Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1895 — “UNOCCUPIED FIELDS.” [ARTICLE]

“UNOCCUPIED FIELDS.”

Talmagian Lessons Drawn From Personal Experience. The ••Xfw ' Ground” At the Academy of I>r. Ta mi Rev, Dr. Talmage preached at the New York Academy of Music last Sunday to a larger audience than assembled at any church in the city. Dr. Talmage’s subject was, “New Ground,” and his text. Romans xv." 20. ‘‘Lest that I should build upon another man’s foundation.” He said:In laving cut the p’an for his missionary tour Dau!, with more brain than any of his contemporaries or predecessors or successors, sought ou . towns and cities which had mt yet been preached to. Hie goes to Coyinlh. a, city mentioned for splendor and~vice7 : thei• listiTelS?^wliereZ the priesthood and sanhedrin were ready to leap with botli feet upon, the Christian religion. lie feels he has a special work to do, and he means to do it. Wlmt was the result?. The*grandc'-t life of usefulness that man ever lived We moderiTChris~ t ian workers are not ant kr dm it ato Paul. We build on others people’s foundat.’o'ns. 1 f ave erect a church, We prefer to have it filled With families all of whom have I ecu pious. Do we gather a Sunday school class, we want good boys and girls, hair combed, faces washed, manners attractive. • So a'church in this day-is apt Iq.be. built out, of othery 11urches. Some preachers spend all their time in fishing in other people's ponds, and they throw Hie line into that church pond and jerk .out a Methodist, and throw the line into another church pond and draw oiit. a Presbyterian, or then' is a religious row in some neighboring church, and the whole school of fish s wim off from that pond, and we take them all in with one - swoon of the net. What is gained? Absolutely nothing for the general cause of Christ. It is only as in an army, when a regiment is transferred from one division to j another or from the Fourteenth I regiment to the Sixty-ninth regim.n'.l'.Vha'. strengthens the army is ri'ew recruits. There is a vast field here and everywhere unoccupied, plenty of room more, not building on another mans sou nd a t ion. We need as churches to stop bombarding theold iron. 11l sinners that have been proof against thirty years of Christian assault and aim for ffie .salvation of those who have never vet had one warmhearted and pointblank invitation. There are churches whose buildings might be worth $200,000 who are not averaging five new converts a year and doing less good than many a log cabin meeting house with tallow candle stuck in wooden socket and a minister who has never seen a college or known the difference bet ween Greek and Choctaw. We need churches to get into sympathy with the great out- ’ side, world and let them know that, none are so broken hearted or hardly bestead that they wil 1 not be welcorned. “No,” says some fastidious Christian. “1 don’t like to be crowded in church. Don’t put any one in my pew.” My brothers, what will you do in heaven? When a great multitude that no man can number ’ assembles they will put fifty in your j pew. What are the select few today assembled in the Christian ’churches compared with the mightier millions outside of them. At least 3,000,000 of people in. this cluster of seaboard cities, and not more than 200,000 in the churches. Many of the chi relies 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, to fractured thighs. Give us for treatment moderate sinners, velvet coated sinners and sinners with a gloss on. In order to reach the multitude of outsiders we must drop all technicalities out of our religion. When we talk to people about the hypostatic union and French encyclopedianism, 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 svmptoins. Many of us come out of theological seminaries up that vcqjtake the first ten years to show our people how much we know and the next ten years got our people to know as much as we know, and at the end find that neither of us knows anything as we ought to know it. Here are hundreds of thousands of sinmug. struggling and dying people who need to realize just one thing—that Jesus Christ came to save them now. - -

Comparatively little effort as yet has been made to save that large class of persons in our midst called “SkrptWs, 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. One of this class met Christ, and hear with what tenderness and pathos and beauty 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 the first commandment. and the second is like to this —namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thysfelf,. There is no other commandment greater than this.” And the scribe said tohiin: “Well, Master, thou hast said the truth, for there is one God, and to live Him with all the heart, and all

