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grand old church. John Wesley realized it and
seized fast hold of the opportunity of the hour,
and began to preach the real spirit baptism that
oei fire to the world f and made him what he is in
history.
Charris Haddon Spurgeon was another man of
that type. He came upon the scene in England
when the established Church was swinging in the
direction of a purely formalistic religion, and he
began In that mighty, incomparable way
of his to uphold the doctrines of grace and tin'
spirit life. Never would he have been the greatest
preacher in the world but for the fact that he
lived at a time when such a preacher as he had
his opportunity.
Sometimes men make this opportunity, but even
when a man is strong enough to make his oppor
tunity, it must be understood that there must be
opportunity for the making of opportunity, or else
it will never be made.
Take G. Campbell Morgan to-day in London with
his great Bible class of from two to three thou
sand men and women that meet there on Friday
nights to study the Bible. He has come upon
a time in London, and all the world, so far as that
is concerned, when the cry of the hour is back
to the Bible. Campbell Morgan has caught the
vision of that opportunity. He has travelled far
enough to see and to hear the cry. He has seen
that the philosophers and scientists of the world
have about spent themselves in their criticisms of
the Bible. Hence back to London he has gone,
to the old, dilapidated, worn-out, unfrequented,
but magnificent cathedral of Congregationalism
at Westminster, and there seized the opportunity
presented to him.
Take Dwight L. Moody. What accounts for the
marvelous success of Dwight L. Moody? You say
he was filled with the Spirit of God. Other men
were filled with the Spirit of God just as much as
he was. There were men with more talent and
better preparation. We account for it by the fact
that he differed from the thousands of other men,
iSpirit-filled and prepared, in that he was a man
keen in his searching for, and appropriation of, a
great opportunity. What was his opportunity? A
day for the laymen in the Church.
May I mention one more case, our own beloved
Sam Jones? What made him? Was it because he
had so much sense? There are thousands of men
with as much sense and more. Was it because
he had so much wit? There are thousands who
had just as much wit as he had. Was it because
he could tell jokes? Why, the world literally
teems with men who do nothing but tell jokes.
Was it because he was so spiritual? There are
other men just as spiritual. I’ll tell you why Sam
Jones became such a great factor in the world.
It was because he, like those other men, differed
from the rest of the w T orld about him in that he
saw his opportunity and seized it. What w r as that
opportunity? It was every-day, home-spun Chris
tianity, and more than the men who had preceded
him for a hundred years, he ’set the key for a
practical, every day, living religion in this coun
try, and especially in the South. From his first
utterance made on that line till the last, he aroused
the attention of the world, and challenged their
respect, and made for himself a place in history.
OUR PLACE.
Now, just as these have had their day, so we
’ today have ours. It may be in a different sphere,
but for the proper use of our opportunity we are
as destined for our place in history as any of them.
We may not shine with as much brilliancy, but in
the great assize we will have our reward as much
as they will have theirs.
What is our opportunity? It is three-fold. I
verily believe before God that the Tabernacle
Church and its enterprises is a creature of God
to meet a distinct and definite need of the world,
and because it will fulfill its need, we will get our
reward. What is our opportunity? I say three
fold.
First. I believe we are set of God to stand for
an old-fashioned evangelism, an evangelism that is
keyed to the work of the Holy Spirit in regenera
tion of the heart. Now, I say I believe this is our
first opportunity. You say that this is true of all
work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration of the
The Golden Age for January 10, 1907.
heart. Now, I say I believe this is our first oppor
tunity. You may say that this is true of all
churches. I am not speaking about all churches.
I am speaking of ours. I say to you I believe in
Atlanta we have lived long enough to demonstrate
that here in this church, and throughout its various
departments of work, the opportunity that God
wants seized is to stand firm and unflinching, re
fusing to federate or compromise, any and all
things that fail in their essence to center around
the blood of Christ as the instantaneous remedy
for the sin of the world. God wants these great
central truths rigidly and dogmatically and per
petualy impressed. The only way Luther and
Whitefield and Wesley and Spurgeon and Moody
and men of that type have ever had of impressing
the world with their opportunity has been that
they strongly and dogmatically and perpetually,
even at the point of threats, championed their
cause.
Then again, I believe we are set of God to stand
for Bible study in the work of the local Church.
Just as Campbell Morgan discovered in his world
wide vision that this was the opportunity of the
hour, just as in London his work has been so sue;
cessful, so I feel that in this country of ours, the
local church—not in some outside Bible school, or
seminary, but in the church itself—there is to be
maintained a real school of the Bible, teaching
men and women the great fundamental, beautiful,
all-inspiring world-saving knowledge of Jesus
Christ, and the Bible. I believe He has called us
in the world to stand for that thing. We are one
of the few local churches I know on the face of this
broad continent that today is pursuing this course.
One other thing I believe: I believe Gold has
called, and set us out, and given us the opportunil
of contending for a system of Christian humanita
rianism and philanthropy. I believe the time has
come in the history of the work of the Church of
Christ when we are either bound to stop and lis
ten to the pleading of the man, lame and halt, who
stands upon the door step of the church house, 01
we ourselves must not dare be hypocritical eno>i
to walk in, and sit down, and attempt to worship.
