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Text:—“And Jesus took her by the hand and
she arose.”
J.
.■- r i z
here to talk to you, and when I say talk to you
I say it with emphasis; I am going to lay my
sermon absolutely aside and present some
thing of what I feel the Lord wants presented
today. The line of thought is suggested by
reason of recent experiences ol our boys in the
boys’ camp, and I shall use their experience as
a basis for what I shall want to suggest ,and I
feel that my text is appropriate for what I
have in mind, to say the least of it.
“JESUS TOOK HER BY THE HAND.’’
There was some reason why Jesus took hold
of her hand. He did not do for a pastime. He
did not have any time to pass. He did not do
it for formality’s sake, for it was not custom
ary. Instead, any one who touched a dead
body was considered unclean and had to go
through certain ceremonies for cleansing.
There was back of that act of Jesus a great
propelling motive and that motive contained
a lesson and that lesson is the thing that I
want to talk about this morning.
I have read recently, as doubtless most
of you have, who • read the newspapers,
an account of the proposed new re
ligion. The father of this religion is
the President emeritus of Harvard Uni
versity, Dr. Eliot, aman of great learning
and in the educational world
| of church ; a, man-
‘ ...f*p er s<haractei and life
miSatH to be /aid Uie is a splendid
a giant of intellect and lie has served his day
and generation well. But in this effort of his to
leave behind him when he goes hence, as he
must do soon, by lapse of years, the funda?.
mental principles of a religion that is to sup
plant all other religions, is, in my judgment, a
thing that needs to be dealt with; needs to be
considered from the standpoint of the ortho
dox church of Christ.
Dr. Eliot, in giving forth this platform of
the new religion, is meeting with very popu
lar favor by the press editorially. Editorial
after editorial is being written on the new re
ligion, commending Dr. Eliot’s views. In this
platform that he outlined are two or three
principles that we have got to face. It is not
a question of whether we think we can stop
and take up the time to do it or not. It isn’t
a question as to whether we think the igno
rance of such matters is such as not to war
rant the pulpit in making the advance. The
fact that these things are today before us and
advocated by the secular press to such a large
extent and finding reception in the minds and
hearts of so many good people, demands that
they shall be faced.
The first of these principles is this: The new
religion is to acknowledge no supernaturalism
whatever. The new religion is to acknowledge
absolutely nothing can can not be reasoned out
by the ordinary processes of the human mind;
such a thing as a man getting a thing from
God by prayer is out of the question ; such a
thing as miracles is ridiculous either at the
present time or any other time; that all the
miracles dealing with the past and present are
simply our inability to comprehend the prin
ciples of God’s natural laws.
The second point that needs our attention is
that in this new religion there will be no medi
ator between man and God; that the very im-
THE FORWARD MOVEMENT
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb. Len 6 Broughton, D. D.
Stenogriphically reported for The Golden Age. —< »yright applied for
prepared a sermon this morning
that I gave a great deal of heart
and head thought to, on our part in
the incarnation of Jesus Christ. I
thought I never was so full of a
theme as of that. It has been roll
ing in my mind for weeks; but all
at once God took that away from
me —I believe he did —and I am
The Golden Age for August 5, 1909
mancnce of God, His universal immanence,
His person in everything and of everything
that is about us, is of such a character as that
there has got to be no Mediator; therefore,
Christ and the work of Christ is left out. There
is no need of a Savior.
The third point that needs our considera
tion is that all that the world needs today, and
all this religion is set to teach, is that we keep
ourselves in harmony with the natural laws
of the universe.
EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES.
I say that the time has come, since that is
already the progagandism of such a man as
I have just mentioned, for the church to take
its stand. But don’t pass judgment too soon;
there may be circumstances that you have not
thought of. There is some reason why this
State of things has come about. The need
that lies back of this propagandism is the pres
ent-day inertia of the church of Christ. Here
is what they say: “Why go on any longer hug
ging the old traditional creeds and dogmas and
holding to certain forms and ceremonies and
methods of worship while the great wide world
is not being touched?” That is the crux of the
whole business, and when they propound that
question I am almost dumb-founded. I am
almost without an answer. One-third of the
world today belongs to Buddha, after two
thousand years of Christian history. Half that
much belongs to Mohammed. There were
more converts to Buddha last year than to
Christianity in five preceding years. Two
years ago there were more converts to Mo
hammed in one year than to Jesus Christ in
the four and a half years preceding, and yet
we have had two thousand years of Christian
history and principles, and yet we keep on
talking about the church conquering the world.
