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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 
 
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 t SPECIAL SERMONS ^"^^ 
 
 For Special Occasions 
 
 Edited by 
 
 E. W. THORNTON 
 
 THE STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 CINCINNATI. O. 
 
Copyright, December, 1921 
 By The Standard Publishing Company 
 
 
 JAN -3 1922 
 
 0CI.A653457 
 
THE EDITOR'S PERSONAL WORD 
 
 THE assembling of the mannscripts for this book 
 has been a joy — in a few instances a joy some- 
 what attenuated by lengthened expectation — ^but a joy 
 nevertheless. The editing has been a pleasure rather 
 than a task, because it has been a sort of confiden- 
 tial excursion into the hearts and minds of personal 
 friends. 
 
 Only one clond casts its shadow over the occasion 
 of transferring the messages of these friends from my 
 hands to yours, and that is the cloud of sadness over 
 the death of E. B. Bagby, my room-mate at college 
 and the writer of the sermon for Washington's Birth- 
 day. The short sketch of his life, that precedes his 
 sermon, was received about the time the dispatches 
 were bearing news of his death. It, therefore, must 
 have been among the last things that came from his 
 pen. 
 
 Probably you will note the fact that not all 
 special occasions have been given a place in this group, 
 but modern conditions have been so fertile in such 
 occasions that to give each a special day would cover 
 the calendar. 
 
 Practically without exception these addresses and 
 sermons were prepared especially for this volume, and 
 in grouping the writers I have had a twofold pur- 
 pose in mind: first, the assembling of a rare coterie 
 of well-known men within the welcome glow of your 
 reading-lamp, and, second, the presentation of an 
 
6 THE EDITOR'S PERSONAL WORD 
 
 unusual array of sermons and addresses to young 
 preachers and others who are interested in sermon- 
 making. 
 
 That such complimentary allusion seems to list me 
 among the notables present I am well aware; but 
 surely an editor who would not break into such good 
 company when he has the chance could not possess the 
 keenness necessary to make him an editor. 
 
 E. W. Thornton. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 There Is Born a Saviour. 
 
 Christmas Sermon, by E, L, Powell. « 11 
 
 The Persuasion of Better Things. 
 
 New Year's Day Sermon, by Gerald Culberson 21 
 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Lincoln's Birthday Address, by P. Y, Fendleton. 33 
 
 Greatness in Little Things. 
 
 Washington's Birthday Address, by E. B, Bagby 43 
 
 The Program of Jesus. 
 
 Missionary Day Sermon, by Harry D. Smith. - 55 
 
 Choose You This Day Whom Ye Will Serve. 
 
 Decision Day Sermon, by J. H. 0, Smith ^^ „ 67 
 
 The Resurrection. 
 
 Easter Sermon, by W, H. Boole _ „. _ 79 
 
 Beginning Day in the Christian Life. 
 
 New Converts' Day Sermon, by W, N, Brmey 91 
 
 The Mother and the Home. 
 
 Mothers' Day Sermon, by Carey E. Morgan 107 
 
 The Responsibility of Fatherhood. 
 
 Fathers' Day Sermon, by George A, Miller 119 
 
8 CONTENTS 
 
 Christ and Decoration Day. 
 
 Decoration Day Sermon, by I. J. Spencer^ „ 135 
 
 A Theory of Christian Education. 
 
 Education Day Address, by Arthur Holmes ~ „ 153 
 
 Work Your Own Garden. 
 
 Commencement Day Address, by P. H. Welshimer. _ 185 
 
 What Is Your Life? 
 
 BaccaloAireate Sermon, by George H, Combs ^.. 201 
 
 The American Ideal. 
 
 Independence Day Add/ress, by E. E, Elmore „. 215 
 
 The Majesty of Service. 
 
 Labor Day Address, by Z. T. Sweeney - 229 
 
 Superabundant Benefactions and Significant 
 
 Monuments. 
 
 Church Dedication Sermon, by Wallace Tharp 253 
 
 ^^ Then and Now. 
 
 Church Anniversary Sermon, by Hugh McLellan 271 
 
 Preach the Word. 
 
 Minister's Ordination Sermon, by TV. B, Walker 283 
 
 In Everything Give Thanks. 
 
 Thanksgiving Day Sermon, by Mark Collis 299 
 
 The Home Partnership. 
 
 Wedding Anniversary Sermon, by L, N, D, Wells. 313 
 
 Home Dynamics. 
 
 Home-coming Day Address, by E. W, Thornton.. 323 
 
T^DWABJ) LINDSAY POWELL was horn May 8, 1860, in 
 JJj King William County, Va., and was educated m a private 
 scfiool, Norfolk, Va., and at Christian Urmersity, 'now known as 
 Culver-Stockton College, Canton, Mo., where he gradnmted in 
 1881, receiving the degree of B.L. Re later received the honorary 
 degree of LL.D, from Transylvania College nnd University of 
 Kentucky. After graduation he held short pastorates in Gor- 
 donsville and Charlottesville, Va.; Eopkinsville, Ky.; Norfolk, 
 Va., and Maysville, Ky., covering the yea/rs 1881-1887. In Sep- 
 tember, 1887, he became minister of the First Church of Christ, 
 Louisville, Ky., and is therefore now entervng upon his thirty- 
 fifth year. 
 
 Mr. Powell was president of the International Convention of 
 Disciples of Christ when that body met in San Francisco. He is 
 president of the Louisville Library Board, and served by appoint- 
 ment as president of the Louisville Vice Commission. He is Grand 
 Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky Masons and chaplai/n 
 of a number of other organizations. 
 
Christmas Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Jesus unique in tlie manner of His coming. Cliristianity 
 supernatural, or must take its place -with other pliilosopMes. 
 
 I. It is good tidings to have been told that the long-looked- 
 f or Messiah had actually come. 
 
 II. Another note of joy is the announcement that the 
 Christ who actually came is contemporaneous. 
 
 III. The whole gamut is swept, however, in the climacteric 
 word ** Saviour.** 
 
 10 
 
THERE IS BORN A SAVIOUR 
 
 Christmas Sermon by E. L. Powell 
 
 Now when Jesus was bom in Bethlehem of Judaea. — Matt. 2: 1. 
 
 » 
 
 CHRISTMAS! It is the one unique birthday of 
 recorded time. Unique as respects the babe who 
 was born on that first Christmas Day in the long ago. 
 *'Now when Jesus was bom in Bethlehem of Judaea'' 
 there was brought into the world of humanity a child 
 of flesh and blood — ^born of woman — crying, smiling, 
 hungry, human, and yet unlike and different from any 
 baby in the manner of His coming, who has for the 
 first time opened His wondering eyes on this strange 
 earth of ours. 
 
 Unique was this wonderful babe in the manner of 
 His coming, but yet completely human, *^for both he 
 that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are of 
 one [one nature], for which cause he is not ashamed 
 to call them brethren. ' ' Mystery of mysteries ! Having 
 a unique mission, a mission of redemption, related to 
 the ages before His birth, and to all subsequent races 
 of mankind, a mission which was held within the 
 eternal purposes of God from the beginning, ante- 
 dating the song of the morning stars or the breaking 
 of the first morning of time, why should it be thought 
 a thing incredible that without intermediary human 
 agency this babe should have come into our human 
 environment by the immediate touch and power of 
 
 God? Such a child with such a mission, ''the desire 
 
 11 
 
12 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 of all nations," the theme of prophet and poet who 
 interpreted the world's need of just such a child 
 coming with just such marks of uniqueness at just 
 such a time in the history of the world — such a child, 
 I say, could not have come otherwise, and at the same 
 time have met the requirements of faith or imagina- 
 tion. God's miracles delight us. They do not stagger 
 or distress our faith. 
 
 We can not explain the mystery of dawn as it 
 brightens into day. We simply rejoice in the glory. 
 ''Unto us is born a child ... his name shall be called 
 Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the Prince of 
 Peace." Why argue about the dawn? 
 
 ^'Here hatli been dawning another blue day. 
 Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away? 
 Out of eternity this new day was born; 
 Into eternity it soon will return.'' 
 
 What human agency is back of the dawn? Whence 
 does it come? In what laboratory is light manufac- 
 tured? With what pencil does the breaking day trans- 
 form and transfigure the darkened earth, which but 
 a moment ago was chill and cold under the mantle of 
 dewy night? The virgin birth! It is the birth of 
 the dawn. Explain it? Certainly not. Demonstrate 
 it in intellectual terms and syllogisms? Impossible. 
 Believe it and rejoice in it as you accept and rejoice 
 in the dawn. ^'Behold, the virgin shall be with child, 
 and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his 
 name Immanuel; which is, being interpreted, God 
 with us." How simple, almost naive, is the narrative! 
 Wonderful, however, in the same way as in the older 
 narrative, when ' ' God said, Let there be light, and light 
 was.'' So I am trying to say that the birth of Jesus 
 in Bethlehem was unique, wonderful and yet human, 
 
THERE IS BORN A SAVIOUR 13 
 
 friendly, intimate and familiar as the birth of all 
 babies who have made the living, sorrowing, rejoicing, 
 sinning, hoping generations of mankind. Could this 
 Bethlehem baby have called Himself the Son of man, 
 the child of the race, if His birth had been marked 
 by the limited and provincial characteristics of the 
 ordinary, the usual, the local, the purely natural course 
 of human arrivals? Born of a virgin, immediately 
 g&erated by God, miraculous, if you please, and not 
 less miraculously than matter. He becomes the child of 
 humanity, and, like the sun and stars, belongs to man- 
 kind. 
 
 Our Christianity is supernatural, or it must take 
 its place in the intellectual systems and philosophies 
 of mankind. But while the supernatural can not be 
 explained and understood by reason, it is none the 
 less reasonable, and must be the subject-matter of 
 reason. Science itself is nothing more than human 
 reason dealing with the supernatural in objective 
 nature. The first and last word of science, whatever 
 its theories, hypotheses and reasoned systems, is God. 
 ''In the beginning — God.'' Science is but the effort of 
 human reason to tell us how God is working, and has 
 uniformly worked, in the continuous creation of the 
 universe, and natural law is nothing more than God's 
 way of doing things. Jesus is the great exception, a 
 break in the uniformity of the working of the natural 
 law of generation and birth. There is here no contra- 
 vention or contradiction of law. It is an exception, 
 a departure from God's usual way, but no violation or 
 contradiction of the usual, unless we shall say that 
 there is no room in God's universe for the exceptional, 
 and that God is imprisoned by the methods and proc- 
 esses of His own creation. 
 
14 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 But pardon this brief excursion into the domain of 
 science and theology. This is a Christmas sermon. 
 "We want to hear the celestial choir chanting the 
 ^^ Gloria in Excelsis'^; we want to hear the angelic 
 trumpets startling the simple Bethlehem shepherds 
 with such music as had never rolled over earth's hills, 
 nor brought human hearts to such a glow of vibrant 
 happiness. '^Behold, I bring you good tidings of great 
 joy/' said the tall angel, as prelude and introduction 
 to the message of the whole heavenly host: ^'Unto you 
 is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is 
 Christ the Lord." Heaven's full and complete message 
 and music, the real Christmas music, is that uttered 
 by the full chorus, the completion, complement and ful- 
 fillment of the tall angel's prelude. The one angel 
 announces the text: *^ Behold, I bring you good tidings 
 of great joy." The full chorus preaches the sermon: 
 ''Unto you is born this day in the city of David a 
 Saviour, who is Christ the Lord." 
 
 I. It is good tidings indeed to Jiave been told tJiat 
 this long-looked-for Messiah had actually come. Hope 
 long deferred attains its fruition. ''Unto you is born." 
 We are not so much concerned as to the circumstances 
 or manner of His coming. Has He been born? It is 
 the historic Christ whose arrival the angels proclaim. 
 He is actual. You can touch His baby hands. He is 
 objective flesh and blood. "Art thou he that should 
 come?" asks the doubting prophet. Jesus says: "Go 
 show John the things you have seen." The actual 
 Christ doing the very things which long ago the 
 prophets had said the Messiah would do. The dream 
 has come true. See the Christ stand! No fancy, no 
 disembodied or discarnate ideal, no depersonalized sys- 
 tem of philosophy, no cold metaphysical abstraction. 
 
THERE IS BORN A SAVIOUR 15 
 
 On the contrary, warm flesh and blood — concrete, ob- 
 jective, personal — ^who will presently begin ^'to do and 
 to teach,'' and to so wondrously influence the select 
 company of His apostles that one of them shall say, 
 speaking for the others and for those who subsequently 
 should believe in Him through their teaching: ^'Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Chris- 
 tianity is based on solid, substantial fact — a divinely 
 human personality, who lived, taught, wrought, suf- 
 fered, died, was buried and rose again, and thenceforth 
 governing, guiding, redeeming human life, as the 
 ascended spiritual Christ ^^whom not having seen we 
 love.'' Christmas gets us away from the speculative 
 in our religion, and brings us down to earth where 
 we live and sin and suffer — the only place where a real 
 Saviour can find His task, and where an abstract Christ 
 is wholly without a mission. 
 
 II. AnotJier note of joy in fhis full Christmas music 
 is tJie announcement tTiat tJiis Christ who has actually 
 come is contemporaneous, ''Unto us is bom this day 
 in the city of David." This Christ of ours is of even 
 date. It is always in the ministry of Jesus this day, 
 this city, this generation. He has been the contemporary 
 of all ages and generations, else redemption could not 
 have continued longer or further than His personal 
 ministry in the flesh. ''Before Abraham was I am." 
 His historic birth in terms of time was the monumental 
 and historic expression of His continuous redemptive 
 presence through the ages. "He loved me and gave 
 himself for me," this day, this man, this Saul of 
 Tarsus, this house of Zaccheus in which he must abide, 
 unto you and me, unto our age and day with its pe- 
 culiar problems of peace and war, with its confused 
 democracy and yet near attainment, how contempora- 
 
16 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 neons the announcement : ^ ' Unto yon is bom this day in 
 the city of David a Savionr, who is Christ the Lord/' 
 
 III. TTie whole gamut is swept, Jiowever, in tlie 
 climacteric word ^^ Saviour/' It matters not, save for 
 academic and intellectnal considerations, that the 
 Christ-child has come, that He is the Messiah long 
 looked for and passionately desired, that He has been 
 recognized by His own conntrymen as none other than 
 the one of whom *' Moses in the law and the prophets 
 did write''; so mnch as that the Christ identified by 
 all the marks of type and prophecy has come to a 
 continuous ministry of redemption, "We must hear the 
 sustaining and undergirding word in this mighty 
 anthem: ''Unto yon is born this day in the city of 
 David a Saviour.'^ That last word describes the cir- 
 cumference and embraces the diameter of God's pur- 
 pose for humanity. ''Thou shalt call his name Jesus, 
 for he shall save the people from their sins." 
 
