The gospel of foreign travel

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Preface

In the summer of 1890 the author spent twelve weeks on the Atlantic Ocean and on the soil of Europe, having left home, at the urgent advice of physicians, parishioners and friends, to recover from the effects of a severe illness — the first in nineteen years of labor in the pastorate.

Soon after his return, many members of his congregation began to clamor for a public recital of his experiences abroad. After due deliberation, he gave notice of a series of Sunday evening sermons on "The Gospel of Foreign Travel," stating that if the first proved acceptable, the others, as announced, would follow, to the number of eleven in all ; while if the first seemed to be uninteresting, or ill-suited to the pulpit, it would be the last. The preacher's plan was simply this : to use what he saw and experienced under foreign skies to illustrate and enforce the gospel. He did not purpose to give secular lectures, but gospel discourses — to set before his congregation the thoughts which came to him, as a student of divine truth, while he was beholding the wonders of the old world.

At the close of the first discourse, delivered November 9, 1890, there was no doubt in the mind of the preacher as to his duty, and he went forward till the one became eleven, according to the original plan, and the eleven became eighteen. The last sermon was preached April 19, 1891. From the beginning of the series to the close, congregations equal to the capacity of the church listened to the discourses, and the preacher humbly trusts that much good was accomplished.

- Early in the progress of the course of sermons, their publication in book form was suggested. That suggestion has come to the author again and again. At length he decided to make a book ; and here it is. The sermons are presented, with the exception of a few slight alterations, just as they were originally delivered. The author hopes that, if the critics condescend to notice his book, they will not handle it as roughly as it may deserve, and prays that God will bless it to the spiritual good of all who may take the trouble to give it a perusal.

C. W. Winchester, Methodist Episcopal Parsonage.

Medina, N. ¥., Sept. j. iSpi.

i.

OVER THE SEA.

" Let us go over to the other sideP — Luke, viii, 22.

On the seventeenth of June, 1890, a company of thirty-odd persons, two-thirds of the number women and one-third men, gathered in the Taylor House. Jersey City, saying to each other : "Let us go over to the other side." At seven o'clock in the evening, led by Prof. Joseph Swain of the Indiana State University, they went down to the dock of the Red Star Line, and went on board the steamship Westernland.

Imagine yourself to be a member of the party. 1 invite each one of you to take the voyage with us. Come with me, down into my state room. I want to stow away my baggage where it will be safe. This is the way. Down two flights of stairs we go. We pass along a narrow passage. We turn to the left. Here it is — No. 141. The door is open. An electric light is brightly burning. What do you think of a-uch a bedroom as this ? It is only eight feet long and six feet wide. Opposite the door are a wash-stand, a shelf and an oval mirror. On the floor is a good brussels carpet. On the right side are two good beds, or berths, one above the other. Mine is the upper one. On the left is a sofa. In the ceiling is a window, protected by an iron dome. Ceiling and walls are painted a brilliant white. I think this will do very well for eleven or twelve nights. Let us go back to the deck and look the ship over a little, as well as we can in the night.

Having examined the ship, we are now sitting in the saloon, writing. The room contains three long tables, fastened down, covered with thick, rich spreads, about one hundred and fifty elegant chairs and a piano. It has electric lights and about twenty little round windows, eighteen inches or two feet in diameter. On the end of the table near the door is a pile of letters and telegrams. Let us see if there is anything for us. Yes. Here is a telegram addressed to us both. It is signed by a former pastor of the Medina Church now resident in Rochester, and reads : "Wishing you health, happiness and an ideal trip." That is very kind. Thank God for the friends he has given us !

Wednesday morning finds us on deck at half-past five o'clock. At six precisely the big ship begins to back out of the slip. A little puffing, panting, blowing tug comes and helps to get her out and turn her around. Thank God for the little tugs, as well as the big ships ! Both are needed, in church and state. If you cannot be a big ship, carrying immense cargoes and crowds of passengers across mighty oceans, be contented to be a little tug, doing small jobs of hard pulling in the harbors and close to the shore. If you are not willing to be a little tug, you are not fit to become a big ship.

