A sister came in from the country and received full salvation. There being a union meeting-house in the community, she and others desired us to come there and preach the gospel. We agreed to do so on Sabbath evening if the house could be obtained. She thought there would be no difficulty. But as soon as the matter became known, a Methodist local preacher of the vicinity began to rage. He came to Walkerton on Saturday and, "foaming out his shame" before the people, declared that if we attempted to enter that pulpit he would "break our head," "break our neck," "kill us," etc.
Bishop Foster speaks of his M. E. sect as follows: "Oh, how changed! A hireling ministry will be a feeble, a timid, a truckling, a time-serving ministry, without faith, endurance, and holy power." Through this corrupt ministry "worldly socials, festivals, concerts, and such like, have taken the place of the religious gatherings, revival meetings, class- and prayer-meetings of the past. Oh, how changed!" Yes, saith the prophet, "How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards" (Isa. 1:21-23).
Surely we have come to the last days. For, "this know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away" (2 Tim. 3:1-5).
Yea, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird."
Oh, the rottenness, fierce hatred, and soul-murdering wickedness of sect Babylon! If there were only one hundred professors of Christ in the United States, and they all holy men and women of God, filled with faith and the Holy Spirit, walking unto all pleasing before God and exemplifying the pure life of Christ before men, and this generation had never known any other kind of professors of Christ, the masses of the people could be rapidly reached by the gospel of Jesus and saved from sin. But the devil has the world piled up with corrupt, proud, filthy, sectish religionists, 'professing that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate' (Tit. 1:16).
And because God has given us an honest heart to confess the sins of the professed Christendom and show the people that Christ is not the author of this mass of spiritual whoredom and abominable wickedness, which has filled hell with lost souls and covered the earth with blackness and infidelity, the devil howls and rages in his sectish priests, who are ready to murder us as the Jews did Christ, Stephen, and thousands of other martyrs who testified against them and their evil deeds.
As we shall have to meet the people of Walkerton and surroundings face to face in the day of judgment, God holds us responsible to tell them that the greatest obstruction to the salvation of souls is their shoddy, sectish holiness and their abominable, worldly religion.
Up to the summer of 1887 the evangelistic efforts of Brother Warner and his company were confined to the States of the Middle West. But now came a more extensive tour, that should take them as far West as Denver, Colo. On June 24 they left the Office and after a few meetings in LaGrange and Jay Counties, Ind., departed for the West. They stopped at Gilman and Onarga, Ill., and Hayesville, Iowa. From Keokuk, Iowa, they traveled by steamboat to St. Louis, where the following report was written:
"Oh, praise the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!" We have just landed here from the steamboat Sidney, having had a very delightful trip down the Mississippi from Keokuk. We made the trip of two hundred miles in twenty hours. The river being very low at this time, much caution was necessary to avoid running aground. Doubtless one hundred miles were traveled in passing from one side of the river to the other to keep the deepest channel.
We were a day and a night at Keokuk, waiting the coming of the boat. The Gem City was to have reached Keokuk the first day and then return down the river; but being late she turned around at Quincy and started back, leaving us to wait until the next day. Praise God, we confessed his all-wise hand in the matter and thanked him for the prolonged wait, believing it was all ordered of him. This morning about daybreak we passed the Gem City, she having stuck fast in the sand. So the Lord was good to his little ones and gave us a safe and very joyful voyage. Oh, the goodness and wisdom of God our heavenly Father for placing the great rivers and lakes in the earth as a beautiful means of travel! It is so much more pleasant than by railroad. Though the speed is not more than half so great, we can very pleasantly improve the time reading and writing. However, this trip was so wonderfully enjoyed by us that we could do no more than feast upon the beauties of nature and praise the Lord. The river abounds in beautiful green islands, and all her verdant banks are delightful. Just below the mouth of the Illinois river, for a few miles, the hand of God has skilfully carved out of the high rocky shore very beautiful scallops and great piers and towers, and even some appearances of partly ruined mansions and rustic stone buildings.