 Here is one at last who is doing, and has been 
 doing all through the centuries, that which none other 
 has attempted; namely, saving the soul of man from 
 Bin. Prior to His coming the best which could be done 
 for sin-stricken humanity resulted in little more than 
 an ameliorated and improved moral and mental en- 
 vironment. Philosophy had been tried in her noblest 
 representatives — a Plato, an Aristotle, a. Socrates — ^but 
 philosophy could not touch the heart, conscience, mo- 
 tives, the inner springs from which proceed the issues 
 of life and destiny. Not "the glory that was Greece, 
 or the grandeur that was Rome," could bring to man 
 the consciousness of sins forgiven, and of recovered 
 moral self-respect. Neither Judaism with its law, nor 
 the mighty prophets of righteousness, could do more 
 than discover and reveal sin, leaving man impotent 
 
THERE IS BORN A SAVIOUR 17 
 
 and helpless in the consciousness of its grip. ''What 
 the law could not do, in that it was weak through the 
 flesh, God, by sending his own Son in the likeness of 
 sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." 
 He does not deal with symptoms, but strikes at the 
 disease itself. He does not announce some little pro- 
 gram of readjustment, rehabilitation and artificial re- 
 construction or reformation. ''I have come that ye 
 might have life, and might have it more abundantly." 
 He does not save by rules and props and regulations 
 or statutory enactments, but by the law of the spirit 
 of life in Christ Jesus. ''He hath made me free from 
 the law of sin and of death." 
 
 A personal Saviour for all who would be saved 
 from sin — "good tidings of great joy for all people" — 
 this is the glorious announcement which came ringing 
 from the sky on that first Christmas Day two thousand 
 years ago. "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all 
 acceptation, that Christ came into the world to save 
 sinners." I have read somewhere a parable which 
 represents a man in a pit waiting and praying for 
 delivery. Buddhism comes that way, and, looking down 
 upon the poor fellow in his misery, says: "You did not 
 walk into the pit; you did not run into the pit; in 
 some previous state of incarnation you came into this 
 pit." "Very true," says the man, "but of what avail 
 if you can do nothing to get me out?" Likewise, 
 Mohammedanism passes and says: "It is the will of 
 Allah." "I do not dispute your statement," replies 
 the man in the pit, "but how does that help me out?" 
 And so the philosophies, theologies and cults pass by, 
 impotent and powerless to get the man out of the pit. 
 Finally, Jesus comes that way and asks, "Wilt thou 
 be made whole?" and without philosophy or theory, 
 
18 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 but with the grip of a mighty love, he lifts the man 
 out of his prison into the sunlight of happiness. The 
 question is not as to the truth or falsity of the creeds 
 and philosophies and theologies. They may all be 
 perfectly true, only they can not save a soul. ^'Weak- 
 ness'' is Paul's word in this connection. ''What the 
 law could not do in that it was weak." 
 
 Christmas brings to us the glorious evangel of 
 Christ's redeeming love. Pre-eminently it brings a 
 message to little children. It does more, however; it 
 brings a universal message. It offers hope — a sure 
 hope of salvation and moral recovery to the worst of 
 sinners. Glorious Christ! Glorious gospel! Glorious 
 hope! ''And now unto him who is able to keep us 
 from falling, and to present us faultless before the 
 presence of his glory, unto the only wise Grod our 
 Saviour, be glory and majesty and power and do- 
 minion, both now and forever." 
 
 '^When Christmas comes, 
 In field and street, in mart and farm, 
 The world takes on a lovelier charm; 
 ;Sweet-scented boughs of pine and fir 
 Are brought like frankincense and myrrh, 
 To make our hallowed places meet 
 For hands thait clasp and tones that greet. 
 While hearts worth more than gold or gem 
 Go forth to find this Bethlehem, 
 When Christmas coanes,'* 
 
GEBALD CULBEBSON was hom Dec. 1, 1879, at Waynes- 
 ville, N, C, and was educated at Johnson Bible College, 
 Tenn.y and Bethany College, W, Va., graduating in the latter 
 institution in 1905. 
 
 Mr, Culberson organized the co<ngregation of the church of 
 Christ and built the chAirch at Chester, W. Va, Under his min- 
 istry the church at Clifton Forge, Va,, was built. For nine years 
 he held a pastorate in Bichmond, Va., and for three years he did 
 a successful worJc with the church at Bedford, Ind, 
 
 At this writing he is in charge of the church at BecJcley, 
 W, Va., where he is also president of the Ministers* Assoduiion, 
 and a member of the Board of Directors of the BecMey Chamber 
 of Commerce, 
 
 19 
 
New Year's Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 I. New Year's Day Is a Day of Retrospective Witness. 
 
 1. Tlie witness of opportunities gone. 
 
 2. Tlie witness of shortcomings. 
 
 II. New Year's Day Is a Day of Persuasions Ahead. 
 
 1. The persuasion of better living. 
 
 2. The persuasion of an honorable death. 
 
 3. The persuasion of a glorious life beyond. 
 
 20 
 
* THE PERSUASION OF BETTER 
 THINGS 
 
 New Year's Sermon by Gerald Culberson 
 
 But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and 
 things that accompany salvation. — Heb. 6: 9. 
 
 THIS is a text for the present day. It gives ns the 
 backward look and the forward focus at New 
 Year. Human desire to retrieve and improve is upper- 
 most at this season. There is pull in the words, ''We 
 are persuaded better things of you.'' They call to us 
 from the heights ; they are so warm and personal. Like 
 a mother's love notes to a truant son; like a father's 
 melting accents to a boy inclining to waywardness; 
 like the tones of a friend whose confidence we had 
 almost betrayed — ^they strike deep. As a blow upon 
 the body brings the blood rushing to the spot, this 
 barbless shaft, ''better things of you," calls in the 
 vagrant powers to soul-center, and impels us to 
 inquire, "Soul of mine, I call you to witness this day, 
 is it true?'^ 
 
 New Year's Day is witness day. The old saints 
 and servants of God in their journey ings, when they 
 reached a milestone or turning-point, stood by to erect 
 an altar, and thereupon, thanking God and taking 
 courage, they vowed vows of new meaning and went 
 forward. Bethel, Peniel and Ebenezer were very real 
 to them, and therefore stood as witnesses through all 
 
 21 
 
22 SPECIAL SEEMONS 
 
 subsequent endeavors. They were points by the way 
 of new and more noble departure: life was different 
 afterward, altered in direction or in quality, or in both. 
 
 Theirs was an association of events with place. So 
 is ours, only we have in addition another association, 
 one which is coming more and more to be an altar of 
 common witness with humanity — the association of 
 time with events. 
 
 Thus days, many days, are memorial days with us, 
 and days of convocation. Among these is New Year's 
 Day, the milestone of the year's flight; long marked 
 and observed, to be sure, by generations before, but 
 now come to be with us the day for an invoice of life, 
 for individual stocktaking of character. It is the time 
 when we review the past, hopefully scan the future, 
 and seriously, sometimes mercilessly, scrutinize the 
 present with the view to forsaking the baser levels of 
 life, lifting our ideals and improving our conduct and 
 character. 
 
 Thus may the day become hallowed to an honest 
 inventory of self-qualities and to vows for self-en- 
 noblement, particularly if its witness be in the fear of 
 Grod, in the light of His truth, and in the power of 
 His conscious presence. New Year resolutions, under 
 such circumstances, will become a sacred altar, the 
 secret persuasions of which will devoutly carry us 
 forward. Shall we be bold enough, earnest enough, 
 this day to submit ourselves to the test, and be the 
 richer for this altar's wise and prudent oracles? Let 
 us listen to the more temporal ones first. 
 
 There is the inner witness that speaks of the year 
 that is gone, together with many others never to be 
 recalled in this life. Whatever may have been the 
 indifference or levity with which we paid off the year's 
 
PEESUASION OF BETTER THINGS 23 
 
 golden ream of days, we would hardly be so careless 
 again. The days seem more valuable now that they 
 are gone. Had we once more their wealth of time and 
 opportunity at our disposal, we are sure we could turn 
 it to better account. Their mute but mighty appeal is 
 ''unto better things.'^ 
 
 Again that inner voice speaks the still more blanch- 
 ing fact of shortcomings and failures. It appears to 
 us now that the sum total of our living up to this 
 point has been of no account. Yes, we know that it 
 was spoken by One supremely wise, ''That when ye 
 have done all, ye should say we are unprofitable ser- 
 vants.'' But we did want to feel that we were accom- 
 plishing things worth while. We tried hard to do 
 good and not evil. "We were sure we could win out 
 completely over some foes particularly harassing. We 
 would overcome sloth on the one hand, and impatience 
 on the other. We would curb our too great temper 
 here, and unloose it yonder where it was justifiable. 
 No, the many broken vows and the whole or partial re- 
 verses did not steal our hope, and we persevered; and 
 as we look back we are reassured. There was some 
 progress made. It was "the persuasion of better 
 things" then, and so shall it be now as the New Year 
 beckons. 
 
 And just as we are resolving, the brightest note of 
 the season peals forth, "Ring out the old, ring in the 
 new." Another lease on life is proffered, time is 
 lengthening our course, the glad thought comes: "I 
 can, I really can, redeem the residue of my days unto 
 greater wisdom and happiness." Happy New Year, 
 blessed gift of God, who giveth bountifully, even more 
 than is deserved! Truly our times are in His hand; 
 He doeth all things well — ^but hold, not so fast — if our 
 
24 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 time is in His hand, it is not ours after all, but His, 
 His time He has put in our hand. Oh, solemn thought ! 
 The years, the days, the hours. A great preacher once 
 called them ''God's angels." He was visiting a metro- 
 politan club one Sunday afternoon, and, seeing so many 
 young men lounging about, and being told by them 
 that they were ''just killing a little time," he ex- 
 claimed, "Killing time, gracious, mercy, men, I'd as 
 soon think of cutting the throats of God's angels." 
 
 The final witness gotten from our New Year altar 
 in this connection is quite the most solemn: "What will 
 you do with the future? It is even now lifting its 
 enchanted curtain for your entry. Friend, if there 
 ever was a point in your earthly pilgrimage when the 
 heart should be mellow and the spirit vibrant to the 
 full chord of life's challenge, it is when this yearly 
 corner is turned for the look ahead. 
 
 Good old King Hezekiah's words — as in truth his 
 solemn plight — rise to mind with singular force: "It 
 is a light thing for the shadow to decline ten steps" — 
 time is so swift and easy in its approach and speeding. 
 "Nay, but let the shadow return backward ten steps!" 
 ' — time is so hard and heavy in its retrieving. 
 
 Particularly, when life itself is put in the balance 
 the shadows on the dial are measurable to a degree 
 hitherto unnoted. Could we be told after the fashion 
 of Hezekiah that this was our last day and last year, 
 and then retold that it was the new day and year 
 released unto us, time would be as the blood of our 
 strength and its conservation as the law of life. 
 "Self-preservation, life's first law?" Then, time con- 
 servation is its twin. 
 
 I wonder if, after all, the note of New Tear is 
 not the elemental one of preserving health and strength 
 
PERSUASION OF BETTER THINGS 25 
 
 so that one can function better and last longer in the 
 service of God and His fellows upon earth. 
 
 Thoughts of to-day must center upon principles of 
 clean conduct developing a wholesome and hardy 
 physique, as a foundation for spiritual achievement, 
 and a preparation for the joy of right living. It is 
 an aphorism that age and wisdom are most in com- 
 panionship. "What a loss, then, is entailed upon those 
 learners and seekers after wisdom who must needs go 
 too often on frail limb and with halting step. 
 
 ^^ Please urge the youth in your charge," wrote a 
 great man once to a prominent educator, ^^to take 
 better care of their health. Here I am in the fullness 
 and ripeness of mental ability and efficiency, and this 
 honor is tendered me, this preferment at the hands of 
 my brethren, which has been a dream of. my life; and 
 now, as you know, I can not accept because of bodily 
 infirmity and shattered nerve. I know now how Tan- 
 talus felt when the water eluded his thirsty lips." 
 
 The power of an army depends upon the physical 
 fitness of its men. Is it different with those who would 
 make spiritual conquests? Nay, it is more imperative 
 that the warrior whose banner is righteousness, whose 
 warfare is, confessedly, not carnal, whose ideal is a 
 body subjected, be cleanest and soundest. 
 
 The report is both common and credible that min- 
 isters of the gospel stand at the top as the best risks 
 in mortuary tables. Whether all Christians other than 
 the ^'preaching brethren" will be able to disentangle 
 themselves from the lower general average, should be 
 an interesting and profitable matter to investigate and 
 resolve upon at New Year. 
 
 But this season is not without meanings more 
 definitely spiritual. Only the thoughtless can miss its 
 
26 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 powerful persuasions for the soul. To many it must 
 represent the Great Divide — death on the one side, life 
 on the other — the narrow defile between. 
 
 These, while beholding the glow of dawn just across, 
 and thrilling with eagerness for the brimming light 
 of a shadowless eternity, still feel the depression of 
 mortality. Such souls are not morbid; they are pro- 
 phetic. They would mark the somber fact that the 
 pass, at best, is not far ahead. Did not the Old Year 
 die, as all years must die, and with it millions like 
 ourselves? Their requiem was chanted at stroke of 
 twelve. Ours was not, but our tide will move out with 
 the same quick ebb. ''When folks about here make 
 their last lonely voyage," said Old Pegotty to David 
 Copperfield, as they stood by the death-bed of Barkis, 
 ''they mostly go out with the tide.'' 
 
