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TIME TABLE IN EFFECT DECEMBER 31st, 1886.
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No. 1. No, 5. j STATIONS. i No. 2. No.lTc
J® P* ll !■' Cincinnati Ar 042 pm 640 rid
10 2. am 11 _0 pm Lv Lexington Ar 4Ki pm 400 am
.‘,7? flm " P m Lv Junction City Ar 2 4:i pm 240 am
6JO pm ■ loam Lv Chattanooga Ar 760 ami 565 pm
*! •’9 P ,n .9 95 am Lv Wauhatchie Lv 730am5 35 pm
TZ P m • T!* 9° 0,11 I'V Morganville .Lv +7 05 utn + 5 15 pin
Lt J 1 ara Lv .Trenton Lv to 45 am 455 pm
t 7 4- pmW IO 32 am ( Lv Rising Fawn Lv 631 urn 437 pin
i oj pmi 10 44 anv Lv Sulphur Springs Lvl 020 am 425 pm
tS 22 ppil 11 RpnrLv Valley Head Lv +5 50 am 355 pm
iSiujP®! J 455 pm Lv Fort Payne Lv to 14 am 3IS pm
I? 2? P° l ' pm Lv Collingsville Lv 425 am 230 pm
10 31 pan »15pm Lv Attulia Lv +382 am 125 pm
i 267 pm Lv S eelo Lv 112 50 pm
„ I 268 pm Lv Whitney Lv :1223pm
11 n 0 pmi 33;pm Lv Snringville Lv 215 am 11 48 am
, am ! *22 ptn Lv Trussvilie Lv 138 am 1102 am
i 4U»ain; 535 pm|Lv Birmingham Lv 1250 am 10 15 am
-•+6 03 pinjLv Wheeling Lv j+9 37 am
\ +6 13 put Lv Jonesboro Lv i 930 am
"> 46 am 659 pm Lv Woodstock Lv +ll 32 pm 851 am
+7 06 pm Lv Bibbville Lv j+B4s am
7 15 pm Lv Vance Lv 8 37 am
7 35 pm! Lv... Coaling Lv 8 17 am
7 54 pm Lv Cottondale Lvl 10 47 pm 806 am
347 am 815 pm Lv Tuscaloosa Lv 10 30 pin 748 am
+8 58 pm Lv.. Carthage Lv +7 12 am
t 9 20 pm Lv Akron.. Lv +9 30 pm 645 uni
+5 08 am 952 pm Lv ECTAW Lv 911 pm; 620 am
582 aui 10 15 pm Lv Boligee Lv; 840 pm 532 am
I 10 25 pm Lv Miller Lv, 840 pm,
547 am 10 32 pm Lv Epps Lv 835 pm 514 am
605 am 10 53 pm Lv Livingston Lv 816 pm. 453 am
625 am 11 15 pm Lv York Lv 756 pm 430 am
♦6 40 am, 11 33 pm Lv Cu ba Lv +7 38 pm 414 am
47 02 aiu 11 55 pm Lv Toomsulm Lv +7 15 pm 351 am
740 am 12 30 am Ar Meridian Lv 640 pm 315 am
843 am 119 am Ar Enterprise Lv 520 pm, 218 am
300 pm 735 am Ar New Orleans Lv 10 40 am 800 am
12 55 am Lv Meridian Ar 2 35 am
5 05 am Ar Jackson Lv 10 05 pm
7 30am ’Ar Vicksburg '. Lv 7 30 pm
2 40 pm Ar Monroe Lv 12 20 pm
6 45 pm Ar Shreveport Lv 815 am
- 7 50 am
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TRENTON, DADE COUNTY GA., FRIDAY. APRIL 8, 1887.
A LIVE CHURCH.
Punctuality and Earnestness Nec
essary for Success.
The Snmlay-Scliool ail Important Factor
Id Christian Advancement—Sermon b/
Rev. T. DeWltt Taluiage, D. U.
Brooklyn, April 3.—The Rev. De Witt
Talmage, D. D., has returned from the
West, after an absence of nearly three
weeks, in which he preached and lectured
In tifteeu cities to immeuse throngs. A
vast congregation was present at the
Tabernacle this morning, and joined with
fine effect in singing the hymn which be
gins:
••Jeans shall reign where’er the sun
Does his successive Journeys ran.’’
