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DO not feel like preaching a sermon to
night; I feel as if we were having a fam
ily reunion; and I want to talk to you
about some of my experiences in recent
days laboring with another people—a
people across the sea, who live under
different circumstances and work in dif
ferent ways to the fulfillment of the
same end that we are working on . here.
I
It is now ten years ago since I made my first visit
to England. I went upon a tour of inspection for
the purpose of study. I traveled at that time over
all of England, practically, and Ireland, Scotland,
and Wales. Then*came across the continent and vis
ited Holland and Germany and Switzerland and Italy
and Belgium and France, then home. A year later I
made my second visit. It was then I had almost a
nervous break-down and was advised by physicians to
take a voyage across the soft and delightful waters of
the Mediterranean. At that time I touched upon
different shores —upon the shores of North Africa,
then crossing the Mediterranean and’ again going
through the continent calling in upon the different
countries, and finally landing in England.
Seven years ago I made my third visit to England,
at this time answering an invitation that came from
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, to go to England and take
his church, that he had just acepted, for two months.
It was my first preaching experience to a people on
that side. I stayed there, preaching the best I could,
for two months. Two years later I went again and
took that same responsibility, and then twice since
that time upon the same mission. So that, by this
time, I feel as if I have some right to speak con
cerning things in England; more right perhaps than
the average American who crosses the Atlantic and
stays six weeks touring the whole continent and
comes back and writes a book. A man came over
on shipboard with me from England once; we had
the same cabin together. He said to me about mid
way across the Atlantic: “I am going to your coun
try for the purpose of getting data with which to
make a book.” “How long are you going to stay,”
I asked. “I am going to stay three weeks.” “Os
course, you expect to tour the whole of the United
States in that time.” “Oh, yes; I think I can gtt
pretty well over the country in that time, don’t youl”
“Where do you expect to go?” “We'll, I would like
to get you to help me in my itinerary. I want to go
first, of course, to New York; that is where I land;
then to Boston, and to Washington and to Chicago,
and to Yellowstone Park, and to be able to take in
a bit of the southern states.” I said, “You want me
to make your itinerary out?” “Yes.” “And you
want to go to Yellowstone Park?” “Yes.” “Well,
this is about the best way I can fix it.” The minute
you get out of the custom house, get a cab and drive
at lightning speed and catch an outgoing train, going
West. Go straight to Yellowstone Park, and don’t
get off until you get there. Then step off the train
and catch the returning one, and don’t get off until
you get back to New York, and you will be there
just three hours ahead of the time when you have
to leave to get back to England.” That is not my
experience with England, and I feel as if I had a bit
more right to speak about things in that country
than the average man, those that venture to write
books and fill magazines and newspaper columns
concerning the things on that side. And so tonight
I am going to take just a little of your time endeav
oring if I can to fix upon you certain things which I
feel we need to know.
POLITICS IN ENGLAND.
First of all, I want to call your attention to a few
things political, for I believe that politics and relig
ion should be so closely and intimately asociated as
that they can be discussed at the same time upon
any religious platform in the world. England is, at
the present day in a great political stir and the one
issue today that has England in a stir is an issue
that is occupying the attention of this country at
this time, namely, the tariff. England has always
been a free-trade country. That is why it is possi
ble to get things so much cheaper than in this
country.
ENGLAND TODA Y
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb. Len G. Broughton, T).D.
Stenographically reported for The Golden Age.—Copyright applied for.
The Golden Age for December 1, 1910.
England is wrestling with the same problem that
we are concerned with here. The Conservative
party, which is the party out of power, is battling
against the Liberal party, and the slogan of the
Conservative party is the establishment of a system
of protective tariff somewhat like what we have in
our own country. The Liberal party is fighting with
might and main to maintain their present free trade
policy. One thing I like about -English politics, they
don’t have so many elections. One thing about our
American politics has got to change or else the
financial condition will perpetually suffer and that
is our frequent elections, and in that respect I stand
by the side of Mr. Roosevelt. Something has got
to be done to stop this frequent agitation of our peo
ple with reference to national elections, and until
this is done we are never going to be at rest; busi
ness men are never going to be at ease.
Another thing I like about English politics. Eng
land’s politics are far more sincere than ours. The
Englishman goes in for principle, and not for party.
The Englishman is not so much led to the Conserva
tive party as to the issue, and the issue is largely
determined by the man who advocates it. They have
lived long enough to know that you can not hope to
get clear water through a muddy sponge, and can not
hope to get a clean administration through an un
clean man; when there is an aspirant for office, he
is first of all examined to see whether or not he
himself is as clean as the issue that he advocates.
That has been my politics all my life. I would not
give a snap whether the Democrats or the Republi
cans are in, but I do give a snap as to whether clean,
honest, pure men, men with principles, with ideals,
are at the head of our government.
I am satisfied that the great problem before the
American people today is the problem of law en
forcement. It outweighs every other consideration.
Do you know that America is blacklisted in every
other country with reference to this one matter?
