Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1894 — RELIGIOUS REVIVALS. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS REVIVALS.

Phe Miracle of the Fishes a Type of Modern Revivals tome Objectton* to This Method of Salvation Answered by Dr. Talmage. Dr. Talmage chose for the subject his sermon through the press last Sunday, “The Objections to Religious Revivals,” from the text of Luke v, 6, “They inclosed a great Multitude of fishes, and their net brake.” Simon and his comrades had experimced the night before what fisbernen call “poor luck.” Christ steps )n board the fishing smack and tells ihe sailors to pull away from the Deach and directs them again to sink ;he net. Sure enough, very soon the let is full of fishes, and the sailors legin to haul in. So large a school >f fish was taken that the hardy men begin to Idok red in the face as they lull, and hardly have they begun to ■ejoice at their success when snap joes the thread, so there is danger lot only of losing the fish, but of osing the net.

The church is the boat, the gospel s the net, society is the sea; and a jreat revival is a whole school jrought in at one sweep of the net. 1 have admiration for a man who joes out with a hook and line to ish. I admire the way he unwinds the reel and adjusts the bait and Irops the hook in a quiet place on a still afternoon, and here catches one and there one; but I like also a big boat and a large crew, and a net a mile long, and swift oars, and stout sails, and a stiff breeze, and a great multitude of souls brought, so great 1 multitude that you have to get help to draw it ashore, straining the net tp the utmost until it breaks here and there, letting a few escape, but bringing the great multitude into eternal safety.

I have noticed that those who are brought into the kingdom of God’ through revivals have more persistsnee and more determination in the Christian life than those who come in under a low state of religion. People bot*n in an ice house may live, but they will never get over the cold they caught in the ice house. A cannon ball depends upon the impulse with which it starts for how tar it shall go and how swiftly, and the greater the revival force with which a spul is started the more farreaching and far-resounding will be the execution.

We must admit that in every revival of religion there is either a suppressed or demonstrated excitement. Indeed, if a man can go out of a state of condemnation into a state of acceptance with God, or see others go, without any agitation of soul, he is in an unhealthy, morbid state and is as repulsive and absurd is a man who should boast he saw a ’hild snatched out from under a horse’s hoofs and felt no agitation, or saw a man rescued from the fourth story of a house on fire and felt no icceleration of the pulses. It is sometimes said that during revivals of religion great multitudes )f children and young people are arought into the church, and they io hot know what they are atiout. It has been my observation that the sarlier people come into the kingiom of God the more useful they are. Robert Hall, the prince of Baptist preachers, was converted at twelve fears of age. It is supposed he rnew what he was about. Matthew Henry, the commentator, who more than any man of his century :or increasing tire interest in the study of the scriptures, was converted at eleven years of age; Isabelle Graham, immortal in the Christian church, was converted at ten years of aire; Dr. Watts, whose hymns will be sung all down ihe ages, was jonverted at nine years of age. I am very apt to look upon revivals as connected with certain men ivho fostered them. People who in this day who do not like revivals nevertheless have not words to express their admiration for the revivalists —Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitefield, Fletcher, Griffin, Davies, Osborn, Knapp, Nettleton ind many others whose names come to my mind. The strength of _their intellect and the holiness of their lives make me think they would not nave anything to do with that which was ephemeral, Oh, it is easy to talk against revivals.

Oh, lam afraid to say anything against revivals of rdligion, or against anything that looks like them, because I think it may be a jin against the Holy Ghost, and you know the bible says that a sin against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven, neither in this world nor the world to come! Now, if you are a painter, and I speak against your pictures, do I not speak against vou? If you are an architect, and I speak against a building you put up, do T not speak against you? If a revival be the work of the Holy Ghost, and I speak agaist that revival, do I not speak against the Holy Ghost? And whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, says the Bible, he shall never be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world to come, I think sometimes people have made a fatal mistake in this direction. • Now 1 come to the real, genuine ?ause of objection to revivals. That l« the coldness of the objector. It is the secret and hidden, but unmistakable cause in every case, of a low state of Religion in the heart. Wide awake, consecrated useful Christians are never afraid of revivals. It is the spiritually dead who are afraid of having their sepulcher molested. The chief agents of the devil during a great awakening are always un-