Dr. Talmage’s subject was “A Live
Church,” and his text Revelation iL, 3-9:
“Unto the angel of the Church in Smyrna
write: These things saith the first and
the last, which was 4 ea< U an< * * s I
know thy works, and tribulations, and
poverty, but thou art rich.”
Smyrna was a great city of the ancients,
bounded on three sides by mountains. It
was the central emporium of the Levan
tine trade. In that prosperous and bril
liant city there was a Christian church es
tablished. After it had existed for awhile
it was rocked down by an earthquake. It
was rebuilt. Then it was consumed by
a conflagration that swept over the entire
city. That church went through fire, and
trouble, and disaster, but kept on to great
spiritual prosperity. The fact was that
church had the grace of God, and ever ac
tive principle. Had it been otherwise all
the grandeur of architecture and all the
pomp of surroundings would only have
been the ornament of death—the garlands
of a coffin, the plumes of a hearse. It
may be profitable to consider what are
the elements of a live church.
1 remark in the first place that one
characteristic of such a church is punctu
ality in meeting its engagements. All
ecclesiastical institutions have financial
relations, and they ought to meet their
obligations just as certainly as men meet
their obligations at the bank. When a
Church of God is not as faithful to its
promises as the bank of England, it ceases
to be a Church of God. It ought to be un
derstood that prayers can not paint a
church, and prayers can not pay the
winter’s coal bill, and prayers can not
meet the insurance; and that, while
prayers can do a thousand things, there are
a t housand things that prayers can not do.
Prayer for any particular church will
never reach Heaven high unless it goes
down pocket deep.
In my church at the West there was a
man of comfortable means who used to
pray for his pastor in such elongated style
that he became a nuisance to the prayer
meeting; asking God, in a prayer that was
almost without ceasing, that the pastor
might be blessed in his basket and in his
store, while the fact was he never paid
any thing. If we pray for the advance
ment of the church, and do not out of our
means contribute for its advancement, our
prayer is only mockery. Let the church
of God then meet its obligations on the
outside, and let the members of the con
gregation meet the obligations on the in
side, and the church will be financially
prosperous.
Let me say, also, that there must be
punctuality in the attendance on the bouse
of the Lord. If the service begins at half
past ten in the morning, the regular con
gregation of a live church will not come at
a quarter to eleven. If the service is to
begin at half-past seven in the evening,
the regular congregation of a live church
will not come at a quarter to eight. In
lomc churches I have noticed the people
are always tardy. There are some people
who are always late. They were born
too late, and the probability is they
will die too late. The rustling of
dresses up the aisle, and the slam
ming of doors, and the treading of heavy
feet, is poor inspirations for a minis
ter. It requires great abstraction in a
pastor’s mind to proceed with the prelim
inary exercises of the church when one
half of the audience seated are looking
round to see the other half come in. Such
u difference of attendance upon the house
ef God may be a difference of time-pieres;
but the live church of which I am speak
ing ought to go by railroad time, and that
is pretty well understood in all our com
munities. There is one hymn that ought
to be sung in a great many Christian fam
ilies on Sunday morning:
"Early, my God, without delay,
I haste to seek Thy place.”
Another characteristic of a live church
is the fact that all the people participate
u the exercises. A stranger can tell by
the way the firsttune starts whether there
is any life there. A church that does not
sing is a dead church. It is awful to find
a cold drizzle of music coming down from
the organ loft, while all the people beneath
sit in silence. When a tone wanders
around, lonely and unbtfriended, and is
Anally lost amid the arches because the
people do not join in it, there is not much
melody made unto the Lord. In Heaven
they all sing, though some there can not
sing half as well as othe.-3. The Methodist
Church has sung all around the world, and
gone from conquest to conquest, among
other things because it is a singing
church, and any Christiau church organ
ization that with enthusiasm performs
this part of its duty will go on
from triumph to triumph. A church
of God that can sing can do any thing that
ought to be doue. We go forth into this
holy war with the Bible in one hand and a
hymn-book in the other. O, ye who used
to sing the praises of the Lord, and have
got out of the habit, take your harps dowu
from the willows. 1 am glad to kuow that,
as a church, we are making advancement
in this respect. When 1 came to be your
pastor we had au excellent choir in
the little chapel, and they sang very
sweetly to us Sabbath by Sabbath;
but ever and anon there was trouble,
for you know that the choirs in the United
States are the Waterloos where the
great battles go ou. One Sunday they will
sing like angels, and the next Sunday they
will be mad, and will not sing at all.