 Our thoughts should go out, if our spirits do not, 
 with the tide of the Old Year as it bears upon its bosom 
 the necrology of its multitudes. We are not overcome 
 at sight of this moribund recession. We are not cast 
 down by a sense of futility and despair. On the con- 
 trary, we scan our margin of time prayerfully and 
 gird us about for the departure. Through faith and 
 the divine alchemy of the love that endureth all things 
 we are bowed Samson-like unto greater strength. Just 
 as the choicest flowers spring from the muck of disin- 
 tegration and decay, just as the finest fragrances of 
 human sympathy arise from the depths of privation 
 and disappointment, so does the master spirit in man 
 arise from disaster. "Man is a curious animal. He 
 seems to give forth his finest fruit only when crushed. 
 When we expect him 'to curse God and die,' suddenly 
 his face lights up with the heavenly vision, ' ' and he 
 dares to go on, though he grope his way. 
 
PERSUASION OF BETTER THINGS 27 
 
 It was the persuasion of death that in God's Son 
 kindled the noble passion of vicarious love. Is death 
 called the Great Leveler? Why not the Great Lifter? 
 Does not every serious thought of death inspire us to 
 lift the wretched from the mire of their wretchedness? 
 New Year's Day should give us this persuasion cer- 
 tainly, lest living too far removed from thoughts of our 
 dissolution we live too selfishly and miss its ministry 
 of transfiguration. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton's son writes that on the night 
 before the fatal duel with Burr his father said to him, 
 ''My son, you will sleep with me to-night." ''When we • 
 had retired my father caught me to his arms, and, 
 pressing me to his heart, he kissed me again and again. 
 Then he said, 'Now let us pray the Lord's Prayer 
 together.' After that, with many tears, he would say, 
 ' Oh, my boy, I love you so ; I could not leave you were 
 there no hope of reunion'." Such transfiguration of 
 hope nerved the elder Hamilton, no doubt, to fire his 
 pistol in the air the next day, and not at his antag- 
 onist. 
 
 But another shadow is pierced by the light from 
 the farther side of our altar of witness — ^the shadow of 
 sin. It is not native to that land of our earthly future 
 any more than to the Land Aglow beyond, for both are 
 still with God. The twain are His, and their persuasion 
 is of a state "where the wicked cease from troubling, 
 and the weary are at rest." The persuasion of one is 
 the persuasion of the other; heaven and the exalted 
 Christian life. 
 
 How near are these in one sense! Just a step, a 
 second's fiight of time, the measure between the old 
 and the new. How far in another — in realization ! So 
 immense is the distance, so impassable the gulf — once 
 
28 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 crossed — that many faint at the thought even of ever 
 reaching it. Yet from of old is the surety for men: 
 ''Why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, 
 shall it not be lifted up? And if thou doest not well, 
 sin coucheth at the door." 
 
 "Waiving the theology of this our human faintness — 
 whether it be because of love for sin, or whether it be 
 from over-confidence in the Father heart of God this 
 fact stands out unimpeached : the spirit of man ever 
 suffers the attacks of conscience and therefore must be 
 under the ''persuasion of better things, the things that 
 accompany salvation. ' ' 
 
 The consistency of man's nature, as well as of all 
 nature, cries out for renovation. The gospel scheme 
 of salvation is the only full and final answer to the 
 interrogations of man's conscience. Eclectic schools of 
 religion may blast away at spurious consciences; con- 
 science ever remains. Even a casual observer must 
 note that the "Divine Sonship Cultists" are all the 
 time "groaning along with the rest of creation," 
 waiting for a manifestation of sonship that is more 
 real than any that a Christless individual or society 
 knows. 
 
 No man can demolish sin with a mere gesture of 
 contempt. Sin is real and deadly. He who is impris- 
 oned in its tomb is in captivity to corruption, and 
 seekers at this tragic sepulchre still ask, "Who shall 
 roll away the stone?" and "Who will proclaim our 
 year of release?" 
 
 There is no deliverance possible apart from the 
 Christ of God and the blood of His cross. Release 
 is signed, sealed and delivered in the New Testament 
 Scriptures. He who is attested by many infallible 
 proofs to be Lord of all is our Saviour from sin. He 
 
PERSUASION OF BETTER THINGS 29 
 
 gave Himself in token sufficient to heal the world's 
 hurt, change its unhappy disorders and give newness 
 and soundness to wholly obedient members of the 
 human family. 
 
 Such joyful condition is possible this side the Great 
 Divide. miracle of miracles — it is the Great Divide 
 itself! ^^ Death hath no more dominion over you." 
 Shadows are about you, but as remote from you as the 
 East from the West. 
 
 That this dominion over sin and death is real is 
 the new year's sublimest persuasion. Never mind the 
 discomfitures of the past. Never mind the inconsis- 
 tencies in the lives of some who claim His promises, 
 but are devoid of His power. This is not the failure 
 of Christ, but the failure of those who are too insincere 
 to apprehend Him. 
 
 His is the one master mind ever working toward 
 unity and integrity among men. How can our thoughts 
 and purposes proceed toward orderliness, or our tangled 
 inheritances be administered toward intelligence and 
 peace without His persuasions? We dream of universal 
 brotherhood, and, by the way, that dream was inspired 
 by Him; but bungling men insist upon marring its 
 beauty and dissipating its force by racial, national 
 and sectarian cleavages, obviously contrary to His will. 
 
 We dream of individual righteousness, a dream that 
 is another gleam from the light that He was in the 
 world ; but again there are men who interpret the dream 
 in the terms of self-righteousness, preening the fancied 
 superiority of their own feathers instead of rejoicing 
 in the beauty of holiness possible to every man. 
 
 If ever the idea of universal brotherhood should 
 focus with the idea of personal integrity to burn 
 through the veneer of modern materialism, it will be 
 
30 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 due to the mind of Christ. All persuasions unto sal- 
 vation other than His are phosphorescent or fraud- 
 ulent. 
 
 At this beginning time, the time of the new year's 
 birth, may we all be persuaded by the persuasion of 
 our Lord that he will keep that which we have com- 
 mitted unto Him against that great and final day, and 
 in His way, the way of the cross and the blood, may we 
 walk. Then we shall sing as those 
 
 ''Who carry musie in their hearts 
 Through dusty lanes and wrangling marts, 
 Plying their tasks with busier feet, 
 Because their souls a holier strain repeat.'' 
 
PEILIF Y. PENDLETON was horn at BetTmnj, W, Va,; 
 gra^imted from Bethcmy College m 1884, and has since 
 received from that institution the A.M. and LL.D. degrees. 
 
 He spent a number of years vn commentary worlc on the Bible- 
 school lesson literature of The Standard Publishing Company. 
 He has held pastorates with the Vine Street Church of Christ, 
 Nashville, Tenn.; the First Chwrch at New Castle, Pa., and the 
 churches at Valparaiso, Ind., and Cedar Eapids, la. At this 
 writing he has accepted a call to the church at Phcenix, Ariz. 
 
 Mr, Pendleton was professor of Logic and Biblical Literature 
 in Phillips Bible Institute, and dean of the Bible department at 
 Valparaiso University, 
 
 31 
 
Lincoln's Birthday Address 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 I. The Paradox of American History. 
 
 Opportunities of an ignoramus witii tlie soul of a genius. 
 With backwoods schooling he reached eminence in literature. 
 The village postmaster became the chief of Presidents. Though 
 sad of face and manner, he made the world smile. Reared in 
 irreligious environment, he became reUgious. Mingling with the 
 rich, he was the poor man's friend. 
 
 II. An Outstanding Man in All History. 
 
 Outstanding because he was a mankind man. Outstanding 
 because, in many respects, he was not unlike the Master. 
 
 82 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Lincoln^s Birthday Address by P. Y. Pendleton 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN! What pulse does not 
 quicken at the mention of his name? What 
 people does not know him? What nation does not 
 honor him? The fact that his conspicuous life was a 
 many-sided paradox in a measure accounts for his 
 universal popularity. 
 
 His was the schooling of the pioneer, scanty and de- 
 fective. He learned little from the backwoods teachers 
 of his day; they had little to impart. There were 
 practically no books in his own home, and very few in 
 the homes about him, so there were not above a half- 
 dozen for his use. Thus his opportunities left him an 
 ignoramus, but his great soul made him a genius. 
 
 He had visions which brought him into command of 
 the purest language and the highest graces of litera- 
 ture; and noble purposes which refined speech because 
 they first refined the heart whose fullness filled the 
 mouth with utterance. Untutored and unlearned save 
 by self-culture, he enriched our literature with the 
 Gettysburg Address. Consider the paradox of it ! His 
 literary excellencies blossomed forth despite their un- 
 favorable environment like lilies in the noxious swamp. 
 The swamp marveled at their beauty, but the modest 
 lilies knew no pride. Like Robert Burns, this great 
 American received, in the school of English, his di- 
 ploma directly from the hand of God. 
 
 3 33 
 
34 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 And in his official career we also meet with paradox. 
 In official station he passed from the extreme bottom 
 to the exalted top. The village postmaster became the 
 chief of Presidents. Starting as one observed of no- 
 body, he ended as the cynosure of everybody. And 
 though he was postmaster, it might almost be ques- 
 tioned whether he was or not, since his pockets were 
 his till, his office was his hat, and his general delivery 
 was wherever he chanced to be met. And even in this 
 office he merited distinction, for he anticipated by 
 half a century the convenience of the rural route. 
 
 The spirit of wit has long since told the world that 
 pride struts in extremes. It is found in lieutenants 
 and crops out in generals. But Lincoln was equally 
 informal as postmaster or as President. As the 
 nation's chief executive he appointed his greatest polit- 
 ical rivals to fill the highest offices of government, and 
 then went about stating, without ostentation or self- 
 depreciation, that *'he had very little influence with 
 the present Administration." And this brings to mind 
 another paradox in Lincoln that holds us with its 
 unequaled charm. 
 
 He was the sad-faced humorist, the jester with the 
 tear-stained cheek. Somehow born to sorrow, cradled 
 in penury, nurtured in struggle and brought at last 
 "to spend the strength of his prime as a man of peace 
 'erwhelmed with the burdens of war, with what pathos 
 does his humor appeal to us! Life was to him an 
 almost unbroken storm. The clouds hung low and 
 heavy, and the pitiless, drenching rain of fraternal 
 strife drowned out all the tender things. It made the 
 pleasant paths unsightly and the lanes and highways 
 impassable, and caused the glory of life's day to be 
 overcast with gloom and sorrow. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 35 
 
 Yes, it was all this and more, but ever and anon 
 the nation lifted its weary eyes toward the dark 
 firmament of those cheerless times, and beheld with joy 
 the clear bine sky, and the warm, strong glory of the 
 snn of hope, for Lincoln, in his kind, droll way, had 
 said the thing that only Lincoln could say — ^the thing 
 that made men smile, brought good cheer and would 
 not be denied. What he said was no idle jest, no 
 rasping discord, no strained effort to present a face 
 of courage in the hour of defeat. No, it was too 
 homely and unadorned to seem unfit, too natural to 
 appear untimely or even somewhat ill-advised. It was 
 but the utterance of hope irrepressible, beautiful as 
 God's rainbow resting in peaceful calm upon the whirl- 
 ing, storm-racked cloud; sublime, yet simple as the 
 childlike heart of noble man. Broken-hearted men 
 and women would have died, but just then Lincoln 
 told a story, and the soul of the public returned unto 
 its rest, the nation smiled and so lived on. Truly his 
 humor in the darkness of the war was as God's nourish- 
 ing manna in the wilderness, as a sudden rift of sun- 
 shine glinting through the storm-bound heavens, or as 
 the midnight song at Philippi that with unwonted 
 glory swept all sadness from the jail-cursed hours and 
 duly compassed God's deliverance. 
 
 Born in the South, and of Southern parentage, he 
 imbibed the spirit of the South, and, moving thence 
 to the North, he adopted the moral-political concepts of 
 the North. He thus became cosmopolitan in sentiment 
 as only the larger American can become cosmopolitan. 
 
 This view of our first martyr President is seen only 
 in its unfinished outline. The ruthless violence of the 
 assassin removed the partly finished canvas of his 
 life from the present world before the hand and brush 
 
36 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 of God had filled in the outlines, or brought the colors 
 to completion. 
 
 The South will never know the touch of that recon- 
 structive, kindly hand. Its ministration of mercy was 
 abruptly stayed in the very hour of greatest need. The 
 superb promise of the second inaugural — ''With malice 
 toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the 
 right as God gives us to see the right," stands as but 
 a promise whose deep sincerity breathes in the artless 
 simplicity of its wording, but whose beneficent fulfill- 
 ment was hindered by satanic spite. 
 
 But if we made final pause here, we would pass un- 
 noticed the greatest paradox in Lincoln's life — ^his fel- 
 lowship with God. The years of his boyhood were spent 
 where even morality was crude and where religion was 
 largely a caricature. The coarse and the vulgar impreg- 
 nated the very air. That this miasma of immorality 
 and indecency left lasting imprint on his impressive 
 nature is beyond doubt. He frequently, even in his 
 prime, shocked the nation's sentiment of ultra refine- 
 ment and sorely tried the patience of the sensitive and 
 truly cultured. Familiarity with unrefined humanity 
 in all its crassness and sinful unrestraint made Lincoln 
 a non-religious man. He never united with any 
 church. Indeed, it was only in the last few weeks of 
 his life that he ever, so far as history shows, manifested 
 any desire or determination to do so ; though his aloof- 
 ness was exceptional. Among Presidents, church mem- 
 bership is the rule. 
 
 But the trials of war changed his heart. From 
 a spirit of levity bordering on lewdness, and an atti- 
 tude of self-sufficiency approaching callous indifference, 
 he developed into a man phenomenal in prayer. Not 
 a ritualist was he, not a mouther of beautifully round- 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 37 
 
 ed sentences, ornate with attractive tropes, and embel- 
 lished with choice and well-selected figures. No, nor 
 was he of that somewhat holier order, who with real 
 emotion and worshipful spirit quote precious rhetori- 
 cal gems picked from the Psalms, and celestial jewels 
 drawn from other Scripture. On the contrary, he was 
 a prayer man, christened in the dews of a Gethsemane ; 
 a wrestling Jacob, panting for a blessing; a man of 
 few words, but manifold groanings which could never 
 be uttered. 
 