We are standing on the forward part of the upper deck leaning against the rail above the steerage. We have just passed the Goddess of Liberty and Fort Hamilton. The wind is bio wine a stiff breeze. We are passing Staten Island, going along finely. At the bowsprit we fly the flag of Belgium — three perpendicular stripes, black next to the staff, then yellow and red. At the top of the fore-mast flies the stars and stripes. At the main masthead is a white flag with a red star. At the mizzen masthead floats a blue flag with white letters U. S. M. — United States Mail. We have just passed Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island. We have a pretty sight before us now. About a dozen sailors in blue are up on the fore-mast, some of them a hundred feet above the deck, shaking out the sails and giving wings to the ship.

We must be near Sandy Hook. Everything is gay. The harbor of New York must be one of the grandest in the world.

The pilot has just left us and started back to the city. We are over the bar. Sandy Hook is behind us. The mighty Atlantic is before us. The shores of our dear native land are rapidly receding into dimness and nothingness.

Now we are out of sight of land. Our long voyage of three thousand four hundred and fifty-seven miles has begun. Where are we going ? How do we know that we are going anywhere? You say we are going to Europe, to Antwerp; that thence we are going to Bruges, and Brussels, and Paris, and the Alps, and Milan, and Rome, and Florence, and Venice, and Berlin, and London, and Edinburgh, and Liverpool. But how do you know that there is any such continent as Europe ? How do you know that there are any such cities as those which you just named ? Did you ever walk the streets of Paris ? Did you ever climb Mount Blanc ? Did you ever visit the cathedral of Milan ? Did you ever ascend the dome of St. Peter's? Did you ever stand on the bank of the Thames ? You are compelled to answer" no." How then do you know that these places have any existence outside the fancy and fiction of fanatics and deceivers? How do you know that the Red Star Steam Ship Company is not imposing upon you in pretending to transport you to Antwerp, when there is no Antwerp, in order to get your money ? If you can not answer these questions, I can answer them for you. By faith you know that there is such a continent as Europe, and that there are such cities as Antwerp and Rome and London. If you have not been there and seen those shores and fields and domes and towers, other men have, and you believe their testimony. Nearly all the knowledge we have in this world comes to us through the faculty of faith. If we were wholly dependent for knowledge upon our own investigation and sight, we should almost be ignoramuses and fools. But because we have faith in the intelligence and veracity of other men, and by faith accept the results of their observation, investigation and experience, we have much knowledge of worldly things, and continually grow in knowledge and wisdom.

So it is in religious things. The infidel says to the Christian: "Where are you going?" The Christian replies : " I am going to Heaven." The infidel says : " How do you know there is any such place as Heaven ? Have you ever been there ? Have you ever walked the streets of the New Jerusalem ? Have you ever sat under the trees on the banks of the River of Life ? " " No," the Christian is compelled to answer, "I never have." "Well then, how do you know but the priests, the ministers, are fooling you in order to get your money?" The Christian answers : "By faith I know that there is a hereafter; that the soul will live after death ; that there are such places as Heaven and Hell ; that there will be a resurrection of the body and a judgment seat. God, my Father, and Christ, my Saviour, have seen all these things, and I have their word and believe their testimony. I know that there is a farther shore to the ocean of death, that Heaven lies over on the other side of these waves of trial and temptation and tribulation, because the man Christ Jesus, my elder Brother, has been over there and has come back and brought me word, and I have faith in his testimony."

My friends, I want to impress on your minds the fact that the life of a man on the ocean is a life of faith; and that the Christian life is a life of faith. You cannot go to Europe without faith. You cannot go to Heaven without faith. If you would go to Europe, you must have faith in the word of others who have crossed the sea before you ; you must have faith in the ship on which you sail ; you must have faith in the machinery ; you must have faith in the compass and chart ; you must have faith in the captain and crew. If you would go to Heaven, you must have some degree of faith in Christian people and in the Christian Church ; you must have implicit faith in the chart — the Bible— and in Jesus Christ, the great Captain of your Salvation.