We resolved to settle all the difficulties,
and have one skillful man at the organ,
and one man to do the work of a precentor;
and now, from Sabbath to Sabbath, the
song comes up like the voice oi mighty
thunderings.
‘‘Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God;
Bat of the Heavenly King
Should speak their joys abroad.”
On the way to triumph that never ends,
and pleasures that never die—sing!
Another characteristic of a live church
is a flourishing Sabbath-school, lt is too
late in the history of the Christian Church
to argxe the benefit of such an institu
tion. ’lhe Sabbath-school is not a supple
ment t- the Church; it is its right arm.
But yon say there are dead churches that
have Sabbath-schools. Yes, but the Sab
bath-schools are dead, too. lt is a dead
mother holding In her arms a dead child.
But when superintendent and teachers
and scholars come on Sabbath afternoons
together, their faces glowing with in
terest and enthusiasm, and their songs
are heard all through the exercises,
and at the close they go away feel
ing they have been on the Mount of
Transfiguration—that is a live school, and
it is characteristic of a live church. There
is only nne thing 1 have against the Sab
bath-schools of this country, and that is,
they are too respectable. We gather into
our schools the children of the refined,
and the cultured, and the educated; but,
alas, for the great multitude of the chil
dren of the abandoned and the lost! A
few of them are gathered into our Sab
bath-schools ; but what about the seventy
thousand destitute dhildreu of New York
and the score of thousands
of destitute children of Brooklyn,
around whom are thrown no benign
and heavenly, and Christian in
fluences. It is a tremendous ques
tion, What is to become or the destitute
children of these cities! We must either
act on them or they will acton us. We
will edlvar Christianize them or they will
heathenize ns. It is a question not more
for the Christian than for the philan
thropist, and the statesman. Oh, if we
could have all these suffering little ones
gathered together, what a scene of hunger
and wretchedness and rags and sin and
trouble and darkness! If we could see
those little feet on the broad road to
death, which through Christian char
ity ought, to be pressing the narrow path
of life; it we could hear those voices in
blasphemy, which ought to be singing the
praises of God; if we could see those lit
tle hearts which at that age ought uot to
be soi!> d 7-vith one unclean thought, be
coming the sewers for every abomination;
if we could see those suffering little ones
sacrificed on the alter of every iniquitous
passion and baptised with fire from the
lava of the pit we would recoil, cry
ing out: “Avaunt, thou dream of hell!”
They are not always going to be children.
They are coming up toJjg men and women
of this country, spor!s6ai||^‘> f ! u >ty
that might now out with oTO drop
of the water of life will become the con
flagration of every green tiling that God
ever planted in the soil. That which ought
to have been a temple of the Holy Ghost
will a 9carrcd and blistered ruin—
every light quenched aud every altar in
the dust. That petty thief that slips into
your store and takes a yard of cloth from
your counter will become the highwayman
of the the burglar at midnight,
pickmg the lock of your money safe and
blow%ig up your store to hide the villainy.
A J-eat army, with staggering
step, Ind bloodshot eye, and drunken hoot
they are coming on—gathering recruits
from every grop-shop and den of infamy in
the land to take the ballot-box and hurrah
at the elections. The hard-knuckled list
of ruffianism will have more power than
the gentle hand of intelligence and sobri
ety. Men, bloated, and with the signature
of sin burned in from the top of the fore
head to the bottom of the chin, will look
honest men out of countenance. Moral
corpses, which ought to be buried a
hundred feet deep to keep them from
poisoning the air, will rot in tiie face
of the sun at noonday. Industry in
her plain frock will be unappreciated
while thousands of men will wander
around in idleness, with their hands
on their hips, saying: “The world owes us
a living." O, what a tremendous power
there is in iniquity when uneducated, and
unrestrained, and unblanched, it goes on
concentrating, and deepening, and widen
ing, and gathering momentum until it
swings ahead with a very triumph of des
olation, drowning-like surge, scorching
like flames, crushing like rocks! What
are you going to do with this aban
doned population of the streets' Will
you gather them in your churches?