 Thus the one who went out with but little moral 
 refinement and less religious pretension, came back 
 across his grass-trampled, sod-torn Jabbok, an Israel; 
 a prince who could prevail with God in prayer and 
 who could lead the ministry of a Christian nation into 
 truer conception of intercession than it had ever known. 
 Yes, this self-sufficient Western giant became the most 
 dependent upon God of all the men of his age. 
 
 Moreover, he began life's struggle with the poor. 
 His family had no position, no station. Hence there 
 has been none in America so humble in circumstances 
 as to feel himself beneath the reach of Lincoln's under- 
 standing sympathy. Sympathy! what a world of it he 
 had. To the end the poor man was his brother, and 
 the outcast, the unfortunate and the negro slave his 
 bosom friend. And this friendship was simple, genuine. 
 He exalted himself as no man's patron, he manifested no 
 stooping condescension even when exercising his power- 
 ful governmental prerogatives in behalf of the most 
 justly convicted private in the army, or the most 
 obscure, unrecognized, disfranchised citizen whose needs 
 cried aloud to him for help. 
 
 Nor did he at any time show any sense of shame 
 while espousing the cause of the disreputable or despised. 
 
38 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Others, springing from such lowly origin, might have hes- 
 itated before thus again identifying themselves with the 
 socially ostracized, whose past familiarity they would 
 fain forget. They might well have feared lest the 
 public suspect a bond of kinship all too close with 
 these unworthy objects of their solicitude. Pride, like 
 Simon Peter, ardently denies the compromising friend- 
 ships and associations of an accusing past. But to 
 Lincoln there was no past. He never abandoned the 
 people of his youth; rising in life, he took them with 
 him, and was unashamed. He never outgrew a friend- 
 ship; his heart was too large to follow a course so 
 small. His humble soul scorned snobbishness. He 
 was the most democratic of all republicans, the poorest 
 in spirit of all the Presidents, therefore let us ex- 
 plain his matchless magnanimity by believing that he 
 attained the promise of the Beatitude and in some 
 clear way saw God. 
 
 Truly he was the poor man's friend, and yet in 
 daily life he walked and mingled in harmonious fellow- 
 ship with the richest and the mightiest, and was a free 
 American, and unafraid. He felt no embarrassment 
 at their wealth, no envy at their power, no rancor or 
 bitterness at their superlatively superior advantages 
 for attaining honors, pleasures, knowledge and power. 
 With a spirit of equanimity as rare in the world as the 
 society of angels, he, the son and heir of the poor man, 
 was brother to the rich and powerful, and felt no 
 pangs of insufficiency, no pains of jealous pride. If 
 any of the aristocracy failed to meet him on his level 
 plane of frank goodfellowship, he pitied their weakness, 
 and passed silently on, sparing himself the trouble of 
 idle and wasted comment. There were big things in 
 life that could be cured; why worry over little things 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 39 
 
 that were beyond remedy ? They would have their day 
 and die, and be no more. 
 
 Thus compassing a gamut of life somewhat like 
 that which started in the manger, and ended on the 
 cross, Abraham Lincoln entered into experiences simi- 
 lar to those common to the vast majority of mankind, 
 because he included in that compass all the classes 
 ranging from the lowest to the highest. Thus to men 
 of all stations, in every civilized land, he left an 
 example of noble, patient, faithful citizenship, which 
 has been rarely equaled, never excelled. 
 
 "We do well to do him honor, for his spirit breathes 
 a wholesome influence even in the most turbulent times, 
 and his life is, and will be, associated with the fate of 
 the '^ Stars and Stripes" forever. 
 
 Old Glory, our Glory, 
 
 His Glory, too; 
 Abraham Lincoln, 
 
 We're grateful to you. 
 
j-pDWABD B, BAGBY^ was horn Sept ^P, 1865, at Walkerton, 
 mJj Va,, and received Ms college education at Transylvania, Col- 
 lege of the Bible, Lexington, Ky., graduating with the B.A, 
 degree. He later received the B.D. degree from Yale Divinity 
 School, He was minister of the Ninth Street Church of Christ, 
 Washington, D. C, for fifteen years; Franklim, Circle, Cleveland, 
 0., two years; Ft, Smith (Arlc.) First Church, four years; Twenty- 
 fifth Street, Baltimore, Md., four years, and from 1916 to the 
 present time has teen with the Cohimhia Heights Chwrch in Wash- 
 ington, D. C, 
 
 Mr, Baghy was chaplain of the House of Bepresentatives dur- 
 ing the Fifty-third Congress, and chairman of Co^mmittee on 
 Chaplains that selected the one hundred chaplains from the Dis- 
 ciples of Christ for the army and navy during the World War, 
 He has been either regular or special contributor to a number of 
 religious journals, and has lectured extensively. 
 
 *Mr. Bagby died at his home in Washington, D. C, Sept. 2, 1921. 
 The data for the above sketch were penned by him but a few days before 
 his death. — Ed. 
 
 41 
 
Washington's Birthday Address 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 L WasMngton Higli in tlie TMngs the World Counts Great. 
 
 1. Tributes from Mgli sources. 
 n. High in the Minor Elements of Greatness. 
 
 1. Respected his mother. 
 
 2. Gracious in his family. 
 
 3. Just in his dealings. 
 
 4. Careful of details. 
 
 5. Patient under criticism. 
 
 6. Humble amid honors. 
 
 m. On the Plane of These Lesser Heights, We May Make 
 Him Our Example. 
 
 1. Illustrated tiioughts upon this point. 
 
 42 
 
GREATNESS IN LITTLE THINGS 
 
 Washington's Birthday Address by E. B. Bagby 
 
 He tliat i-s slow to anger is better tliaii the mighty; and he 
 that nileth his spirit than he that taketh a city. — Pro v. 16: 32. 
 
 THE Mecca toward which all visitors to the Capital 
 City wend their way is Mount Vernon, the home 
 of Washington. Every day throngs board the steamer 
 for this trip down the Potomac, and as they leave the 
 dock, the tip of the "Washington Monument may be 
 seen peeping above the intervening houses and trees. 
 As the city recedes in the distance its sky-line seems to 
 fade and diminish, while the tall shaft stands out in 
 larger and bolder outline, until at last it dominates 
 the whole landscape. It is thus a fitting memorial of 
 George Washington, who did not in the first days of 
 our republic seem to tower pre-eminently above his 
 contemporaries, but whose figure as we pass down the 
 stream of time constantly grows greater, until now it 
 fills the whole horizon of our early history — imposing, 
 commanding, majestic. 
 
 George Washington stands high in the things the 
 world counts great. He was a member of a wealthy 
 Virginia family of noble lineage. His courage was 
 proven upon many a hard-fought field of battle. He said 
 of the battle of Great Meadows, ''I heard the bullets 
 whistle, and believe me there is something charming 
 in the sound. ' ' When only twenty-two. Colonel Fairfax 
 could write him from Williamsburg, ''Your health 
 
 43 
 
44 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 and fortune are the toast of every table." Patrick 
 Henry declared that, ^^for solid information and sound 
 judgment, he was unquestionably the greatest man on 
 the floor of the Continental Congress." As a strategist, 
 he is ranked with Marlborough and Napoleon. As 
 President of the new republic, he showed himself as 
 wise in administration as he had been brave and 
 skillful in battle. Fisher Ames said, ^^"Washington's 
 contribution to our country was great beyond count, 
 but his contribution to humanity and civilization was 
 much greater." 
 
 But a man's true worth is determined not alone 
 by the great things of his life, but by the little things 
 as well; not so much by what is seen of him in public, 
 as by what he is in private; not merely by the extra- 
 ordinary powers he possesses, but also by his use of 
 those powers; not by the service he commands, but 
 by the service he renders. Woodrow "Wilson has given 
 a fine insight into Washington's character in these 
 words: ^^The soldierly young planter gave those who 
 knew him best the impression of a singular restraint 
 and self-command. They deemed him deeply passion- 
 ate, and yet could never remember to have seen him 
 in a passion. No doubt he had given way to bursts 
 of passion often enough in camp, and upon the march, 
 when inefficiency, disobedience or cowardice angered 
 him hotly and of a sudden. There were stories to be 
 heard of men who had reason to remember how terrible 
 he could be in his wrath. But he had learned, in the 
 very heat and discipline of such scenes, how he must 
 curb and guard himself against surprise, and it was 
 no doubt trials of self-command made in his youth 
 that had given him the fine self-poise men noted in 
 him now. ' ' 
 
GREATNESS IN LITTLE THINGS 45 
 
 The light which Washington shed to bless the world 
 afar was not a dim or flickering light within the 
 circle of the home. Commanding others, he was always 
 subject to the command of his good, bnt somewhat 
 stern, mother. "Well known is the story of his abandon- 
 ment of his plan to go to sea on a tobacco ship when 
 he saw the distress his departure was bringing to his 
 widowed mother. After the victory of Yorktown his 
 first thought was of his mother, and his first errand a 
 visit to Fredericksburg to pay her his tribute of affec- 
 tion. The news of his arrival was announced by a 
 servant who told her that ^'Marse George" had put 
 up at the tavern. ^^Go, and tell George to come here 
 instantly/' she commanded. And the son was not slow 
 in coming. In 1873, when he had settled again at 
 Mount Vernon, he made his last visit to his mother, 
 who was then in her eighty-third year. When the son 
 promised to come again as soon as public business 
 could be disposed of, she said: '^You will see me no 
 more. I shall not be long in this world. I trust God 
 and am prepared for a better. But, go, George, and 
 fulfill the high destiny w^hich Heaven appears to have 
 assigned you. Go, my son, and may Heaven and your 
 mother's blessing always be with you." 
 
 Not less thoughtful and gracious was the great 
 man to his wife and adopted children. Says his biog- 
 rapher: ''Those who saw him at Mount Vernon in his 
 later days thought him gentler with little children 
 than Mrs. Washington even, and remembered how he 
 had always shown a like love and tenderness for them, 
 going oftentimes out of his way to warn them of dan- 
 ger, with a kindly pat on the head when he saw them 
 watching the soldiers in the war days. Now all at 
 Mount Vernon looked forward to the evening. That 
 
46 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 was the children's hour. He had written sweet Nellie 
 Custis a careful letter of advice upon love matters, 
 half grave, half playful, in the midst of the Presi- 
 dency, when the troubles with England were beginning 
 to darken; she had always found him a comrade, and 
 had loved him with an intimacy few could know. Now 
 she was to be married, to his own sister's son, and 
 upon his birthday. She begged him to wear his 
 'grand embroidered uniform'; but he shook his head 
 and donned instead the worn buff and blue that had 
 seen real campaigns. Then the delighted girl told him, 
 with her arm about his neck, that she loved him better 
 in that." 
 
 The estimate of our hero is enhanced when we read 
 that the doctrine of justice and kindness which 
 breathes through all of his papers of state was prac- 
 ticed in the conduct of his personal affairs. He urged 
 • the Government to pension and reward the soldiers of 
 the Revolution. Black pensioners, not a few, were 
 maintained upon his own plantation. '* Bishop, his 
 old body-servant, lived like a retired gentleman in his 
 cottage, and Nelson, the good sorrel who had borne him 
 so bravely in the field till Yorktown, now went for- 
 ever unsaddled, free in his own pasture." 
 
 Washington's greatness was evidenced, too, in his 
 attention to the small details of life. He had the 
 genius for taking infinite pains. '^He made careful 
 copies of legal and mercantile papers and just as care- 
 fully he studied the structure of his fowling-piece, 
 the bridle for his colts, his saddle girth and the best 
 ways of mounting his horse. In everything he did 
 he showed the careful precision of the perfect marks- 
 man." This habit of doing his best under all circum- 
 stances and of looking upon nothing as little or trifling 
 
GREATNESS IN LITTLE THINGS 47 
 
 became potent in making him the masterful man of 
 his times. 
 
 The deeds of Washington are not more admirable 
 than the spirit which animated them. Early he had 
 set before him Pallas 's gift: ' ^ Self -reverence, self- 
 knowledge, feelf -control ; these three alone lead life to 
 sovereign power. And because right is right, to fol- 
 low right were wisdom in the scorn of consequence." 
 When the second Continental Congress met, the air 
 was vibrant with the expectation of war. Thither 
 came Washington clad in his old regimental uniform, 
 to signify that he was a soldier ready for duty. Be- 
 fore this he had written his brother Augustine: *^It 
 is my full intention to devote my life and fortune in 
 the cause we are engaged in, if needful." 
 
 Few public men ever had to encounter such op- 
 position, misrepresentation and calumny as assailed 
 him. Yet none of these things moved him. ^'I am 
 gliding down the stream of life," he writes, ^'and 
 wish that my remaining days may be undisturbed and 
 tranquil; and, conscious of my integrity, I would will- 
 ingly hope that nothing would occur tending to give 
 me anxiety; but should anything present itself in 
 this or any other problem, I shall never undertake the 
 painful task of recrimination, nor do I know that I 
 should ever enter upon my justification. My temper 
 leads me to peace and harmony with all men, and it 
 is peculiarly my wish to avoid any feuds or dissen- 
 sions with those who are embarked in the same great 
 national interests with myself, as every difference of 
 this kind must in its consequences be very injurious. 
 
 When the suggestion was made that he be crowned 
 king and thus end the unhappy state into which the 
 
48 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 country had fallen, he spnrned the offer with stinging 
 rebuke: '^I am much at loss to conceive what part of 
 my conduct could have given encouragement to an 
 address which to me seems big with the greatest mis- 
 chief that can befall my country/' 
 
 But is not the very greatness of Washington dis- 
 couraging? We who would follow him do not possess 
 his talents nor do we have his opportunities. But 
 while we may not mount with him to the peaks of 
 heroic achievement, we may still walk with him upon 
 the plains of humble and faithful service. After all, 
 are not the little things of life the important things? 
 I would rather have a wife who cooks the things I 
 like in the way I like them, gets the children off to 
 school on time, and keeps the house in order, than to 
 have one who is a genius, but impractical. I would 
 rather work for an employer who controls his temper 
 than for one who controls the vote of the city. I 
 would rather have a church-member who is dependa- 
 ble fifty-two Sundays in the year and the days be- 
 tween, than to have one who is brilliant, but spasmodic 
 and erratic. I enjoy the light of a sky-rocket on an 
 occasional celebration, but for constancy I prefer a 
 kerosene lamp or even a tallow candle. The wise 
 Creator made one Niagara do for a whole continent. 
 It would be very inconvenient to have such a cata- 
 ract on every farm. Better are the brooks that water 
 the fields and sing their way to the sea. 
 