While we have been talking about faith, the engines have been working, and the huge ship, our floating palace-hotel, is far out on the bosom of the briny deep. How do travelers spend their time on the ocean ? Eating^ sleeping, walking, sitting in steamer chairs on the deck, chatting, reading, writing, playing harmless games, watching the ever-changing, never- resting sea. An extract or two from the tourist's journal will tell how time goes on the ocean. a Nearly all day I have sat in my chair, in overcoat and sea-rug. on the starboard side of the. ship (the south side it now is) watching the sea and chatting with many persons. The sea is a never failing source of entertainment. To-day it is as blue as blue can be, dotted all over with white caps. If an artist were to paint the sea in a picture as deep a blue as it really is now, he would be considered false to nature. Now I am sitting at the bow, just as far forward as I can get, with my back against the railing. Running my eyes along the entire length of the deck, I can see the vessel's stern, four hundred and fifty-five feet away. The sea is very beautiful this afternoon the most beautiful it has been since the voyage began. The water near by is of the deepest blue. In the near and remote distance, the surface is flecked all over with silver. The sky is well nigh cloudless, save along the horizon. Before me on the foremast, about fifteen feet above the deck, is the ' crow's nest,' on which is a sailor at watch. Just now he blew a horn which he continually carries. At once a crowd of people come running to the bow to see if they could discover a sail. We can see one directly east, probably twenty miles away. The sea is lonely. We on the ship are, for the time, as completely separated from the rest of the world as though we were dead. If our ship should go down, no one would ever know what had become of us. But we are not separated from God. He is on the sea as much as on the land; and we are in his almighty hand. How true the words of the Psalmist : ' Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ; even then shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.' "

Another page in the traveler's journal reads somewhat differently : " The sun went down in a cloud to-night, and there are indications of a storm. A fog has settled down upon us, and the fog-horn sounds hideously, every two or three minutes, to warn any vessel which may be passing. I fear it will not let us sleep."

I want to talk to you a little while about that fog-horn, and about another fog-horn. A fog-horn is a huge steam whistle, with a throat like the throats of an army of demons. Of all the hideous and earsplitting sounds which I ever heard, the fog-horn's scream is the worst. You would think it might be the wailing of lost souls, undergoing torture in Dante's Inferno. You know what the fog-horn is for. When the sky is so black, or the air is so thick with vapor, that passing vessels cannot see each other's lights, the fog-horn's terrific screech reveals the vessel's position and prevents collision and wreck. The fog-horn's voice is terrific and painful ; but it means mercy and salvation. Who would strangle its cry, when a darkness which can be felt rests upon the deep ? The fog-horn is sounding. Down under the decks, in one of the state-rooms, a man is trying to sleep. A hundred times, during the last hour, he has been just falling off into sweet unconsciousness, when that demoniacal screech has started him up, wide awake. " O, the hateful thing ! " he angrily exclaims. Go down and ask him if he wants the fog-horn stopped. He stares at you, and says : " Do you take me for a fool ? No ! Let it blow ! I would rather not sleep a wink till the end of the voyage, than to have the stoppage of that horn cause a collision at sea." Every person on the ship has an intense dislike for the fog-horn's voice. And yet if a vote were to be taken, everybody would hold up both hands to have it blow on as long as the fog continues.

The whole human family is sailing over the ocean of time toward the shores of eternity. For six thousand years a thick fog — the fog of sin— has covered the sea. To prevent collision and everlasting wreck, our all-wise Captain, God, has been blowing his fog-horn, to warn every man to flee from the wrath to come and to lay hold on eternal life. It is not music in a sinner's ears ; and many men are angry at it and at God, and clamor to have it stopped. In Old Testament times, Noah and Elijah and Jeremiah, and many other seers and prophets, were God's foghorns. Noah blew a warning blast, one hundred and twenty years. The world stopped its ears and would not be warned. The result was an awful wreck, in which scores and hundreds of millions of lives were lost. Elijah was a fog-horn of terrific power. He blew a blast of loud and solemn warning in the ears of Ahab and Jezebel and apostate Israel. Instead of forsaking their sins, they found fault with the fog-horn. Ahab said to Elijah: "Art thou he that troubleth Israel ?" Then they tried to silence the prophet's voice in death, that they might lie down in their sins and sleep on the verge of eternal damnation. Jeremiah knew that the ship of state was in danger of colliding with a vessel named Babylon, commanded by King Nebuchadnezzar. So he tried to warn King Zedekiah and his fellows, before it was too late. Instead of hating their sins, they hated Jeremiah and cast him into prison.

In this gospel dispensation every faithful minister is a fog-horn. These are some of the warning notes which they send out into the dark and misty atmosphere: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die;" "The wages of sin is death;" "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned"; "Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish." Many of us do not like these sounds. We do not like to hear a fog-horn, when we go to Church. We want to have the minister tell us that we are all right ; that we are sailing straight into the harbor of Heaven, when he knows that we are in imminent danger of being run down by God's ironclad war-ship "Vengeance," and sunk to the bottom of the gulf of divine wrath and indignation. If sinners in this congregation, to night, should be told what their peril is, in the very words which the Bible employs, some of them would be angry at the preacher, and would say : " Stop that ^fog-horn, and let us go to sleep." My friends, sailing to eternity on the ocean of time, let us be as wise as those who sail on the treacherous Atlantic Until the darkness of sin is all dispelled, let us thank God for the fog-horn, and heed its warning notes, however unpleasant they may be.