We are losing, it seems to me. If we keep on
as fast as going ip Mie backward di-
we wWEIIX.k out.
is it ’going to i|kr tfl§piurch to get iRe
gospel to the lost regions beyond when they
are not even reaching the lost regions at home?
The cities of this country, according to recent
statistics submitted by Dr. Strong, .. hat
only one-fifth of the population in our cities
attend church, and when you go into the great
metropolitan centers like New York City, the
church is almost moribund. In New York
City churches are merging in order to keep
from dying. Great churches in New York City
that used to be world-famous, are now having
to merge with other churches in order to have
a membership large enough not to have to
close their doors. And I am not quoting to
you from some heretical statistics gathered up
for the purpose of damning the church of
Christ, but from men who are the friends of
the church, and that have made a life-time
study of these subjects, and then are holding
up the red flag and calling upon us to wake up
and do something, or else the day is fast com
ing when the church will be dead. In England,
it is not so bad, but it is bad enough. Recent
ly in a conference in England the ministers of
a certain borough of London met and prayed
for a whole day over the situation of that
country, and the result of that season of prayer
was that they decided that they would call
together their church officers with them in a
season of prayer that God would help them
out of this difficulty, and do you know what
happened? Less than one-fifth of the officers
of the church paid any attention to it, and the
pastors said, “What shall we do? Have we
come to the place where we can’t get the offi
cers of the churches together to pray, and not
even to interest them enough to answer our
appeal ?”
THE CHURCH RETROGRADING.
Right here in Atlanta, in this great church
going city, as it is called, the vast majority of
the churches, especially those in the fashion
able districts, have closed their doors on Sun
day nights. Rich people have got so they
can’t go to church on Sunday night at all, and
those who think they are getting rich can’t go
either. They have got to do like those that
are already rich. It has long been said that if
you want a man to stop going to church, give
him a little money. I say again that the cause
of the propagandism of the new religion is in
the recognized failure of the church, and we
have hesitated to speak the word because we
were so loyal to our Lord, until we have al
lowed the situation practically to slip out of
our hands, and here we are up to it today.
Our creeds are all right; our foundations are
all right; we have church houses far more
than we fill, and yet we have not enough even
in this city to hold half the people if they
should go to church ; the week-night service
is almost getting to be a thing not to be ex
pected in the cities of the South, and humanity
is suffering for friends, for a friendly touch
here and for a friendly touch there, for a sym
pathizing hand extended; blinded humanity,
groaning in spirit and in body, and there are
Christians a plenty who, priest and Levi-like,
pass along by on the other side of the poor fel
low who lies in the ditch and have not a word
to say, and if they have, it is to question as to
“Where did you come from?” and “How long
have you been lying there?” and “How long
do you think you could stand to lie there?” and
“Why don’t you get up?” and “If I help you,
where shall I write to your folks to get reim
bursed?” and “How long before I can get my
money back?” and that species of selfishness
has gone on eating the life out of the religion
of Jesus Christ like a cancer eating the life
of a man. I am not presenting half as pessi
mistic a picture as the real thing is. A friend
of mine, a pastor in one of the cities in the
South, - a | church whose name is sounded all
over otir denominational' circles, realized the
lack of spirituality and power recently and
called for a nightly prayer meeting for every
night at six o’clock before his people went
home from work. He invited them to just drop
in for thirty minutes, or for ten minutes, or
five minutes if that was all the time they had;
and he has kept it going for six weeks, and has
not had more than fifty at one time. He asked
me what I would do about it. I don’t like to
advise a man to do a thing that I could not
successfully operate, and I would be afraid t@
try it with my own folks. The pastors are
being stirred up and want to do something, but
have no encouragement to do it. They are held
down by the indifference and the lack of real
spiritual co-operation of the people. lam talk
ing simply from a world viewpoint and am try
ing to show you that there is a reasonable back
ground for this proposition of reorganization,
of that revolution in the religious world. I
believe that good is going to come out of it.
Surely the church will see where it has made
its mistake. I look forward to a revolution in
the church, but not out of the church. But un
less it does come inside the church this ex
ternal revolution is coming.
This is one of the things that they harp on
the church for—its hoary traditions, which I
accept and accept them the more because they
are hoary, and for its lack of contact with the
throbbing life of the world ; it has segregated
itself from everything except the one single de
partment of worship, and by reason of the fact
that it has segregated itself from everything
save the one single thing of worship, it has
lost the spirit of real worship. I believe that
the world s criticism is to a great extent true,
and it is because of this that I am speaking
today.
Sometime ago it entered into the mind of
our Brother Allen, superintendent of our Boys’