 The favorite geyser in Yellowstone Park is *^01d 
 Faithful. '^ '^The Monarch,'' '^The Wonderful," 
 ''The Lioness," are more spectacular, but are uncer- 
 tain. The play of ''Old Faithful" can be calculated 
 to the minute. In the congregation the pastor's fa- 
 vorite is not Elder Monarch nor Deacon Wonderful 
 
GREATNESS IN LITTLE THINGS 49 
 
 nor Sister Lioness, but Brother Faithful. The best 
 work in the world is done, not by people of uncommon 
 ability, but by people of uncommon faithfulness. All 
 honor to the military genius of Washington, but the 
 Eevolutionary War was won as well by the patient 
 militia who watched at Dorchester Heights, shivered 
 at Valley Forge, and tramped the weary miles to 
 Yorktown. 
 
 We may not, like Washington, win a great war 
 and save a nation, but we can learn to rule our spirit. 
 Our passions are incipient virtues. When brought un- 
 der control they minister to life. As Fuller says: 
 ''Anger is one of the sinews of the soul; he that lacks 
 it hath a maimed mind.'' It is a sad commentary 
 upon our human nature that the possession of this 
 ''sinew of the souF' is regarded as an element of 
 weakness rather than of strength. When a man says, 
 "My knife has temper,'' he is envied; when he says, 
 "My wife has temper," he is pitied. George Matheson 
 confesses, "There are times when I do well to be an- 
 gry, but I have mistaken the times." Aristotle de- 
 clares, "Men are angry on wrong grounds, or with 
 the wrong people, or in a wrong way, or for too long 
 a time." The mastery of passion is a harder fight 
 for some than for others. When Stephen H. Tyng 
 was rebuked by a young man for losing his temper, 
 he replied, "Young man, I control more temper in 
 fifteen minutes than you ever will in a lifetime." 
 
 Seeing the restraint of an old Quaker woman under 
 great provocation, a niece said to her, "Auntie, I 
 should think you would be boiling." "I am boiling, 
 my dear," she answered, "but without steam." "He 
 that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and 
 he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." 
 
50 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 A man is rising to true greatness when lie finds 
 that his life is ruled by love instead of passion. And 
 there is no better field for the exercise of this grace 
 than the home. It is in the home that the seamy side 
 of life is revealed. If wood could talk, what tales the 
 kicked chairs and slammed doors might tell on us. 
 The home may not be beautiful like Mount Vernon, 
 but it may be made the abode of love — ^love that is 
 courtesy in little things, love that beareth all things, 
 love that never fails. 
 
 But the love that flies no farther than one's own 
 home or even one's own country is a feeble and broken- 
 winged affection. There are many cursed with what 
 Emerson calls ''the township mind." Preachers even, 
 whose concern reaches no farther than the world they 
 survey from the top of their church-tower. No lesson 
 of the past few years has come more forcibly than 
 that we can no longer live in isolation, but are citi- 
 zens of the world. As Mr. Glenn Frank said in the 
 Century Magazine: ''We have heard of a shot fired in 
 New England and heard around the world. To-day 
 almost any act, vote or policy in government or in- 
 dustry registers an effect across the continent, affects 
 the lives and fortunes of men and women in the 
 Orient, or gives concern to foreign office or bourse in 
 half a dozen European capitals." Never was the ad- 
 vice of "Washington's Farewell Address more pertinent 
 than at present: "Observe good faith and justice to- 
 ward all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with 
 all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct, and 
 can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? 
 It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no 
 distant day, a great nation, to give to mankind the 
 magnanimous and novel example of a people always 
 
GREATNESS IN LITTLE THINGS 51 
 
 guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who 
 can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the 
 fruits of such a plan would richly repay any tem- 
 porary advantages which might be lost by a steady 
 adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not 
 connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its 
 virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by 
 every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! 
 is it rendered impossible by its vices?" 
 
 Separation in time does not impair unity of ser- 
 vice. The artisans who put on the capstone of the 
 Cologne Cathedral were coworkers with those who, 
 fifteen hundred years before, laid the foundation 
 stones. We are the compatriots of Washington when 
 we do all in our power to realize his ideals, when we 
 seek by voice and influence to promote the righteous- 
 ness that alone exalts a nation and put down the sin 
 which ever brings reproach. 
 
 Nor shall we lose our reward. Our names may not 
 be writ large in history. No monument may mark our 
 last resting-place. But the righteous Judge will not 
 forget us. He declares there is to be a reversal of 
 human judgment. The last will be first and the first 
 last. The private will march in ahead of the general, 
 the servant will have a higher seat than the master, 
 the subject will have a richer crown than the king. 
 Honors denied now will be given then. The victorious 
 captain who led the charge has received his reward; 
 but the high private in the rear rank, who marched 
 and fought, marked time and did sentinel duty, has 
 his reward waiting. 
 
 In the city of Washington, opposite the Bureau of 
 Engraving and Printing, for many years stood a 
 low, unsightly building of the Agricultural Department 
 
52 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 which has figured more in the development of the 
 wealth of the nation than the structure across the 
 way where Uncle Sam's money is printed. In this 
 building one day there was received from a corre- 
 spondent in South America a clipping from an orange- 
 tree, whose fruit was declared to be deliciously sweet 
 and well flavored. The slip was grafted, and in the 
 course of experiment the navel or seedless orango was 
 developed. The scientists of the Agricultural Depart- 
 ment thought it was a freak, but the type persisted. 
 Now the fruit may be found on nearly every table 
 of the country and has added hundreds of millions 
 to the wealth of the producers. In the meantime the 
 letter from the lady who sent the clipping was lost 
 and her identity has never been revealed. Perhaps she 
 lies in some Southern grave, and above her the green 
 leaves wave in the sunlight and upon her grave the 
 sweet orange blossoms fall, but she sleeps on uncon- 
 scious of what she has wrought. 
 
 So, amid the quiet, nameless workers of the world, 
 bending over the sick, soothing the sorrowing, lifting 
 up the fallen, are the real heroes and heroines who will 
 some day be identified by the King on the throne, to 
 whom He will say: '^Because you were faithful in the 
 little things, I will make you rulers over the great 
 things. Enter into tb^ joy of your Lord/' 
 
-rjrAEEY J). SMITH was 'born at Hamiltcm, Mo., Jem. 2$, 
 JlI 1866, He studied in the University of Misso^ari, and later 
 in the Kansas State University. He was graduated from the 
 latter in 1887 with the degree of A.B^ Later still he received 
 the degree of AM. from Transylvania College, and the degree of 
 B.D. from Yale Divinity School. He has been minister of the 
 following chmrches of Christ m succession: Olathe, Kan.; West 
 Side, Kansas City, Mo.; EureTca Springs, Arlc.; Marshall, Mo.; 
 Ninth Street Church, HoplcinsviUe, Ky.; Central Church, Dallas, 
 Tex., and the University Place Church, Enid, OTcla. 
 
 Mr. Smith was for n time a teacher of the Bible and evidences 
 of Christianity in McLean College, Hoplcinsville, Ky., and is now 
 professor of practical theology in Phillips University, Enid, OTcla. 
 
 53 
 
Missionary Day Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 The Divine EadicaL 
 
 I. The Law of Greatness for the Church. 
 
 n. The Law of Help for Mankind. 
 
 ** Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice." 
 
 54 
 
THE PROGRAM OF JESUS 
 
 Missionary Day Sermon by Harry D. Smith 
 
 Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. 
 
 —Matt. 28: 19. 
 
 The Divine Radical 
 
 NOTHING so utterly, perfectly, daringly radical 
 as this program was ever thought of by any 
 other leader of men. This is no plan embracing such 
 superficialities as boundaries of states, laws on statute- 
 books, national constitutions, sacrifices offered on ma- 
 terial altars, or orders or times and places of worship. 
 Here is a divine authority which intends by teaching 
 to go down into the nethermost springs of being and 
 purify and regulate their flow. Jesus proposes to be 
 Master, not of the bodies and outward acts of men, 
 but of their thoughts and purposes. That is. He pro- 
 poses to govern them according to His will with their 
 joyful consent. In comparison with this plan of Jesus 
 the Bolshevisms, socialisms, anarchisms, and whatever 
 other radicalisms there may be in our modern world, 
 are only halting, stammering suggestions of revolution. 
 This program is not of merely academic interest 
 to us. We who constitute the church of Christ in 
 this generation of the twentieth century are the only 
 living successors of the apostles. And we have suc- 
 ceeded to their task of restoring a wounded and broken 
 race to wholeness and power. They did much. The 
 church has done much. But not all is done. All is 
 
 55 
 
56 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 never done. No generation can be so Christianized 
 that its successor will not require to be Christianized. 
 The task of the reconstruction of the world appears 
 afresh, to one who has eyes to see, in every birth of a 
 human babe. 
 
 The old task, then, grown greatly new in the light 
 of our time, belongs to us. How shall we regard it? 
 As a heavy burden? Yes. It is the heaviest ever laid 
 upon human shoulders. As involving drudgery? 
 Yes. It calls for endless toil, often where no human 
 eye beholds. As costing sacrifice? Yes. It is stained 
 with blood of heroes and can only be greatly for- 
 warded by such as know how to die for it. The cross 
 is its symbol still. 
 
 ' ' By the light of burning heretics 
 Christ's bleeding feet I track, 
 Toiling up new Calvaries ever 
 
 With the cross that turns not back." 
 
 But can no word of cheer be said of this program? 
 
 I. The Law of Greatness for the Church 
 
 Perhaps nothing, which can at all be said of the 
 task set the church in the great commission, is 
 worthier to be said than this: It is the law of church- 
 ly life and vigor, the indispensable pre-condition of 
 churchly power. The burden, the drudgery, the sacri- 
 fice of it are an altar stair 'Hhat slopes through dark- 
 ness up to Grod.'' Blessed are they that have the 
 will to mount these rugged steps! Very miserable are 
 they who turn from them! For the great commission 
 is the charter of the church. All duty and privilege 
 belonging to the church are explicitly or implicitly in- 
 cluded in it. Whatever right the church has to be is 
 
THE PROGEAM OF JESUS 57 
 
 connected with the enterprise it proposes and enjoins. 
 That is, the church as conceived of by her founder 
 has a single function, which function is to make the 
 race of men Christian. So long, then, as the church 
 is busy with this matter, she lives up to her Master's 
 thought of her. Whenever she forsakes or forgets this, 
 she renounces or neglects that which alone can make 
 and keep her the church. Her cordial adhesion to this 
 means that Christ is with her, that she lives, thrives 
 and conquers. On the other hand, her lax hold upon 
 this means that she is loosely bound to Christ, that 
 she languishes, perhaps dies, and certainly is tri- 
 umphed over. 
 
 The spirit of evangelism is a magnet which attracts 
 every kind of resource. It attracts wealth. The very 
 magnitude of its ideals and proposals entices sane 
 possessors of property, while the deep tenderness of 
 its compassion compels with the noblest force to sub- 
 stantial generosity, all persons of wealth whom it 
 touches. That such generosity is not more common 
 among persons of property is not wholly their fault. 
 "When, in her history, has the church as a whole been 
 asked with passion and skill for the means to evangelize 
 the world? Never. And yet, she has given now and 
 again vast sums for those objects which have enam- 
 ored her leaders. Would she, properly informed, give 
 less to the supreme object — the all-inclusive purpose — 
 which Jesus put before her? It is a chief infidelity 
 of her ministers that they so generally believe that 
 she would. They trust more in secondary and selfish 
 motives than in the primary and unselfish one. They 
 lack the daring of faith which risks all on an appeal 
 to the noblest motive. Is our worldly wisdom better 
 
58 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 than Jesus' divine wisdom? Who will say so? The 
 church waits for another great restorer — for him who 
 shall bring her leaders to give to the Christian con- 
 quest of the world the central place which Jesus Him- 
 self gave to it. 
 
 The spirit of evangelism woos and fructifies intel- 
 lect not less powerfully than it does property. It is, 
 in fact, the very genius of teaching and schools. 
 ''Make disciples'' — that is its first word. It counsels 
 conquest by means of ideas. ''Teaching them" — that 
 is its crowning conception of human duty. It proposes 
 to hold and develop what it conquers, also, by means 
 of ideas. It abandons the clumsy weapons and instru- 
 ments of the barbarous conquerors and rulers with 
 whom the world is long and sadly familiar. It pro- 
 poses to pluck down and blast out the evil that is 
 among men with the nobler, yet more terrible, power 
 of thought. It is at one with the finest philosophies 
 of all tim.es in reposing all its hopes upon spiritual 
 foundations. 
 
 It challenges the imagination with notable success. 
 The universality of its proposed empire is a feature 
 of the great commission about which great souls must 
 forever linger fascinated. And through its appeal to 
 the will, the spirit of evangelism has made the choic- 
 est heroes of the best ages of the world. 
 
 It is not strange that this spirit has quickened 
 and still quickens mightily the minds of those into 
 whom it enters. It entered into Simon the fisherman, 
 and he became, in one respect at least, the chief min- 
 ister of the foremost religion of mankind. It entered 
 into Saul the Pharisee, and he became the mightiest 
 thinker of the church. It entered into Francis, the 
 noble of Assisi, and he became one of the revered 
 
THE PROGRAM OF JESUS 59 
 
 teachers of our whole race. It entered into Carey the 
 cobbler, and he became schoolmaster to the peoples 
 of India. It entered into Livingstone, the weaver's 
 son, and he became one of the most variously learned 
 and deeply thoughtful men of his age. It entered into 
 Dwight L. Moody, an illiterate and rather slow- 
 minded man, and he became a world-famous speaker, 
 aji organizer of schools and a stimulating friend of 
 Christian teaching in many lands. 
 