We ought to be better acquainted with the vessel on which we are sailing. She is built wholly of steel, including her masts and spars, except that her decks are wooden planks bolted down upon steel plates, and all the saloons and state-rooms are finished in wood. She is four hundred and fifty-five feet long ; forty-seven feet wide, in the widest part ; thirty-five feet deep ; has a tonnage of five thousand seven hundred and thirty-six tons, and engines of four thousand horse-power. She burns about one hundred tons of coal every twenty-four hours, and, on this voyage, carries about five hundred souls. One night one of the engineers took me, and others, down to see the ship's machinery. We went down and down, around and around, on iron stairways, till we were twenty-two feet below the surface of the sea. The engines are two in number, and are very large. The pistons have a stroke of five and one-half feet. One has a cylinder fifty-four inches in diameter ; and the other ninety-two. The smaller takes the steam from the boilers, and passes it into the second engine. Thence it passes into the condenser, is changed back into water and returns to the boilers. The engineer took us down to the very bottom of the ship and showed us the shaft which turns the propelling screw. It is one hundred and eighty-five feet long and seventeen and one-half inches in diameter. It is made of solid steel. It runs from the engines to,, and through, the stern to the screw outside. ' We went into the furnace room.

There we saw many smutty-faced beings, who looked as though they might be demons, stuffing the coal into twenty furnaces under the four boilers, and cleaning out the ashes. The place seemed like the bottomless pit, It was so hot and close that I feared I should faint. I do not understand how men can live there. But they do; and work for ten dollars a month. Down at the bottorn of the ship, at the stern, we could touch both sides of the vessel at the same time, with only seveneighths of an inch of steel between us and death. What I saw impressed me with a sense of the majesty and power of the human mind as shown in the invention and construction of such machinery and such a ship. I thought of the evolution, through the ages, of the art of ship-building, from the log raft, fastened together with ropes of twisted bark, and the rude digout, up to such a floating palace as that on which I was sailing. And yet the Westernland does not belong to the largest class of ocean steamers. She is far surpassed by the " City of New York," on which we made our returning voyage. The City of New York is indeed a floating city, with her immense saloon, her reading room, her library, her suites of apartments, her electric lights, her eleven hundred feet of unbroken side-walk, her weekly newspaper and her fifteen hundred inhabitants. If the City of New York were to be placed in the street, in front of this church, all the trees would have to be cut down to give her room ; her upper deck would be nearly as high as the highest part of this roof ; while her masts would overtop the tallest spire in this village. She has a tonnage of ten thousand tons. She has two propellers, driven by independent engines of twenty thousand horse-power. She carries six thousand tons of coal, every time she leaves her dock in Liverpool. She burns three hundred tons of coal every twenty-four hours. She sails twenty miles every sixty minutes.

As I paced the deck of "The City of New York," admiring her beauty, astonished at her greatness, feeling her motion, as she bounded along the loudresounding sea, I said to myself : Could any man believe that this ship, so full of design, so perfectly adapted to its work, came into existence by chance ? Can any man believe that that other ship, the World, came into being by chance ? Compare the two. The City of New York has a tonnage of ten thousand five hundred tons. The world has a tonnage of ten quadrillion tons. The City of New York carries fifteen hundred passengers. The world carries fourteen hundred million passengers. The City of New York sails over the waves twenty miles an hour. The world sails among the stars more than sixty thousand miles an hour. The City of New York has been sailing on the Atlantic about two years. The world has been sailing through infinite space at least six thousand years. The City of New York must have frequent repairs. The world has 'never gone into dry dock and has never been repaired. The City of New York trembles when she moves, and, if the sea is rough, she shakes up her passengers till they are deathly sick. The world moves three thousand times as fast as the swiftest ocean steamer, and yet her motion is so steady and smooth in calm and storm, that it took her passengers several thousand years to discover that she moved at all. Now, if the little steamer City of New York was designed and built and launched by some intelligent being, how much more evident it is that this great world was designed and created and launched into space by some being of infinite wisdom and power. If that man would be a fool who should say : " The ocean steamer came by chance," surely he is a greater fool who say : " There is no God."