Remember that man who sat at the gate of the
Temple with his lameness, begging for alms, when
Peter and John went in to worship. Peter and
John could not dare go inside, and sing songs, and
read Scripture, and say prayers, and listen to
preaching, so long as the lame man, hungry and in
need, stood at the door of the Temple, and so to
day, God has flashed out upon the horizon of the
spiritual kingdom an opportunity that I, with the
limited vision that I have, have seen, and that
opportunity is for a practical, sane, sensible Chris
tian philanthropy that will be in keeping with
the pretensions that we make in the professions of
our faith.
GRIEVING OUR LORD.
The last thing I mention is this: Our bitter ears
are ofttimes caused, and I believe more frequently
than anything else, by the fact that we have
grieved our Lord. I have often thought of Jesus
in the Garden of Gethsemane. The thing that
grieved His heart, the thing that accounted for
the bursting through the pores of His skin
the great drops of blood, was the fact that His
disciples went back on Him, and the thing that
today grieves my heart more than all the rest of
the things I have talked about, is the fact the'
I know at times I have grieved His heart. But what
have we to conclude? Shall we continue lookimr at
this picture of gloom and pessimism and self- 0 ”
amination, or shall we attempt to throw another
side to the picture that we may see some ray of
comfort ?
I have this closing remark to make as we wind
up the old year. I make it by reciting a story of
a custom that prevailed among certain of the Welsh
people.
There is a custom that has become poetic with
its beauty and significance and sentiment, a cus
tom that has been rigidly adhered to for hundreds
of years, and, doubtless, forever amongst these peo
ple.
When a bride leaves her mother’s home for the
church where the ceremony is to be performed, the
last act of her mother is to give* her a handkerchief.
She takesit in her hand, and holds it throughout the
ceremony, and upon it wipes the tears from her
eyes. After the ceremony has been concluded, and
the two have beecome one, then this sacred hand
kerchief is taken, and put in her trunk in such a
place as it will never be disturbed. Years and
years may roll by. She may become a grandmother
of many children but that sacred handkerchief is
never to be touched. Finally, when she dies, the
one nearest akin to her is to take the sacred hand
kerchief from its place of security, unfold it, and
lay it upon her dead face, and put the coffin lijd.
over it, that the handkerchief of her bridal tears
may be buried in the same grave in which she her
self is laid.
Oh, my brethren and sisters, I beg of you as I
beg of myself, that as we look back over the past
year, and see the things that have caused us pain,,
and the things we have done to cause other people
pain and disappointment in any way, I beg of you.
that, like the Welsh bride, we take them, one after
another, and ask God to hide them in the grave of
the old year, that we may never see, nor hear of
them, nor have to deal with them again.
From a Bad Speller’s Standpoint.
By Rew. J. L. D. Hillyer.
111.
When so many English words are spelled without
regard to sound, it is extremely important that
some device should be provided that will aid the
melmory to retain the arbitrary jumble of letters
that so often serve the purpose of words. One of
my devices is to recollect a word by a wrong pro
nunciation. For example, take the word, “jeo
pardy.” I reflect that the thing we call it is sim
ply its name, the thing itself, is je-o-pardy. And I
write it so with the hyphens left out. Those peo
ple who have normal eyesight, and can form their
mental picture, can, of course, learn to spell these
outlandish words with very little difficulty. But
it is a tough job for the rest of us. Look at
“tough”; what is that “gh”? It nearly always
has “u” before; it; but the “u” is a merely sur
plus vowel left over from the time of Queen Eliza
beth. We have discarded it almost altogether in
America, where) it occurs in other words. But the
“gh” is an aspirate, like “h” and “f,” and
sometimes is a mere breathing, as when we say
“o,” we let the breath pass out silently, after we
have given the sound. The “gh, ” then, in Eng
lish, is equivalent to “f” in such words as
“tough.” The word, properly spelled, would be
“tuf,” if the sound required a stronger aspirate,
which it doeis not in this case, the “f” could be
doubled, thus, “tuff.”
It is a mere breathing in such a word as “dough,”
and the word should be spelled “doe”; the final
“e” serving to lengthen the preceding vowel, but
to be otherwise silent.
In “rough,” it is, again, “f” and here the “o”
should he left out and the word spcdled “ruff,” or
“ruf,” to distinguish it from the word “ruff”
already in use.
The affectation of our learned men in spelling
Greek derivations is shameful. Thq Greek letter
“phi,” is nothing but “f.” It is just like that
“gh” when “gh.” equals “f.”
Now, to burden our dictionaries and our children
by using a single letter, and two composite letters
to represent one and the same sound, and to be able
to give no better reason for it than that it helps
us to remember that etymology, is all bosh. “Ph,”
in Greek is represented by a single letter, the name
of which is “fi”; and the sound of which is the
same as “f.” We ought to use “f” in spelling
Greek derivatives wherever “phi” occurs.
In the case of the Greek “chi,” they have a
single letter to represent it, but we have not that
letter, and w’e use “ch” as an approximation to
it; that is as good as we can do, and so it is, too,
with “th” and “ps.”
The Greek vowels give us trouble. We have no
long “o”; we ought to have some way to distin
guish between omicron and omega. We have no
vowel that is equivalent to “eta.” If we had in
our type fonts the combined letters “ae,” it might
do; but try to do without it; take he word, “e]ec
(Concluded on Page 13.)
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