 But why continue to speak of the speU which the 
 missionary spirit casts upon men and women one by 
 one? It does the same with churches that open their 
 doors to it. It is not a century ago that the Baptist 
 people in the United States were a poor, ill-educated 
 and subordinate group. They divided on the subject 
 of missions. And this resulted. After less than twen- 
 ty years from that division the unmissionary portion 
 of them had not grown in any way. During another 
 forty years they not only did not grow, but they shrank 
 in numbers, material wealth, intellectual influence, 
 spiritual force. They continue to shrink until now. 
 But a feeble trace of the Primitive Baptist Church 
 can be found on our soil. But the missionary group 
 within twenty years had increased by some 900 per 
 cent. In the next forty years they increased by some 
 300 per cent. They continue to grow. But not in 
 numbers only. They are a people of schools, an edu- 
 cated ministry and great general intelligence. Most 
 of all, they have a spiritual vigor that thrills to the 
 ends of the earth. Men wait with eagerness to know 
 what the Missionary Baptist Church does and intends 
 in many and widely distant places throughout the 
 world. Obeying Christ about missions has made her 
 
60 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 great, and the same thing is making other bodies of 
 Christians great. 
 
 This, then, is the law of churchly power. Obey 
 the great commission and become mighty. Neglect the 
 great commission and die. 
 
 II. The Law of Help for Mankind 
 
 This task laid upon the church is Christ's answer 
 to the need of mankind. Our burdening is the race's 
 blessing. As such it ought to be beautiful and win- 
 some to us. Hardship that will heal the world we 
 ought to be happy to bear, for its wounds are deep 
 and gaping, and its tears terrible. The tragedy of 
 human life no man, were he a thousand Shakespeares, 
 could tell in a thousand years. **And there is none 
 other name given under heaven or among men whereby 
 we must be saved" but that of Jesus. He is our one 
 hope for humanity. We have no other. 
 
 And this program of His in the Great Commission 
 is His way of giving Himself to mankind. As far 
 as we know. He has no other way. He seems to rest 
 all upon His church. "When it fails so does He. It 
 is His body. He has no feet but ours with which to 
 go, no hands but ours with which to heal, no tongue 
 but ours with which to teach. How awful is the 
 weight we bear! We are the true Atlas. The church 
 bears up the world on her shoulders toward the face 
 of God. Where she is strong and straight and tall, 
 the world will be lifted into light and its peoples will 
 laugh and sing. 
 
 What the world needs we know. It is no new need 
 that makes its tragedy. The analysis of its need which 
 we make now would have been valid twenty centuries 
 ago. What is this need? 
 
THE PROGRAM OF JESUS 61 
 
 It is in part physical. Millions are homeless, hun- 
 gry and sick. Millions have always been so. Why? 
 Is there not room enough on the earth? Is there not 
 wood and stone enough, and clay for making bricks 
 enough, to house human beings? Oh, yes. Then, why 
 are millions homeless? There is just one reason. 
 There never has been any other. It is because other 
 millions are selfish and take for themselves the wood, 
 the stone and the land. And this also is why mil- 
 lions are always hungry. The earth yields enough 
 and to spare, or would do so but for the barbarous and 
 bestial selfishness of men. And this, also, is why many 
 millions are, and always have been, sick. Because they 
 are homeless or ill fed or overworked, or all of these, 
 they have fallen ill and died in their childhood, in their 
 youth, in their maturity; died faster than the great 
 war slew them. India has lost more people by famine 
 and resultant disease within a single recent year than 
 the total toll of life taken by the battlefields of the 
 world from August 1, 1914, to November 11, 1918. 
 Selfishness makes of a lovely world a physical hell for 
 half the race. 
 
 The need of the world is in part intellectual, the 
 need to know. Ignorance is a colossal and ruthless 
 slayer. It slays bodies. It slays hope. It slays peace. 
 It leaves a swamp at a city's edge, and the people die 
 of malaria. It neglects the water supply, and the 
 people die of typhoid fever. It neglects the milk 
 supply, and babies die by thousands. It neglects food 
 inspection, ventilation, isolation of those with conta- 
 gious diseases, surgery and nursing, and so puts to 
 death yearly an uncounted multitude. It leaves folk 
 with ancient and horrifying superstitions, and so slays 
 their peace. It acquiesces in outworn and oppressive 
 
62 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 social systems, and so puts hope to death in tens of 
 millions of human breasts. It educates no children in 
 useful things, and so prepares no to-morrow, but only 
 a continuance of a hateful to-day. 
 
 Is there no knowledge? Oh, yes, libraries of mil- 
 lions of volumes contain treasures beyond all compu- 
 tation of all kinds of knowledge. Why, then, is igno- 
 rance left to slaughter in this frightful way? It is 
 because men are selfish with knowledge as they are 
 with wood and stone and land. They ^do not always, 
 nor often indeed, deliberately lock it away from others. 
 They merely do not send it to them and teach them. 
 
 What does Mexico need ? Among other things, teach- 
 ing in science and the industrial ^^s. And Africa and 
 practically all the East? Th6 same thing. How to 
 build a house and how M keep it; how to make a 
 garden; how to build -^oads; how to farm; how to 
 market; somethii^g of how to govern themselves; these 
 things and the like they need to be taught. 
 
 Does some one raise a question of men and women 
 to teach? We enrolled an army of five millions to fight 
 against Germany. A half-million competent teachers 
 scattered among belated peoples would in great part 
 heal the hurt of gross ignorance throughout the world 
 in a single generatioi^. It was Victor Hugo who de- 
 clared that ^^the only army a truly civilized world 
 would contain is an army of schoolmasters. ' ' Great 
 Britain, Canada and the United States alone should 
 count it a great joy and a high- honor-'to'^aise and 
 equip such an army to march against gross ignorance 
 in every land, and fight with it until it lies dead at 
 the feet of knowledge. 
 
 But the supreme need of the world is a moral one. 
 The most appalling homelessness is to be away from 
 
THE PROGRAM OF JESUS 63 
 
 the right; that is, from God. The most gnawing 
 hunger is the hunger for God. The most terrible sick- 
 ness is sin; that is, rebellion against God. The most 
 abysmal ignorance is not to know God. And all men 
 have been or are thus homeless, hungry, sick and igno- 
 rant. ''All men have sinned and come short of the 
 glory of God." *' There is none good, no, not one.'' 
 *'A11 we like sheep have gone astray.'' And this 
 moral need underlies and nourishes all other forms of 
 human need. This we have already seen. Selfishness, 
 which is only sin with another name, makes homeless- 
 ness, unsatisfied hunger, needless sickness, and most all 
 havoc, immediately due to ignorance. What then? 
 
 "We must attack selfishness. We must make man- 
 kind kind. We must throttle the beast and free the 
 angel in us. How? Through Christ. He mastered 
 selfishness in His own soul. He has empowered others 
 to fight a winning war with it in their souls. His 
 power is not spent. He offers it to yet others. He 
 offers it to all. He offers it upon the sim^plest terms. 
 He offers it upon the sole condition that one put him- 
 self in position to receive it by trusting Him. To love, 
 honor and worship Him is to love, honor and worship 
 the embodiment of unselfishness. Thus to win men and 
 women everywhere to Him is to bring them to ''the 
 hate of hate, the scorn of scorn and the love of love." 
 
 ''Behold, to Obey Is Better than Sacrifice" 
 
 The church must take the program of Jesus afresh 
 into her heart. It is a stupendous program. When it 
 is accepted it will make her mighty, and a needy world 
 will be enriched. 
 
 Abu Taher, so runs an ancient tale, marched at the 
 head of five hundred followers against Bagdad, 
 
64 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 strongly walled and garrisoned with thirty thousand 
 men. When he was within a few miles of the city he 
 was met by a messenger from the prince reigning there. 
 The messenger, in the name of his master, bade him lay 
 down his arms where he was, and promised him, on 
 condition of his obedience, full pardon for himself and 
 all his band. If he should advance farther, the mes- 
 senger said, his master would crush his force as though 
 it were a fly beneath his hand. And when Abu did not 
 instantly answer the message the man who brought it 
 asked: ''What answer shall I give my master?'' Then 
 Abu said to one of his men, ''Thrust a dagger into 
 your heart;" to another, "Dash yourself down from 
 the precipice there;'' and to a third, "Drown yourself 
 in the river." What he commanded was done without 
 question or delay. "Now," said Abu to the messenger, 
 "go tell your master what you have seen, and that 
 before night I will chain his generals with my dogs." 
 And he did, for he had followers who knew how to 
 obey. No matter whether the story be in all respects 
 true or not, its lesson is true. The army that obeys its 
 general is thereby more apt to conquer its enemies. A 
 missionary once inquired of the Duke of Wellington 
 whether he thought we should be able to take India for 
 Christ. That iron soldier answered, "Show me your 
 marching orders." Brethren, here are our marching 
 orders, here in the Great Commission. Shall we obey? 
 
y" B. 0, SMITE was lorn Dee. 27, 1857, at Waynesville, War- 
 m ren County, 0., and received Ms college education at Butler 
 University, Indianapolis, Ind., where he received the B.A. degree. 
 The degree of LL.D. was given by the college of which Bishop 
 Fallows, Chicago, was director. 
 
 Ee was minister of the Edinhurg {Ind.) Church of Christ 
 for three years; State evangelist and corresponding secretary of 
 Indiana Christian Missionary Society thirteen years; minister of 
 the Valparaiso (Ind.) Church, two pastorates, thi/rteen years; 
 OMahoma City, OMa., seven years. Was also minister of the 
 First Church, Little Boclc, ArTc., and the Metropolitan Churchy 
 Chicago, Ills., tivo pastorates, eight years, and is now in charge 
 of the church at Fittslurg, Kan., and director in American and 
 Foreign Christian Missionary Societies. 
 
 Mr. Smith has lectured extensively, and held many evangelistic 
 meetings throughout the country. 
 
 66 
 
Decision Day Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 I. Appeal to Saint and Sinner. 
 
 II. Tlie Power of Clioice. 
 
 1. Clioice is above heredity. 
 
 2. Clioice is above environment. 
 
 III. What Shall I Answer aod? 
 
 1. Excuses. 
 
 IV. Our Influence. 
 
 V. The Danger of Delay. 
 
 66 
 
CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM 
 YE WILL SERVE 
 
 Decision Day Sermon by J. H. O. Smith 
 
 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, lie will 
 keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come 
 unto him, and make our abode with him. — John 14: 23. 
 
 Behold, I stand at the door and knock: If any man hear my 
 voice and open the door^ I will come in to him, and will sup with 
 him, and he with me. — ^Eev. 3: 20. 
 
 Now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salva- 
 tion.— 2 Cor. 6 : 2. 
 
 SIX hundred and eighty times the word ''come'' 
 occurs in the Bible. Each ''come" is a prayer 
 from God to man. Over and over again God repeats 
 His invitation, and times without number multitudes 
 have stood in the valley of decision. 
 
 On a great decision day in Israel one man turned 
 the tide toward God and right. Joshua was a man of 
 mighty deeds and few words. "When he did speak he 
 made an appeal and a statement that thrilled the 
 nation like the blast of a trumpet. '' Choose you this 
 day whom ye will serve ; whether the gods which your 
 fathers served that were beyond the river, or the gods 
 of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for 
 me and my house we will serve the Lord." And the 
 people said: "We also will serve " Jehovah, for he is 
 our God." Men of decision live in history and live 
 in the hearts of men. 
 
 67 
 
68 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Elijah at Mt. Carmel challenged the multitude, 
 '^How long go ye limping between the two sides? If 
 Jehovah be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow 
 him.'' The echoes of the battle-cry of these men will 
 reverberate until the 
 
 * * Stars grow old, 
 The sun grows cold, 
 And the leaves of the judgment book unfold." 
 
 * * Once to every man and nation 
 
 Comes the moment to decide, 
 In the strife of truth with falsehood, 
 
 For the good or evil side. 
 Some great cause, God's new Messiah, 
 
 Offers each the bloom or blight. 
 And the choice goes by forever 
 
 Twixt that darkness and that light. ' ' 
 
 Each of us must decide for himself whether he will 
 accept or reject Christ's invitation to follow Him into 
 the exalted service of God and our fellow-men. 
 
 Whatever may be said by great men about conver- 
 sion and the turning-points in life, we all do one of two 
 things: We either promise God that with His help we 
 will live as He would have us live, or we defy our 
 Saviour and say to Him, ^*We will not have you to 
 reign over us. ' ^ The minister, the officers, the members 
 of the church, the sinner, all are answering Christ's 
 invitation in one of these ways. 
 
 Oh, the tragedy of the might-have-beens in the 
 church of God! There are professing Christians who 
 would say, were they to tell the truth, 
 
 ''I live for myself, I think for myself, 
 For myself and none beside; 
 Just as if Jesus had never lived, 
 As if He had never died." 
 
CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY 69 
 
 You spend your time making a living instead of making 
 a life, and some day you will cross the dead-line of 
 the soul, and God will say of you as He said of 
 Ephraim, ^'He is joined to his idols, let him alone.'' 
 
 The sun and stars move in exact obedience to the 
 will of God. They have no other choice. But you can 
 look God in the face and say, ''I will,'' or ''I will 
 not." You can answer with the ^^yes" of heaven or 
 the ''no" of hell, but do not forget that it must be 
 the one or the other. 
 
 Some of us are like the little girl who, when asked 
 which she would rather be, the rich man or Lazarus, 
 replied : ' ' I would rather be the rich man in this world 
 and Lazarus in the next." Poor child! I wonder if 
 she learned that from her father. The rich man chose 
 riches, fine raiment and sumptuous living. What he 
 had, what he ate and what he wore was all there was 
 of him. When he died there were no pockets in his 
 shroud, he could not take his riches with him. He had 
 closed the skylight and taken up his abode in the 
 basement. A man of great wealth died in New York, 
 and some one, when asked what he left, replied: ''He 
 left it all." My friends, you can not serve God and 
 mammon. This decision day is the time to take stock 
 of yourselves, and go through your life purposes with 
 relentless inquisition. 
 