It is not the will of your Heavenly Father
that one ef these little ones should
perish. If you have len respectable
children in your class, gather in ten that
are not respectable. If in your Bible class
there be twenty young men who have
come from Christian homes and elegant
surroundings,let those twenty young men
go out, and gather in twenty more of the
young men of the city who are lost to God
and lost to society. This outside popula
tion, unless educated and restrained, will
work terror in ages that are to come.
Years ago at New Orleans, when the
cholera was raging fearfully, a steamboat
put out just before nightfall crowded with
passengers who were trying toescape from
the pestilence. After the boat had been
out a little while the engineer fell with
the cholera. The captain, in consterna
tion. went down among the passengers and
asked: “Is there any one here who knows
anything about engineering?” A swarthy
man replied: “I am an engineer.” “Well,”
said the captain, I would be very glad if you
would take charge of this boat.” The man
went to the engine. The steamer moved
more rapidly, until after a while the
captain and some of the passengers were
alarmed, and they went to see what was the
matter, and they fouud that this was a
maniac engineer, and that he was seated on
the safety-valve; as they came to him
he said: “I am commissioned of Satan to
drive this steamer to hell,” and he Hour
i ttAxadhis pistol, and would not come down.
But after a while, through some strata
gem, ho was brought from his position,
and the lives of the passengers were
saved. O, my friends! that steamer had
no such peril as our institutions are
threatened with, if the ignorant and unre
strained children of this land shall come
up in their ignorance and their crime to
engineer our civil and religious insti
tutions, and drive them on the rocks.
Educate this abandoned population or
they will overthrow the institutions of this
land. Gather them into your Sabbath
schools. I congratulate you that many
have been gathered. Go forth, teachers,
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
on the coming Sabbaths may there be
found gathered scores and hundreds of
these wanderers, and instead of eighteen
hundred in the Sabbath-school we shall
see threo thousand or four thousand, and
tli© grace of God will come down upon
them, and the Holy Spirit will bring them
all into the truth.
Another characteristic of a live church
is one with appropriate architecture.
In the far West and amid destitute popula
tion a log church is t ery appropriate—the
people living in log houses. But in com
munities where people live in comfortable
abodes a church uncoinmodious or Jacking
in beauty fs a moral nuisance. Because
Christ was born in a inanger is no reason
why we should worship Hun in a barn.
Let the churches of Jesus Christ be not
only comlortablo but ornate. Years
ago we resolved to have a com
fortable church. We resolved that it
should be aiuphithcatrica) in shape. The
prominent architects of the country, after
figuring on the matter a good while, said
that such a church would not be churchly,
and they would have nothing to do with
the enterprise. But after awhile we
found an architect willing to risk
his reputation. He put up for us the
first tabernacle in ampliitheatrical stylo.
We liked it. All who came liked
it. This building followed in the same
style. We believe it is appropriate aud
adapted. An angular church will have an
angular theology. The church of Jesus
Christ ought to be a great family circle—
ttie pulpit only the lirc-place, around which
they are gathrred in sweet and domestic
communion. But when our first taber
nacle went up, O, tlie caricature and the
scoffing! They said: “It’s a hippodrome!
It’s a holy circus! It’s Talmage’s the
ater!” But the Lord camo down
with power upon that old building, and
made it the gate of heaven to a great
many. And this building followed. That
we were right in persisting in the style of
architecture is proved by the fact that now
there are sixty or churches in the
United States in the same style. Indeed
our Tabernacle has revolutionized church
artitecture in this country. A live church
must have a commodious, a comfortable,
an adapted building. “How amiable are
Thy tabernacles, O, Lord of Hosts! I
would rather be a door-keeper in the
house of my God than to dwell in the tents
of wickedness.”
Again, the characteristic of a live church
must be that it is a soul-saving Church.
It must be the old gospel of Christ. “Oh,”
say some people, “the Gospel of Christ al
lows but a small swing for a man’s facul
ties, and some men have left the ministry
with that idea.” One such said to Rowland
Hill: “1 have left the ministry because I
don't, want to bide ray talents any longer.”
