p. 555 | The Gospel Not Wanted

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 11, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 35.

The Gospel Not Wanted.

REV. WM. T. DAVIS is a graduate of Harvard College and of Andover Theological Seminary. From the outset of his ministry he has cast his lot with the lowly. For a while he labored at the North End in Boston, where rum and Romanism are the principally potent influences in society. Afterwards and for three or four years past he has been preaching to the lumbermen of the Michigan woods. Returning to Boston for rest, Mr. Davis attempted to preach the gospel in a quiet and orderly way on the Common, on a recent Sunday afternoon. But our highly orderly city government stepped in with its club and blue buttons and bade the preacher pause. No preaching of the gospel on the Common. Public order might be disturbed! Very true—the same powers that be will allow a blatant fellow to harangue there his infidel views, or at least they did so recently. It does not very seriously imperil public order—or does it?—that the city authorities have gangs of men out on Sundays, again and again, doing work which is in no sense necessary. Thieves and roughs may make the Common dangerous to pass through after twilight, and somehow the city authorities do not distress themselves over the assaults and outrages which are and have been committed. But for a man who is known as a gospel preacher to open his lips there on a quiet Sabbath afternoon, that is alarming. Alarming! It is—only in this, that it shows how much Boston is under the rule of a power that hates Protestantism.—Christian at Work.