converted professors of religion. As soon as Christ’s work begins they begin to gossip against it and take a pail of water and try to put out this spark of religious influence, and they try to put out another spark. Do they succeed? As well Chicago was on fire might some one have gone out with a garden water pot and try to extinguish it. But I think, after all, the greatest obstacle to revivals throughout | Christendom to-day is an uncoverted I ministry. We must believe that the vast majority of those who officiate at sacred altars are regenerated, but I suppose there may float into the ministry of all denominations of Christians men whose hearts have never been changed by the grace of God. Of course they are all antagonistic to revivals. I could prove to a demonstration that without revivals this world will never be concerted, and that in one hundred or two hundred years without revivals Christianity will be practically extinct. It is a matter of astounding arithmetic. In each of our modern generations there are at least thirty-two million children. Now add thirty-two million to the world's population, and then have only one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand converted every year, and how long before the world will be saved? Never —absolutely never!

We talk a good deal about the good times that are coming and about the w ■rid s red mp io .oHow long before they will come? There is a man who says five hundred years. Here is a man who says two hundred years. Here is some one more confident who says in fifty years. What, fifty years? Do you propose to let two generations pass off the stage before the world is converted? Suppose by some extra prolongation of human life at the next fifty years you should walk around the world; you would not in all that walk find one person that you recognize. Why? All dead or so changed that you would recognize them. In other words, if you postpone the redemption of this world for fifty years you admit that the majority of the i two whole generations shall go off ■ the stage unblessed and usaved. I 1 tell, you the church of Jesus Christ cannot consent to it. We must pray and toil and have the revival spirit, and we must struggle to have the whole world saved before the men and women now in middle life pass off. It is too much to expect each one to bring one? Some of us must bring more than one, for some will not do their duty. I want to bring 10,000 souls. I should be ashamed to meet my God in judgment if, with all my opportunities of commending Chirst to the people, I could not bring 10,000 souls. But it will all depend upon the revival spirit. The: ; hook and line fishing will not do it. i It seems to me as if God is pre-' paring the world for some quick and* universal movement. A celebrated electrician gave me a telegraph chart i of the world. On that chart the ■ wires crossing the continents and, the cables under the sea looked likel veins red with blood. On that chart 1 I see that the headquarters of the ' lightnings are in Great Britain and the United States. In London and , New York the lightings are stabled : waiting to be harnessed for somel quick dispatch. That shows you ( that the telegraph is in possession j of Christianity. It is a significant fact that the J man who invented the telegraph was an old-fashioned Christian—Prof. ; Morse —and that the man who puti the telegraph under the sea was an old-fashioned Christian —Cyrus W. i Field —and that the president of the J most famous of the telegraph com- j panies of this country was an old-; fashioned Christian —William Orton j —going from the communion table on earth straight to his home in heaven. What does all that mean? I do not suppose that the telegraph was invented merely to let us~kiiow! whether flour is up or down, or j which filly won the race at the derby, 1 or which marksman beat at Dollymount. I suppose the telegraph was built to call the world to Goc. In some of the attributes of the Lord we seem to share on a small scale -for i istance, in His love and in His kindness. But until of late foreknowledge, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, seem to have been exclusively God’s possession. God. desiring to make the race like himself, gives us a species of foreknowledge in the weather probabilities, gives us a species of omniscience in telegraphy, gives us a species of omnipresence in the telephone, gives us a species of omnipotence in the steam power. «Discoveries and inventions all around about uS, people are asking, What next? I will tell you what next. Next, a stupendous religious movement. Next, the end of war. Next, the crash of despotisms. Next, the world’s expurgation. Next, the Christlike dominion. Nr*xt, the judgment. What becomes of the world after that I care not. It will have suffered and achieved enough for one world. Lav it up in the dry j docks of eternity, like an old-raan-of-war gone out of service, or fit it up like a ship of relief to carry bread , to some other suffering planet, or let it. be demolished. Farewell, dear qld world, that began with paradise and ended with judgment conflagration! Country Customer—“ How many yards of this g'Kxis does it take to make a dress?” , 1 Seller —“With or without?” I Country Customer—“ With without. What do you mean?” | Seller—“ Puffed sleeves.’’