“Well," replied Rowland Hill, “1 think,
the more you hide your talents the
better.” Why, there is no Held on
earth so grand as that which is open be
fore the Gospel ministry. Have you pow
ers of analysis? Exhaust them here.
Have you unconquerable logic? Let it
grapple with Paul’s Epistle to the Ro
mans. Have you strong imagination! Let
it discourse on the Psalms of David or
John's Apocalyptic Vision. Have you great
powers of pathos? Exhaust it in telling
the story of a Saviour’s love. Have you a
bold style of thinking? Then follow Eze
kiel’s wheel, full of eyes, and hear through
his chapters the rush of the wings of the
Seraphim. All ye who want a grand field
in which to work for God, come into the
Gospel ministry. At any rate, come into
Christian circles, and somewhere and
somehow, declare the grace of God. Par
don for all sin. Comfort for all trouble.
Eternal life for all the dead. O, my soul!
preach it forever. It has been my ambi
tion, and I believe it has been yours,
my dear people, in these years of my min
istry, to have this soul-saving church, and
we never yet tbnpw out the Gospel net
but we drew in afcreat multitude. They
have at a time, and
three hundred and fifty at a time, and I ex
pect the day will appear when, in some
service, there will be three thousand souls
accepting the offers of eternal life. I wish
I could tell you some circumstances that
have come under my observation, proving
the fact that God has blessed the prayers
of these people in behalf of souls immortal.
I could tell you of ono night, when 1 stood
at the end of the platform and a gentle
man passed me, his cheek bronzed with
the sea, and as he went into the inquiry
room he said to me: “lam an English
man.” I said: “I am very glad to see
you; walk in.” That night he gave his
heart to the Lord. It was a clear case of
quick but thorough conversion. Passing
out at the close of the inquiry meeting. 1
said 1 “How long have you been in this
country ?” He said: “I arrived by steamer
this morning at eleven o’clock.” I said:
“How long will you be in the city?” He
said: “I leave to-morrow for Canada, and
then I go to Halifax, and thence to Europe,
and I’ll never be here again.” I said: “I
think you must have come to this country
to have your soul saved.” He said: “That
certainly was the reason.” In that other
room, one night, at the close of
the service, there sat, among other
persons, three persons looking so cheerful
that I said to myself: “These are not
anxious inquirers.” I said to the man:
“Are you a Christian?” He said: “lam.”
I said: when did you become a
Christian?" He said : “To-night.” His wife
sat next to him. I said to her: “Are
you a Christian?" She said: “I am” I said:
“When did you become a Christian?” Sho
said: To-night.” 1 remarked : “Is this young
lady your daughter?” They said: “Yes.” I
said to her: “Are you a Christian?” She
sakft “Yes.” 1 said: “When did you
VOL. IV.—NO. 7.
become a Christian!” She said: “To
night,” I said to them: “From whence
camo you!” They said: “We are from
Charleston, South Carolina.” I said:
"When did you come?” They said: “We
came yesterday.” “How long are you go
ing to remain ?” “We go to-morrow. Wo
have never been here before, and shall
never be here again.” 1 have heard from
them since. They are members of the
church of Jesus Christ, in good and regu
lar standing, eminent for consistency and
piety.
And so God has made it a soul-saving
church. But 1 could tell you of a tragic
scene, when once, at the close of the
service, I found a man in one of these
front seats wrought upon most mightly.
I said to him: “What is the matter!” He
replied: “I am a captive of strong drink;
1 came from the West, I thought perhaps
you could do me some good. 1 find you
can’t me any good; 1 find there is no
hope for 1 me.” I said: “Come into this
side room and we will talk together.”
“Oh, no,” he said, “there’s no need of my
going in; I’m a lest man. 1 have
a beautiful wife; I have four
children. I had a fine profession.
I have had a thorough education. 1 had
every opportunity a man ever had; but I
am a captive of strong drink. God only
knows what I suffer.” I said: “Be en
couraged; come in here and we’ll talk to
gether about it.” “No,” he said, “1 can’t
come; you can’t do me any good. I was on
the Hudson River railroad yesterday, and
coming down, 1 resolved never again to
touch a drop of strong drink. While I sat
there a man came in—alow creature—and
sat by me. He had a whisky-flask and he
said to me: ‘Will you take a drink!’