Over on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean lie the continent and islands of Europe, with such splendid cities as Antwerp and Brussels and Paris and Rome and London and Edinburgh. But I ought to speak to you of another ocean and continent and city, which mortal eyes have never seen. Over on the other side of the ocean of time lie the continent of eternity and the evergreen plains and mountains of heaven. There stands a city whose walls are jasper, whose gates are pearls and whose streets are transparent gold. Men go to Europe for business, pleasure and health. They go to make money, to have a good time, to prolong life. We cannot all take a trip to Europe. To many of us that is a beautiful dream, which will never be realized. But we can all take a trip to Heaven. There we shall be immensely rich — " heirs of God and joint heirs with jesus Christ." There in God's presence, we shall have " fulness of joy," and, at his right hand, " pleasures forevermore." There we shall not only be rich, but shall live for ever and ever. Contrast that side with this. On this side are darkness, disappointment, doubts, fears, crime, sin, death. On the other side are light, rest, joy, love, purity, eternal life. On this side the ground is strewed with withered flowers, and faded leaves, and broken columns, and blasted fruit. Everywhere we see ashes, and smouldering ruins, and bleaching. bones, and grinning skulls, and tombs, and graves. This world is one vast Golgotha. Death and despair are written on every earthly thing. On the other side are flowers which never wither, and leaves which never fade, and fruit which never blasts. That world is one vast Eden. We talk about the beautiful fields and parks of England, the palaces and pictures of France, the cathedrals and temples of Italy, the mountains and glaciers of Switzerland, the castles and sculptures of Germany. But these things are nothing, and less than nothing, compared with the beauty and glory and magnificence of Heaven. You may never ride through Hyde Park in London ; but you may ride in God's chariot along the banks of the River of Eternal Life. You may never see the palace of Versailles ; but you may live eternally in the palace of Jehovah. You may never stand beneath the dome of St. Peter's ; but you may stand before the throne of God. You may never look at the dazzling, snow-clad peak of Mt. Blanc ; but you may " see the King in His beauty." You may never see a castle on the Rhine ; but you may own a mansion in the Celestial City. Every one of you may take a trip ta Heaven. Come, let us start to-night. Come, " let us go over to the other side."

There are many steamship lines between this country and Europe, and every line has many steamers. There is the Cunard line. All its steamers have names ending in ia, like the Etruria, the Umbria and the Britannia. There is the Inman line. All its steamers are named from cities, like the " City of Paris " the " City of Chicago," the " City of New York." There is the White Star line. All its ships are named with words ending in, ic, like the "Britannic" and the "Teutonic." There is the Red Star line. All its ships are named with words ending in land, like the " Westernland " and the " Nordland." There are many other steamship lines which I have not the time to name. If you take a European trip, you may choose between a dozen lines and a hundred ships. But there is only one line by which you can sail to Heaven, and only one ship. The name of that line is the " Gospel line," or the " Red Cross line ; " and the name of the ship is the " Church." The flag which floats at the top of her every mast is a red cross on a white field. If you go to Heaven, you must go by the way of the cross.

When I tell you that the only ship in which you can sail to Heaven is the Church, I do not mean the Methodist Church, or the Baptist, or the Presbyterian, or the Episcopal, or the Roman Catholic Church. I mean the Church of Christ, the Holy Catholic Church, that great spiritual society which includes every soul in every land and age who loves and serves the Lord Jesus Christ. This ship, the Church, sometimes called the Old Ship Zion, is the largest vessel ever built. She is large enough to carry every human being at once, and give every one a first-class state-room. She has no steerage passengers. She is the strongest ship ever built. She is built of steel, or something stronger and tougher than the best steel ever cast or forged. In the largest ship-yard in the world, where five thousand men find employment, in Glasgow, I saw eight huge steel monsters on the stocks, each five hundred feet long. The sound of the hammers on their metal ribs was perfectly deafening. The old ship Zion was built in a larger ship-yard than Glasgow, ever saw, and her rivets were driven home by patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and angels, under the supervision of the Supreme Architect of the Universe. She is the safest ship that ever sailed. She is so strong that no storm can ever wreck her, no collision can shake her, no ice- berg can crush her. And then her captain is Jesus Christ — " The Wonderful, the Counselor, the