Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

4 WRECKAGE AMONG THE POOR '' i•' fl ■ flk V ttM^^3E^^j[./ifj m>*" ■ Hr'* ■' ■*****»*—**»" " 1 * > '" l wwiMlg^ — | 1 Westminster Chapel, Dr. Campbell Morgan's Church. “Behold, the babe wept.’’ Ex. 2: 6. OMEHOW, God has always gone to the common people when he wants a leader. Our text is concerning one of them. From childhood, many of you have been familiar with the details of the story of Moses and the bulrushes. Shortly after his birth, because of fright, his mother carried him to the swamps of the Nile, and there built a little ark S of bulrushes, pitch and slime. After the ark had been prepared, she placed the child in it for safe keeping, and floated the sacred treasure out upon the water. You remember when the daughter of Pharaoh came down for her daily ablution, she discovered the presence of the child, and carried him into Pharaoh’s house. Then you know how this little child, with unknown parentage, became the great leader of the mighty host of God. This is only an illustration of what God’s plan 'has been throughout all the ages. When a great work is to be done, he seems ever to resort to people of obscurity to carry it out. Where God Goes for Men. Joseph was found in a pit. David, the sweet singer and poet of Israel, was selected from the Judean hills while watching sheep. Daniel, the strongest character in Scripture and one of the mightiest prophets, was a Hebrew slave. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, and the great orator of the wilderness, was a man of unknown connection. i Jesus himself came from the despised little city, of Bethlehem, and was the child of a manger.! Those people who made up his earthly cabinet, and assisted him in the work of establishing his king-! dom, were called mainly from the shores of Gali lee. When we come to the history of the Church, we see the same plan carried out. William Carey, the father of modern missions, was a humble shoe cob bler in England. I once stood on the spot where William Carey lived. While there I felt very much like Moses when God said to him, “Put off thy. shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” One of a Series of Sermons Being Preached by Dr. Broughton in Westminster Chapel, London. The Golden Age for September 20, 1906. John Bunyan, who wrote, next to the Bible, the greatest, and, perhaps the most widely read, book in the world, was a humble backwoodsman. When God wanted to lift the Church of England from its state of death, and draw it from its shroud, he went to the ordinary walks of life, and laid his hand on the Wesleys. The greatest pulpit satellite of modern times was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, whose early life was spent in obscurity. Catherine and William Booth, whose names to day are honored and revered all over the world as the founders of the Salvation Army, were from the humblest station of the English Methodist Church. Dwight L. Moody, the most famous evangelist of modern times, came from a poor mountain home in Massachusetts. Oh, think of how strangely God has worked in this direction! When he wished to liberate a people from slavery, he went not to some great college or university, but to the woods, and laid his hand upon Abraham Lincoln, the rail-splitter. Is this plan of God not worth considering? It shows us possibilities of the common people, and charges us with the responsibility of them. The Church, nation, or community that neglects the common people is doomed to inevitable death. The history of the world for all ages past is suffi cient proof of this fact. In every period of the world’s history the facts will prove the statement that every twenty-five years, the bottom rail of society gets on top. Our Men of Means. Who are the men of money in your community to-day? Who were those very people twenty-five years ago? For the most part, twenty-five years ago, they were numbered among the common people. Look over the list of our big merchants, lawyers, doctors and preachers. Who were they twenty-five years ago? For the most part, they were men with out any connection worth mentioning. Through trials and tribulations, through dangers and diffi culties, they have come to where they are now. The Church that is not paying serious attention and putting forth its mightiest efforts toward up lifting the very class from which these men have come, is bound m the future to be inhabited by bats and dirt daubers. The Church upon whose heart lies heaviest this burden, the burden of the common people; the Church that is struggling to uplift them, to in spire them with hope and encouragement; the Church that is actually getting beneath the load they are not able to carry, and helping to carry it with them, is the Church that, twenty-five years from now, will not only have its grip upon the common people, but will have its grip also upon the wealthy. $ From a purely money standpoint, if nothing else, >Gt would pay the church to make its best and fight ever in the direction of the needs the men and women who make up the masses W’s the community. I do not believe in arraying class against class. |ffll abominate it, in religion or politics. It is the Sdemagogue who does it, I do not care where he is Mgfound. But, hear me, the masses of the world B|to-day make up the majority of, humanity. A Hman, then, is a simple idiot who plans only for the to the neglect of the masses. ■ Christianity cannot thrive upon any other prin ■ciple. It must be the friend of the weak. It must ■give itself in death, if need be, to save the lost, gland lift up the fallen. ■ Satan knows the value of the common people. ■He knows that it is from them that every good ■?ause has to draw its greatest workers. That is Wwhy he works so hard to try to destroy them. The common people are affected by public vice more than any other. This we need not stop to argue. Any man who has observed at all is prepar ed to agree to its statement. Public vice in our cities to-day is sapping the life of the very class of humanity that we have had to depend upon for our men and women. Satan and Church Officials. Why do we have slums in our cities? Why these dens and dives? They are in all our cities and some of our towns. Who is it that fosters them? And for what purpose are they run? Everybody knows they are run by the devil. To be sure, he is assisted by the vote-soliciting, boodle-grabbing politician, with, now and then, a Church official who is mak ing a profit by crime. Satan’s object in fostering these places is to spread the festering cancer germ throughout the masses of the people upon whom everything that is good must depend for its men and women. He knows that rich people generally do not furnish any piety; nor do they furnish nerve and grit. God and man has ever had to depend upon the poor for leaders. The devil wants, if possible, to prevent the uplifting of the common people. Every year there pour into our cities armies of young men from country homes. They come to seek avenues of usefulness and promotion, but while they come with ambition thus high, the devil is lying in wait to entrap them. The first thing that strikes them is the glare and glitter of the life of revelry in the dens and dives that are permitted to exist. See this mighty coming army, the army of young men! We are glad to see them come. They are to furnish us with the men and women in the fu ture, if history is to continue to repeat itself. But see the dead-falls that are sprung by Satan to catch. All he wants is time. Just permit him to exist and operate his traps, and the work will be done. Why allow such dead-falls to catch and ruin our young men ? Are they necessary ? The very ques tion itself is almost preposterous. Tell me, are they necessary, and is there anything good that is helped by them? Is life made sweeter? Is home made securer? Is the state blessed? What benefit do they render the community in payment for the crime they breed ? Look at the prostitution, the drink and the debauchery that is to be found in such sections. Do you say that these things are necessary? Some years ago, I went before the grand jury of our city with a batch of evidence that I had carefully obtained against places of prostitution and other such sins. Much of it was the result of my own observation. I testified to what I had seen, and others who were with me testified to what they ■had seen, and yet the grand jury, made up of re spectable, honest business men, so regarded; men, too, who had sworn to make indictments against every person who Was found to be violating the law, said: “We acknowledge these things to be contrary to the law, but they are of that class known as necessary evils.” There those grand jurors per jured themselves, and the matter ended. Court and Church. Talk about gross, unmentionable immorality be ing a necessity to a people claiming civilization! It is ridiculous to think about it. These things exist not because they are necessary, but because of the corruption that lurks in the heart of man. They would be put out any day but for the common ■consent of the people, the cowardice of the Church and the acquiescence of the court. The dissipation of the slums is not necessary to a city’s life. The impurity, drunkenness and ca rousing carried on there is a disgrace to civiliza tion. The slums to-day in our cities are dragging down the fairest flowers among our young men