PROMINENT GOSPEL WORKERS AT THE SANITARIUM.
Dr. A. J. Barton, of Little Rock, Ark., a prominent Baptist minister and educator in the South, recently conducted the regular Sabbath morning service at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, his subject being the importance of Christian effort, according to the divine commandment, rather than impulse or feeling, which, he truly claimed, governs the life of the majority of those who profess to be followers of Him who “pleased not himself.” Dr. Barton is an earnest, able speaker. He also modestly referred to the prevalent custom among his own people, of selecting certain commandments as all-important, and discountenancing all persons with different opinions, thus violating the primary inner principle of love while crying loudly for some secondary, outer ceremony or theory of worship,—an ailment common to others besides Baptists, we regret to add. Last week, Col. Henry H. Hadley, the noted New York evangelist, occupied the Sabbath service hour, relating how wonderfully the prayers of his mother were answered by his conversion years after her death, when he, a drunkard, was conducting a paper in the interests of the breweries and distilleries of America. He emphasized the promises, “Ask and receive,” “Seek and find,” “Knock, and it shall be opened,” as unfailing, in God’s own time, and warned his hearers not to sincerely ask for anything without expecting an answer. He spoke gratefully of the benefit he had received since adopting healthful principles during his former visit to the Sanitarium, when utterly collapsed at the close of his five-hundred-and-eighth successive gospel meeting in New York City. Ira D. Sankey, the life associate of D. L. Moody, is also at the Sanitarium on a second visit, and is favoring the inmates of that institution especially with some of the old-time gospel songs that have made his name famous.