now in the service of the devil could be brought and set to work in the service Of God. was the printing pkess invented? turn out bill-heads/ and circulars of patent medicines! and tell the news which in three weeks will be of no importance? From the # old;time Franklin printing press" on dp to the Lord Stanhope’s . press and tjie Washington press and the Victory preratodloe’s perfecting printingpress t-Hat machine .h.as been improving for its best yrisik grid its final woik, namely, the publication of the glad tidings of great joy which shall fee to all people. We have the presses, or can have them before tfcfe first of January/when the new decade is to begin, to put's Bible in the hand of every ton and if such person can not read we can have a colporteur, auftjevangelist or missionary to read it to him or her. But this brings me to the adjoining thought—namely, we have the, money to do the work. I mean the fifty millions of Christians have it. Aye, the two million seven hundred and fiftyfour thousand Christians have it, and the dam which is beginning to leak will soon break, and there will be rushing floods of hundreds and millions and billions of dollars in holy contribution when you persuade the wealthy men of the kingdom of God that the speedy conversion of the world is a possibility, and that Isaiah-ami'Ez'ekiel and Daniel and SLjJohfi tyill not stand in .the way of it, but help ’it on. I have no sympathy with this bombardment of rich men. We would each one be worth $5,000,000 if we could, and by hard persuasion might perhaps be induced to take $10,000,000. Almost every paper I take tells us of some wealthy man who has endowed a college or built a church ora hospital or a free library, and that tning is going to multiply until the treasury of all our denominations and reformatory organizations will be overwhelmed with munificence if we can persuade our men of wealth that the,wprld’s evangelization is possible, and,|hat they may live to see it with eyes. ■y Again. I thine that the world’s evangXlizatiorigan in the time sneeifiedre'eiuse we have already the theological'institutions necessary for work. i Let us take what remains of this decade to get ready for the final decade of the nineteenth century. You and I may not live to see that decade, or may not live to seedts close, but that shall not hinder mtyorm declaring the magnificenLpossibijitv. I confess that the my lifejbas been, not that I did not Wqrk I could not have worked hartterjund lived, as God knows and my family know-Msirt- .(hat I hive not worked under the realization that the salvation of this world was a near-by possibility. But whether we see it, the beginning or the closing of that decade, Js pfjioimportance, if only that decade can get the coronation, and then aH decades shall kneel before this enthroneth decade, amLeyen the gray-grown centuries will cast their crowns before it and it will be the most honored decade between the time when' tfie morning stars sang together as the libretto of worlds was opened and the time when the mighty angel, robed in cloud apd garlanded in rainbow, shall with one foot on the sea and tne other foot on the land swear by Him that liveth forever and ever that time shall be no longer. Alleluia! Amen! Not to Be Outddne by an Knglishmaa. Chicago Tribune. f Literary Ce’ebrity 7 (acknowledging introduction to fellow author Warmly) —I am delighted to meevymipjfr. Haggard. Fellow Author (with some haugbtineßs)— My name is Haggard, Mr. Howells. - Literary Celebrity (coldly polite)— Call me Howells, if you please. It Did Not Foreman (explaining the accident to the owner of the building)—Barney was workin’ on the roof, sir, and he slipped and fell the whole four stories, bring ng the cornice down yrith hinij sir, and breaking both his legs and half his ribs. Owner-Oh, well, never mind. I intended that cornice to come down, anyhow. -sThe constant increase of negroek in Mississippi, for they seem to be flocking to that State from all parts of the South, is causing some uneasiness down there. A newspaper of that State gives the negro majority in the population as 6(1,511 in 1870,171,828 in 1880, and estimates that the census of 1890 will show 356 921 before colored than white persons within its borders.