 Christ said to the church at Sardis, "Thou hast a 
 name that thou livest, and thou art dead." "She that 
 giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth." 
 A man need not shoot himself to commit suicide. Ask 
 those of the dead who lived only to eat, drink, dress, 
 dance and accumulate wealth, to lift the turf from 
 their moldering bones and stand forth as witnesses. 
 They will say, "God told the truth when He called 
 
70 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 the m^n a fool who thought a soul could be satisfied 
 with the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and 
 the vainglory of life/' But some church-members 
 would not be persuaded to give up their worldly life 
 though one should rise from the dead. *'If we sin 
 wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of 
 the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, 
 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a 
 fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries/' 
 '^The time is come for judgment to begin at the house 
 of God." ^'And if the righteous is scarcely saved, 
 where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" ''To-day 
 if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts." 
 
 ''There is a time, we know not when, 
 A point, we know not whore. 
 Which marks the destiny of men 
 To glory or despair. 
 
 ''There is a line by us unseen 
 That crosses every path. 
 The hidden boundary between 
 God's patience and His wrath. '* 
 
 ''He that is not with me is against me," said Jesus. 
 ''The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God 
 is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord," said Paul. 
 "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salva 
 tion?" It is for you to decide now. God says, "Now." 
 The tempter says, "Not now." Will you say "now" 
 with God, or "not now" with the enemy of your soul? 
 Choice is above Jieredity. Scientists tell us that 
 heredity is a tremendous power in the world. We 
 inherit tendencies from our ancestors which too often 
 control our lives. "The fathers have eaten sour 
 grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge/' 
 
CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY 71 
 
 A young man in Chicago sowed his wild oats. 
 Later he married a lovely girl. A deformed boy came 
 into their home. They took him to a celebrated phy- 
 sician in Europe, who straightened the limbs, and 
 restored the boy to health. He became a drunkard 
 and later killed his father and mother. All three 
 reaped a harvest of death from the early dissolute life 
 of the father. The devil has a mortgage on many 
 children when they are born. The iniquity of the 
 fathers is visited upon the children to the third and 
 fourth generation. 
 
 But, I say, choice is above heredity. If we inherit 
 a bad temper, it is not necessary to cultivate it, but 
 with the help of God it can be controlled. If we have 
 inherited a thirst for drink, we need not become drunk- 
 ards. If we have a tendency to accumulate money, it 
 is not necessary to enter the ranks of profiteers or 
 short-loan sharks. Christ recognized the tremendous 
 power of heredity, and provided that we may be born 
 again. The Saviour said to Nicodemus, '^Ye must be 
 bom anew.'^ Nicodemus was descended from a race 
 of illustrious ancestors, who were proud of their blood. 
 '*We are Abraham's children." '^"We were bom 
 free." Nicodemus belonged to the aristocracy of his 
 race and time, but a new heredity was necessary for 
 even the proudest Jew. Christ is always scientific ; that 
 is, He knows what is in man, and He knows that blue 
 blood and family pride alone can not save, and that 
 all alike must be born from above. Then God is our 
 Father and His heredity is perfect. 
 
 Each for himself must decide whether or not he 
 will be bom into the family of God. Scientists agree 
 that character is not hereditary. Choice determines 
 character and character determines destiny. 
 
72 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Choice is above environment. Sociologists tell us 
 that if we know the heredity and environment of an 
 individual, we can determine his present and future 
 character. It is said that an angel from heaven would 
 not be proof against bad company. ^^Evil communica- 
 tions corrupt good manners.'' Good parents are care- 
 ful about the associates of their children. The Chris- 
 tian father and mother keep their children in the Bible 
 school, and in various services of the church, and see 
 to it that they are in the company of those who are 
 learning lessons that Christ alone can teach. How 
 often ambitious parents choose as associates for their 
 children the '^exclusive set," where dancing to jazz 
 music in low-and-behold gowns is the chief accomplish- 
 ment, and where the *^ turkey trot" and '^ bunny hug," 
 and other beastly imitations of beast or fowl, constitute 
 the ''grace-producing and refining uplift" of ''high 
 society. ' ' 
 
 In Job we have this language: "What then shall I 
 do when God riseth up? And when he visiteth, what 
 shall I answer him?" And Paul says: "We shall all 
 stand before the judgment-seat of God. For it is 
 written. As I live, saith the Lord, to me every knee 
 shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God." 
 
 What will we answer God on that day? If you are 
 a child, will you say, "I am not old enough"? At 
 twelve years of age Jesus said, ' ' Know ye not that I 
 must be about my Father's business?'^ 
 
 Or will you say, "There are mysteries in the Bible 
 that I do not understand"? The Bible will be full of 
 things you do not understand so long as you do not 
 live according to those that you do understand. "And 
 even if our gospel be veiled, it is veiled in them that 
 perish: whom the god of this world hath blinded." . 
 
CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY 73 
 
 Or will you say, ^' There are so many denomina- 
 tions, teaching so many ways of salvation, that I do 
 not know what to do to be saved"? The New Testa- 
 ment knows nothing about denominationalism. Christ 
 prayed that His followers might be one, as He and 
 His Father are one, that the world might believe. 
 Before you is the open Bible. In a few hours you 
 can read the life of our Lord in the four Gospels, 
 '^ written that you might believe that Jesus is the 
 Christ, the Son of God: and that believing you might 
 have life through his name." The Acts of the Apostles 
 is a book of conversions telling just what the sinner 
 must do to be saved. "When you stand before God you 
 can not say that the Saviour and the inspired apostles 
 did not make plain the conditions of salvation. 
 
 Or will you answer God that hypocrites in the 
 church caused your neglect? I wonder! Then I pre- 
 sume you would refuse to be a soldier in a great cause 
 if cowards happened to enlist? You would refuse to 
 ride in safety from a wrecked vessel if hypocrites 
 sought to escape in the same life-boat. 
 
 Will you answer that you did not obey the gospel 
 because you were unworthy ? Our Saviour came to save 
 sinners. He came to save the unworthy, to seek and to 
 save the lost. 
 
 Will you say, ^'I could not believe that Jesus is 
 the Son of God"? ''He that believeth on the Son of 
 God hath the witness in him: he that believeth not 
 God hath made him a liar ; because he hath not believed 
 in the witness that God hath borne concerning his 
 Son." 
 
 Will you say you had not time enough to consider 
 these great questions ? How long do you require to decide 
 whether you will do right or wrong? be good or bad? 
 
74 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 accept or refuse God's invitation? serve God or the 
 devil? go to heaven or to hell? 
 
 Will you write out your decision, look at it intently, 
 and say, '^I will stand by it in the day of judgment"? 
 
 Will you say to the Saviour as Felix said, ''Go thy 
 way for this time: at a more convenient season I will 
 call for thee"? That convenient season never came. 
 To-morrow is the day on which the idle man promises 
 to work, the day on which the fool declares that he 
 will repent. ''To-morrow! That phantom of days ! That 
 frail ghost forever disembodied! Unwilling fingers 
 point to thee. Thirsty souls will follow thee like the 
 mirage of the desert, until they fall upon the burning 
 sands of the wasted day." Every day's delay is one 
 more for which to repent, and one less in which to 
 work for God. Slighted opportunities never return. 
 The road of by and by leads to the house of never. 
 
 We all have influence, even the humblest of us, and 
 none can tell how far-reaching it may be. Some of the 
 most outstanding Christian men and women of the 
 world have been led to Christ directly or indirectly by 
 some obscure person of whom the world has never 
 heard. In Chicago, one Sunday morning, a beautiful, 
 eight-year-old girl came forward, and later brought her 
 father and mother. More than twenty others were led 
 to Christ by those parents during the meeting. 
 
 I was holding a meeting in our old home church. 
 A little boy, the only child of parents who were not 
 Christians, made the good confession. That night his 
 father and mother heard his voice after they thought 
 he was asleep. They listened. He was praying for 
 them that they might become Christians. Finally the 
 mother said, "Abner, what shall we do about it?" 
 He replied, "Well answer his prayer at the first 
 
CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY 75 
 
 opportunity. " The next night they confessed their 
 faith in Christ and became a power for good in that 
 community. If a child can exercise so much influ- 
 ence, what can the rest of us accomplish? 
 
 The greatest tragedy is not that men drink or 
 gamble or do a thousand things that are wrong, but 
 that they are leaving unlived the life that God in- 
 tended them to live and leaving undone the work He 
 has for them to do. Sin is the most terrible thing 
 in this world of men, women and children, but Jesus 
 made the conditions of salvation so plain that all can 
 understand. Read the offer of salvation in Christ's 
 ''Great Commission '^ (Matt 28:19, 20; Mark 16:16; 
 Luke 24 : 45-47 ; John 20 : 21-23) . God saves. We ac- 
 cept by believing in the Son of God, repenting of our 
 sins, confessing Christ as Lord, and being baptized 
 in obedience to Him. Upon complying with these 
 terms, Christ promises forgiveness and the Holy Spirit 
 as a gift. 
 
 If you would be a Christian, go to work at it. If 
 it is your full purpose to live a Christian life and 
 reach heaven at last, God has arranged it so that you 
 can not fail. Your heavenly Father would line up 
 every angel in heaven around your soul, if necessary, 
 to protect you while in the discharge of your duty. 
 All the devils in hell can not defeat you if you com- 
 mit your soul to the Saviour. All the angels in 
 heaven can not save you unless you choose to be saved. 
 
 There is fhe utmost danger in delay. I have a 
 friend who was a soldier in the Civil War. He and 
 his chum enlisted, and the night before they were to 
 go away they attended a meeting in the church of 
 which their families were members. When the invita- 
 tion was given, my friend's chum said, ^^ George, let 
 
76 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 us go forward and make the good confession and be 
 baptized before we go away." He said, *'No, I want 
 to be free/' In an awful battle George's chum fell. 
 As my friend bent over his dying comrade, he caught 
 these pitiful words, ''Oh, George, if I had only 
 obeyed my Saviour!'' 
 
 What a world of wonder is a human soul! A 
 world created by God Himself with its oceans of emo- 
 tion and tides of destiny urged on by winds from 
 heaven or hell. When we listen to the voice of the 
 Master of wind and wave, as He says, ''Peace, be 
 still/' the stars of heaven are mirrored in blue tran- 
 quility. But when we refuse to listen, the storms lash 
 the billows to fury. The soul is a world with moun- 
 tains of volcanic fire and laughing valleys of sweet 
 content; selfish arctic regions wrapped in snow, and 
 tropics of passion where sleep wild beasts of prey. 
 It is a world of battlefields and graves, Gethsemanes, 
 Calvaries and mountains of ascension. It is a world 
 of sin and sorrow, life and death, war and worship, 
 a world over which God and Satan wage unceasing 
 and relentless warfare while it decides who shall con- 
 quer. When this invitation closes, will the angels 
 rejoice over your repentance and your firm resolve to 
 put a heroic life into the service of God and human- 
 ity, or will demons shout over a soul that has heard 
 the invitation of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit 
 and the church, and has answered "Not now"? 
 
 The simple path of duty leads straight from your 
 heart to the gates ajar. 
 
 ^ ^ Let youth in the beauty of bloom como, 
 Let man in the pride of his noon come, 
 Let age on the verge of the tomb come, 
 Let none in their pride stay away.'' 
 
TT7' ILLIAM H, BOOK was horn at New Castle, Craig County, 
 rw Va., July 4, 1863, and received his college education at 
 Milligan College, Tenn, His ministry has heen spent as follows: 
 With the church of Christ, Tulaski City, Va., six years; Clifton 
 Forge, Va., five years; Martinsville, Va., five years, and Columbus, 
 Ind., sixteen years, where he continues ut this writing. 
 
 Mr. BooJc spent several years in evangelistic worTc, and from' 
 tinne to time throughout his ministry has responded to calls for 
 
 77 
 
Easter Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 I, Tlie Eesuirection a Propliecy in the Old Testajnent. 
 
 1. In tlie patriarclial dispensation. 
 
 2. In tlie Jewish dispensation. 
 
 (1) The Passover a type of Christ's death, 
 
 (2) Pentecost a type of His resurrection. 
 
 II. The Besurrection a Fact in the New Testament. 
 
 1. Jesus taught the resurrection. 
 
 2. Witnesses recorded the resurrection. 
 
 3. Paul and the early Christians founded their faith 
 
 upon the resurrection. 
 
 78 
 
THE RESURRECTION 
 
 Easter Sermon by W. H. Book 
 
 But hath now been manifested by the appearing of our 
 Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death^ and brought life and 
 immortality to light through the gospel. — 2 Tim. 1: 10. 
 
 HUNDREDS of years ago an old sage asked the 
 question, ''If a man die, shall he live again?" 
 Jesus answered this question by coming out from 
 among the dead after he had been put to death on 
 the cross. Until this demonstration the world knew 
 but little of immortality. Only a gleam was seen now 
 and then in shadow, type and prophecy. "We wonder 
 what must have been the feelings of Adam and Eve 
 as they looked into the face of a dead son! 
 
 In the Patriarchal and the Jewish dispensations 
 we have hints of the resurrection and of a life after 
 death. One day a man, who had been in the habit of 
 walking with God, took a long journey and followed 
 Him into the unseen world. Enoch proved by this act 
 that man's home is not in this world, but in the 
 spiritual world where God dwells. He demonstrated 
 that there are two worlds — the seen and the unseen. 
 
 Abraham through Isaac taught the doctrine of death 
 and the atonement in Jesus Christ, and he also taught 
 the doctrine of life and the resurrection, for he believed 
 that God would raise his dead son and give him back. 
 
 One night one of God's sons slept in the open with 
 his head resting upon the pillow of stone and he saw 
 
 -79 
 
80 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 angels ascending and descending the ladder that 
 reached from earth to heaven. The fact of communi- 
 cation between two worlds was established. 
 
 In the Jewish dispensation Elijah, God's prophet, 
 moved out from among the sons of the prophets, and 
 in his chariot of fire drawn by fiery steeds, whose 
 swiftness was greater than light, he took his flight 
 into the spiritual realm. He gave us, in type, the 
 resurrection of Christ, and, at the same time, taught 
 the doctrine of life and immortality. Those who wit- 
 nessed his glorious ascension must have felt that man 
 shall live after death. 
 