the understanding, and all the soul, and all the. strength,, is mOre than whole burnt -off erings and serifices. ” And' when Jesus saw that he answereddiscreetly he said’ unto him, ‘‘Thou ’art not far froin the kingdom of God.’* 1 So a skeptic was You would not be so - rough on’ that man if you knew bv what, process he had lost his faith in Christianity. I have known men skeptical from the fact 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 werp the worst boys the parents ever knew, because they liked to ride’down hill better than t-> : ead Bunyan’s •’Pilgrim’s Progress.” Whenever father and mother talked of religion they drew down, the ’ corners of their mouth and roiled up their eyes. If any one thing will Zsencl a” boy or girl - to- - ruin - sooner than another that is it. Others were tripped up of skepticism from being grievously wronged by some man who professed to be 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 lost faith by what happened in an oil company which was formed amid the petroleum excitement. The company owned no land, or if they did there was no sign of oil produced, but the president of the company was a Presbyterian elder, and the treasurer was an Episcopal vestry.man, and one director"waTauVletho(iisf class leader and the other directors prominent members of Baptist and Congregational churches. Circulars were issued telling what fabulous prospects opened before this company. Innocent men and women who had a little money to invest, and that little their ail, said: “I don’t know anything about this company, but so many good men are at the head of it that it must be excellent. and taking stock in it must be almost as good as joining the chivch.” 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 treasurer and other directors. 11l health or other reasons had caused the former officers 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 he vows he wants none of the religion that the Presidents and trustees and directors of that oil company professed. Others have gone into skepticism from a natural persistence in asking the reason why. They have been fearfully stabbed of the interrogation point. There are so many things they 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 ethers have all physical and mental equipneit?” I cannot tell. They go onLof church on Easter mor.ling and sa.q ‘fha' d c rine of ihe resurrection confounded me ” So it is to me a mystery beyond unravelment. I understand all the processes by which men get into the dark. I Thomas Chalmers was once a ' skeptic, Robert Hall a skeptic, Robert Newton a skeptic, Christmas 1 Evans a skeptic. when once, | with strong hand, they took hold of

the chariot of the gospel they rolled it on with what momentum! If I address such men and women today, I throw out no scoff. I implead them J by the, memory of the good old davs when at. their mother’s knee they , said. “Now I lay me down to sleep,” ' and by those days and nights of , scarlet fever in which she watched ' you, giving you the medicine at just 1 the right time and turning your pillow when it was hot, and with hands ■ which many years ago turned to dust soothed away your pain, and 1 ivith voice that-you- wilb-never hear again, unless you ioin 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 pale and talked so slowly, catching her breath between the words, and you felt an awful loneliness coming over your soul —by all that I beg you to come back and take the same religion. It. was good enough for her. It is good enough for you. Again, there is a field of usefulness but little touched, occupied by those who are astray in their habits. All. Northern nations, like those of North America and England and Scotland —that is, in the colder climates —are devastated by alcoholism. They take the fire to keep up the warmth. In Southern countries, like Arabia and Spain, the blood is so warih they are not tempted to fiery liquids., 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, we all drop him. Of all the men who get off the track, but few ever get on again. Near my summer residence there is a life saving station on the beach. There are all the ropes and rocketay

the boats, the machinery for gettin; people off shipwrecks. . One summer 1 saw there fifteen or twenty men, who were breakfasting after having just escaped with their lives and nothing more. Up and down our coasts are built these useful structhey feel that if they are driven into the breakers there will be apt from shore to come a rescue. The churches of God ought to be so many life saving stations, not so much to help those who are in smooth waters, but those who have been shipwrecked. Cdme, let us run out the lifeboats! And who will man them? We do not preach enough to such mem We have not enough faith in their release. I have heard of what was called -the “thundering legion.” It was in 179, a part .pf the Roman army to which some Christians belonged, and their prayers, it was said, were answered by thuider and lightning and hail and tempest, which overthrew an evading army and saved the empire. -And--!--would- to A3<kl- - you could be so mighty in prayer and work that you would become a thundering legion, before which the forces of sin might be routed and the gatesol hell made to tremble. All aboard now on the gospel ship! If you can not be a captain or a first mate, be a stoker, or a deckhand, or ready at command to climb the ratlines. Heave away now, lads! Shake out the reefs in the foretopsail! Come, O heavenly wind, and fill the canvas! Jesus aboard will assure our safety. Jesus on the sea will betoken us forward. Jesus on the shining shore will welcome us into harbor. “And so it came to pass, that they all escaped to land!”