There were over eleven hundred murders in the
United States last year; three hundred and fifty
murders in the city of Chicago; more murders in
the city of Chicago last year, than London has had
in the last fifty years, and Chicago is just one-third
the size of London. In three years London has had
only twenty murders, and Chicago has had 350 in one
year. Out of the eleven hundred murderers in the
United States less than one hundred have been con
victed and punished. The rest have gone free
These facts are talked about and written about
wherever I have gone and we are before the world
today as a people who disregard the laws that we
make. Our judiciary has no force and people are
thinking that perhaps it is not safe to invest money
here if life is so cheap, and if law is so easily disre
garded; they reckon that money and property inter
ests are also cheap and lightly regarded; and so I
say to you again, from a financial consideration, and
of course from a moral consideration, the one su
preme problem in America today is that of law en
forcement.
Let me say a word further about England mor
ally. The one supreme thing that impressed me this
time in England was the improvement in the drink
problem. There is less drinking in England than I
ever observed before. When I first went there it was
a common thing to find men reeling drunk on the
streets. This time it was a rare sight to find a man
or woman drunk on the streets of London. There
has been more improvement in this one respect than
any other, and I look upon this as a great step for
ward because the liquor traffic is so entrenched in
law as that it makes it a difficult problem to over
come.
HOME LIFE.
Then, I want to say a word about the home life of
England. There has nothing impressed me in Eng
land as much as her home life. She has the most
delightful people with respect to this that I know.
And the very essence of our home life is the family
altar. It is an exceedingly rare thing to go into an
English home and spend the night without having
family prayer at night and morning, and that is true
of all conditions of people, the rich and the poor
alike. I have been entertained in some of the
wealthiest homes of the country, and by the titled
people of the country, and I have not yet been enter
tained in a single home where there was not a regu
lar family altar. I remember a home where we were
entertained for a week; we assembled at night after
dinner was over, in a huge room where nineteen
maids and fourteen or fifteen men servants gathered
with the family, and all with their Bibles and hymn
books, and the. head of the house, one of the wealth
iest men in the world, read the lesson and got down
on his knees and made such a prayer as I have
rarely ever heard fall from a man’s lips. Next morn
ing I went in before breakfast and assembled in this
room with these servants and again went through
with these exercises, and so it goes every night and
morning. And the thing I long to see in this coun
try more than anything else is a revival of the old
time and now obsolete family altar. We will never
have that strong family life, and religious growth
that we should have as a people until we set up the
old family altar.
In the first place, I want to say that the rich people
of England are the most religious people. It is the
opposite in this country. Here when a man gets a
few thousand dollars ahead he gets the big-head and
thinks he can’t be a church-goer any more. First,
he stops going to church on Sunday nights; and he
can’t ever think about going to prayer-meeting; he
has gotten to be a man of affairs, and being a man
of affairs, he can not spend time at prayer-meeting.
It is exactly the opposite there. The religious peo
ple of this country are the working people, and for
the most part, the working classes of London are the
irreligious; and the religious people, the people that
stand for the church, are the rich people. The peo
ple that you see at the week-night services are for
the most part rich people, and they are greatly con
cerned about the expenditure of their money for the
cause of Christ. I was entertained in one mail’s
home who, when a boy, went to India without any
money; he has amassed an immense fortune in India
as a merchant, and now has a branch in Japan and
China, and about three weeks before I landed in Lon
don that man decided to hand over to the Foreign
Mission Board of his church five hundred thousand
dollars at one time for missions in India, and now
he is thinking about what he should do in Japan and
China, and it is predicted that in the next year that
man will give to the cause of foreign missions in
India, Japan and China, no less than one million and
a half dollars.
Another man has set aside twenty thousand dol
lars a year for the next twenty years to be spent in
a single country of South America for the spread of
the gospel. And I say, these are encouraging signs.
I believe that the day is close,at hand when the men
in this country whom God has blessed with money
will begin to lay their hundreds and thousands upon
the altar of God to be spent for evangelizing the
world, and I believe that within the next decade
there will be such a sowing of seed as the world has
never seen since the world was made. I just feel
the thrill in my soul of what we are to see in the
next decade. Brethren, are you pessimistic about
the world? Move out of your locality and see some
thing of the doings of God. I say to you -that there
are movements today at work among the men and
the women of God, movements that have not yet got
ten into the press, but movements we can easily de
tect as we come in contact with the great centers of
religious life, that will work such a revival in the
great world of men as the world has never even
dreamed of by its most optimistic dreamers, and I
come to you with a cheering note of the future along
this line. Our cousins across the sea are setting us
the example, and we will follow when we have the
time to emerge from the grasp of the commercial
spirit. These two great English-speaking nations,
the great Anglo-Saxon race, with the greatest lan
guage that the world has ever seen, in my judgment,
under God, are to evangelize the rest of the world.
ENGLAND'S RELIGION.
Again, let me say this other thing about England’s
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