heels. Here came a man from Capernaum and
Gennesaret, and he drew his illustration from the lakes, from the
sand, from the ravine, from the lilies, from the corn-stalks. How the
Pharisees scoffed! How Herod derided! How Caiaphas hissed! And this
Jesus they plucked by the beard, and they spat in his face, and they
called him "this fellow!" All the great enterprises in and out of the
Church have at times been scoffed at, and there have been a great
multitude who have thought that the chariot of God's truth would fall
to pieces if it once got out of the old rut.

And so there are those who have no patience with anything like
improvement in church architecture, or with anything like good,
hearty, earnest church singing, and they deride any form of religious
discussion which goes down walking among every-day men rather than
that which makes an excursion on rhetorical stilts. Oh, that the
Church of God would wake up to an adaptability of work! We must admit
the simple fact that the churches of Jesus Christ in this day do not
reach the great masses. There are fifty thousand people in Edinburgh
who never hear the Gospel. There are one million people in London who
never hear the Gospel. There are at least three hundred thousand souls
in the city of Brooklyn who come not under the immediate ministrations
of Christ's truth; and the Church of God in this day, instead of being
a place full of living epistles, read and known of all men, is more
like a "dead-letter" post-office.

"But," say the people, "the world is going to be converted; you must
be patient; the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of
Christ," Never, unless the Church of Jesus Christ puts on more speed
and energy. Instead of the Church converting the world, the world is
converting the Church. Here is a great fortress. How shall it be
taken? An army comes and sits around about it, cuts off the supplies,
and says: "Now we will just wait until from exhaustion and starvation
they will have to give up." Weeks and months, and perhaps a year, pass
along, and finally the fortress surrenders through that starvation and
exhaustion. But, my friends, the fortresses of sin are never to be
taken in that way. If they are taken for God it will be by storm; you
will have to bring up the great siege guns of the Gospel to the very
wall and wheel the flying artillery into line, and when the armed
infantry of heaven shall confront the battlements you will have to
give the