1 said no; but oh, how 1 wanted
it! And as 1 sa ; d no, it seemed
that the liquor curled up around the
mouth of the flask aud begged: “Take
me! take me! take me!” I felt 1 couldn’t
resist it, and yet 1 was determined not to
drink, and 1 rushed out on the platform of
the car, and 1 thought I would jump off;
we were going at the rate of forty miles
an hour, and 1 didn’t dare to jump; the
paroxysm of thirst went off, and I am here
to-night.” 1 said: “Come in; I’ll pray for
you, and commend you to God.” He came
in trembling. Some of you remember.
After the service wo walked out and up
the street. 1 said: “You have an awful
struggle; l’U take you into g drug store;
perhaps the doctoreun give yousome med
icine that will help you in your struggle,
though, after all, you will have to
depend upon the grace of God.” I said to
the doctor: “Can you give this man some
thing to help him iu liis battle against
strong drink!” “lean,” replied the doc
tor, and he prepared a bottle of medicine.
I said, “JDiere is no alcohol in this—no
strong drink!” “None at all,” said the
doctor. “How long will this last?” I in
quired. It will last him a week.” “O,”
I said, “give us another bottle.”
We passed out into the street, aud
stood under the gas-liglit. It was get
ting late, and 1 said to the man:
“I must part with you. Put your trust
in the Lord and He will see you through.
You will make use of this medicine when
the paroxysm of thirst comes on.” A few
weeks passed away, and I got a letter from
Boston saying: “Dear friend, I enclose the
money that you paid for that medicine. I
have never used any of it. The thirst foi
strong drink has entirely gone away from
me. I send you two or three newspapers
to show you what I have been doing since
I came to Boston.”
I opened the newspapers and saw ac
counts of meetings of two or three thou
sand people to whom this man had been
preaching righteousness, temperance, and
judgment to come. I have heard from
him again and again since. He is faithful
now, and will be, I know, faithful to the
last. O, this work of soul-saving! Would
to God that out of this audience to-day five
hundred men might hear the voice of the
Son of God bidding them to come to a glo
rious resurrection!
AU the offers of the gospel are extended
to you “without money and without
price,” and you are conscious of the fact
that these opportunities will soon be gone
forever. The conductor of a rail-traiu
was telling me of the fact that he was oue
night standing by h's train on a side-track,
his train having been switched off so that
the express train might dart past unhin
dered.
He said while he stood there in the dark
ness, beside his train on the side-track, he
heard the thunder of the express in the
distance. Then he saw the flash of the
headlight. The train came with fearful
velocity, nearer and nearer, until after
awhile, when it came very near, by the
flash of the headlight, he saw that the
switchman had not attended to his duty—
either through intoxication or indifference,
had not attended to his duty, and that train,
unless something were done immediately,
would rush on the side-track, and dash the
other train to atoms. He shouted to
the switchman: “Set up that switch!” and
with one stroke the switch went back, and
the express thundered on. O! men and
women, going on toward the eternal world,
swift as the years, swift as the months,
swift as the days, swift at the hours, swift
as the minutes, swift as the seconds —on
what track are you running? Toward
light or darkness? Toward victory or de
feat? Toward Heaven or hell? Set up
that switch. Cry aloud to God. “Now is
the day of salvation.”
Give Your Wife Variety-
Give your wife an occasional vacation.
The humdrum routine of daily cares and
duties of home at least wear into heart and
soul, and weary with the monotony, she be
comes, despite her efforts and prayers,
dull, petulant and sometimes even cross.
And then you who are favored with the
variety of the street, business or profes
sional life, come in and wonder why she is
not always care-free and smiling. You
forget that her cares have multiplied, her
duties have enlarged, her anxieties have
been augmented and the aches and weari
ness and pain of housewifery and mother
hood have increased. Use your influence
to procure variety for her. Get her cat of
her own home occasionally and into an
other, that she may see how the world
moves there, and get new thoughts, im
pulses and encouragements, and return
again with augmented Zealand contentund
l happiness to your own house and home.-'
i J. B. o'., in thi'.caao Standard.