 Jonah in the body of the fish three days and nights 
 was declared by Jesus to be a sign of his resurrection. 
 
 The Passover is a type of the death of Christ and 
 Pentecost is the type of His resurrection. It was then 
 that the children of Israel brought the firstfruits of 
 their labor and offered them to Jehovah. It was on 
 the first day of the week, the Lord's Day, figuratively 
 speaking. It represented a new dispensation and a 
 new creation. Christ had much to say on this sub- 
 ject, but it was hard for His disciples to understand. 
 He symbolized His death. His burial and His resurrec- 
 tion in His baptism. He placed in His church an in- 
 stitution that we call the Lord's Supper, which sym- 
 bolizes His death and His resurrection down through 
 the ages. 
 
 From the time that Peter confessed Christ at 
 Ceesarea He began to show unto His disciples how that 
 He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things 
 of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be 
 killed, and be raised the third day. Jerusalem, which 
 was soon to witness His humiliation, must also witness 
 His exaltation. 
 
THE RESURRECTION 81 
 
 After He had come from among the dead He 
 journeyed with two of His disciples and said nnto 
 them: ^*0 foolish men, and slow of heart to believe 
 in all that the prophets have spoken! Behooved it not 
 the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into 
 his glory? And beginning from Moses and from all 
 the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scrip- 
 tures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:25- 
 27). Mark you, He was not a destructive critic, for 
 He believed in Moses and all of the prophets, and all 
 that the prophets had spoken. He further declared 
 that all things, which had been written in the law of 
 Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms, concerning 
 Himself, must be fulfilled. His resurrection had been 
 declared by the prophets, and their prophecies must be 
 fulfilled if His Messiahship is to be established. God 
 can not lie. His word is true. 
 
 He made bold to say that He had the power to lay 
 His life down and that He had the power to take it 
 up again. Had He been only a man, He could not 
 have made such claims. Had not Christ come forth 
 from among the dead he would have been considered 
 an impostor and His disciples would have deserted 
 Him. His church would not have been established 
 and His name would have been forgotten. 
 
 When Christ stood in the presence of death He 
 told the sisters of His friend Lazarus that he should 
 rise again. Martha believed in the general resurrec- 
 tion and at once declared: ^'I know that he shall rise 
 again in the resurrection at the last day." It was 
 then Jesus said: ^^I am the resurrection and the life; 
 he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he 
 live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall 
 never die." 
 
 6 
 
82 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Elijah was a type of life; Moses on the Mount of 
 Transfiguration is a type of the resurrection, and both 
 life and immortality have been brought to light 
 through the resurrection of Christ. He shall become 
 the resurrection unto all the righteous dead and the 
 life unto all the righteous living who are found on 
 the earth (''Whosoever liveth and believeth") when 
 He comes. Listen to Paul's words of comfort spoken 
 to the heartbroken members of the church at 
 Thessalonica : 
 
 *'For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, 
 even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will 
 Grod bring with him. For this we say unto you by 
 the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are 
 left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise 
 precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord 
 himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with 
 the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of 
 Grod; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we 
 that are alive, that are left, shall together with them 
 be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
 air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thess. 
 4:14-17). 
 
 The fact of His resurrection was clearly established 
 in the minds of His apostles. They were in position 
 to know the truth and they were not deceived. John 
 declares: ''That which was from the beginning, that 
 which we have heard, that which we have seen with 
 our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled 
 concerning the Word of life (and the life was mani- 
 fested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and de- 
 clare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was 
 with the Father, and was manifested unto us) ; that 
 which we have seen and heard declare we unto you 
 
THE RESURRECTION 83 
 
 also, that ye also may have fellowship with us; yea 
 and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his 
 Son Jesus Christ/' 
 
 For forty days the great Teacher instructed His 
 students in the spiritual things of His kingdom. 
 This was the postgraduate period. For more than 
 three years He had been with them in the flesh, a 
 Jew, limited in His sphere of activity, but now He 
 is the spiritual Christ with all power given unto Him, 
 and He is making things plain which they did not 
 understand when He taught them in the flesh. The 
 Scriptures — Old Testament prophecies — ^have been ful- 
 filled and now they understand. 
 
 Peter denied Him only a few days ago because he 
 did not understand. Now he can stand in the pres- 
 ence of the mob and say: ^^Ye men of Israel, hear 
 these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of 
 God unto you by mighty works and wonders and 
 signs which G-od did by him in the midst of you, 
 even as ye yourselves know; him, being delivered up 
 by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, 
 ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay: 
 whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of 
 death: because it was not possible that he should be 
 holden of it. . . . Being therefore a prophet, and know- 
 ing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the 
 fruit of his loins he would set one upon his throne; 
 he foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of the 
 Christ, that neither was he left unto Hades, nor did 
 his flesh see corruption. This Jesus did God raise up, 
 whereof we all are witnesses" (Acts 2:22-24, 30-32). 
 
 Men who only a few days ago killed the Son of 
 God are convinced and become the charter members 
 of the church. It is here in the city of Jerusalem, 
 
84 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 where our Lord was condemned to die, His kingdom 
 is established. If Christ did not come forth from the 
 grave, how can you account for the courage of His 
 apostles, the conversion of His enemies and the found- 
 ing of His kingdom? The kingdom could never have 
 been founded upon a dead Christ. The preaching of 
 a dead Christ could never have impressed His ene- 
 mies. Peter preached a living Christ when he said: 
 '^ Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, 
 and having received of the Father the promise of the 
 Holy Spirit, he hath poured forth this, which ye see 
 and hear. Let all the house of Israel therefore know 
 assuredly, that God hath made him both Lord and 
 Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified" (Acts 2: 33, 36). 
 Those who had plunged the spear into the side of 
 Jesus Christ now feel the sword of the Spirit as it 
 pierces their own hearts, and cry out, not in ex- 
 pressions of flattery and praise, but in groans and 
 sobs, begging for mercy. They are ready to join with 
 the disciples. They are willing to be baptized into 
 the death of the crucified Christ. They are ready to 
 fight with the wild beasts and to stand in jeopardy 
 every hour, for they believe that Christ has con- 
 quered death and the grave in His resurrection, and 
 they are no longer afraid of the one who can kill the 
 body, for they believe that the spirit will go to be 
 with Jesus, who has become the firstfruits of the 
 resurrection, they are ready, by their baptism, to be 
 placed among the dead. (1 Cor. 15: 29.) 
 
 When the apostles had been brought out of the 
 prison into the presence of the council to meet the 
 charge that they had filled Jerusalem with their doc- 
 trine, they answered: ^^The God of our fathers raised 
 up Jesus, whom ye slew, hanging him on a tree. Him 
 
THE RESURRECTION 85 
 
 did God exalt with liis right hand to be a Prince and 
 a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission 
 of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; and 
 so is the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to them 
 that obey him'' (Acts 5:30-32). 
 
 Jesus surely is alive. After Stephen had delivered 
 that wonderful sermon, one that could not be an- 
 swered by the enemies of Christ, they gnashed their 
 teeth and determined to make an end of him and his 
 doctrine. Stephen, being full of the Holy Spirit, 
 looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory 
 of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of 
 God, and in his dying moments he declared that he 
 saw the heavens opened, and the Son of man 
 standing on the right hand of God. This statement 
 was more than they could stand, and they rushed 
 upon him and carried him out of the city and stoned 
 him to death. Stephen died for his belief in the resur- 
 rection of the Christ. 
 
 There was a brilliant young lawyer who heard 
 Stephen's words and who was blinded by prejudice. 
 He held the clothes of the murderers and sanctioned 
 Stephen's death, and, being mad with enthusiasm, 
 started out to destroy the church of God. He 
 entered into every house, and laid hold on men and 
 women and committed them to prison. Not satisfied 
 with seeing Stephen brutally murdered and the saints 
 in Jerusalem placed behind prison-bars, he determined 
 to go into the far-away cities in search of all who wor- 
 shiped God in the name of Christ. He was honest in 
 all that he did. He verily believed that he was doing 
 God's will. One day he saw a light from heaven and 
 heard this same Jesus speaking to him. This Jesus, who 
 had been nailed to a Roman cross, who had gone down 
 
86 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 into the unseen world, who had tried its realities and 
 had come out from among the dead bringing life and 
 immortality to light, said to Saul, '^I am Jesus whom 
 thou persecutest. " Saul had resisted the Holy Spirit's 
 message to him through Stephen, but he is now con- 
 vinced that it is a message from God. His own 
 spirit of persecution dies within him. By the Master 
 he was told to go into Damascus, not to persecute and 
 arrest the saints, but to be introduced to a disciple 
 who would tell him what he must do. 
 
 Jesus appeared unto him to make a witness of him. 
 No one could be an apostle who had not been a wit- 
 ness. He was to become the apostle to the Gentile 
 world. He was converted and told how to become a 
 Christian by the minister Ananias. Jesus, who had 
 been crucified and buried, appeared to Saul in person 
 and sent him to this minister, who was to tell him 
 w^hat he must do. The minister came and found him 
 praying. He had been three days without sight and 
 did not eat nor drink. He was commanded to arise 
 and be baptized, and he obeyed and immediately en- 
 listed under the blood-stained banner, the banner of 
 the cross, and from that day to his death he was a 
 fearless defender of the truth. 
 
 No one, who denies the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
 can account for the wonderful change in the life of 
 Saul. Why did he turn his back on his own kin, his 
 own people, give up his bright prospects for a bril- 
 liant record in the practice of the law, and engage in 
 the cause which only yesterday he had tried to de- 
 stroy? Why would he place himself among the people 
 that were being hounded by the priests and thus in- 
 vite upon himself humiliation, disgrace, suffering and 
 the death sentence as an impostor? 
 
THE RESURRECTION 87 
 
 The apostle Paul is one of the miracles that the 
 infidel can not explain. Paul alone can explain. He 
 was unalterably convinced, and he recognized that it 
 was the love of this living Christ that constrained 
 him. He at once became the champion of the doctrine 
 and fact of the resurrection. When in the presence 
 of Agrippa he made his defense, it was one of the 
 most pov^^erful speeches ever delivered. He declared 
 it was for the hope of the resurrection he was called 
 in question. Listen to his words when he exclaims in 
 the presence of this ruler: ^'Why is it judged a thing 
 incredible with you, if God doth raise the dead?" 
 
 This logical, eloquent, learned and unimpeachable 
 apostle has much to say on the subject of the resur- 
 rection. His argument in the Corinthian letter is un- 
 answerable. To him the three pillars upon which the 
 church of God rests are the death, the burial and the 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was by the resurrec- 
 tion that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God 
 with power according to the Spirit of holiness. He 
 had seen Him and had heard Him speak and could not 
 have been mistaken. To be saved, one must believe in 
 his heart that Grod hath raised Christ from the dead. 
 This belief is the life of the gospel. 
 
 If Christ has not been raised, then we are yet in 
 our sin, our faith is vain, our preaching is a lie, the 
 apostles were false witnesses, our loved ones who have 
 died have perished, and we are of all men most mis- 
 erable. Thanks be to God, Christ has risen and has 
 become the firstfruits of them who sleep. As we have 
 borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the 
 image of the heavenly. ^'We all shall not sleep, but 
 we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twink- 
 ling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet 
 
88 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorrnptible, 
 and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must 
 put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on im- 
 mortality" (1 Cor. 15:51-53). ^^For we know that if 
 the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we 
 have a building from God, a house not made with 
 hands, eternal in the heavens." 
 
 After Paul had given his life to the preaching of 
 this gospel for which he suffered much, he can say as 
 he stands at the opening of the two eternities: ^^I am 
 already being offered, and the time of my departure 
 is come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished 
 my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is 
 laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the 
 Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that 
 day; and not to me only, but also to all them that 
 have loved his appearing" (2 Tim. 4:6-8). 
 
 Friends, the pale horse and its rider may cross the 
 threshold of my home and take from me my mother. 
 The one who cared for me when I was helpless 
 and unable to care for myself; the mother who loved 
 me when I was wayward; who taught me to kneel by 
 her side and lisp my childish prayer; who has fol- 
 lowed me with her own prayers from my infancy. 
 Yet I can confidently say: ^^ Jesus died and rose 
 again, and some day He will come bringing her with 
 Him, and we shall meet again." 
 
 The death angel may return and take from us our 
 baby, the sunshine of our home and the joy of our 
 hearts. We can carry the little form out to the same 
 city of death and leave it under the trees and flowers, 
 and come back to the familiar things that association 
 has made more precious than gold, saying: The Lord 
 giveth and the Lord taketh away : blessed be His name. 
 
jrrlLLIAM NEWTON BRINEY was born at Eminence, Ky., 
 rfr Sept. 25, 1865, and educated in the public sclwols of 
 Maysville, Ky., and in the College of the Bible at Lexington, Ky. 
 While in college he preached in Leesburg, Ky., three years; then 
 in Faris, Mo., six years; Warren^burg, Mo., one year; Broadway, 
 Louisville, Ky., fifteen years, where his ministry still continues. 
 For several years he has been president of the Kentuclcy Anti- 
 Saloon League, and is president of the Louisville Ministerial 
 Association, 
 
 Mr. Briney has been *a member of the Board of Trustees of 
 the College of the Bible at Lexington, a member of the Board 
 of Trustees of the American Christian Missionary Society, presi- 
 dent of the Kentucky Christian Bible School Association, and for 
 ten years has been secretary of the Executive Committee of the 
 latter organisation. At the Lake Winona Convention he was 
 elected a member of the Executive Committee of the International 
 Convention of Disciples of Christ. 
 
 89 
 
New Converts' Day Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 1. A good start necessary. 
 
 2. Growth the sequel. 
 
 3. Substantial growth necessarily slow. 
 
 4. Some means of growth and developm^it. 
 
 I. The Word of God. 
 
 1. Food to be appropriated. 
 
 2. Treasure to be searched for. 
 
 3. To be read carefully and systematically. 
 
 4. To be read sincerely and prayerfully. 
 
 5. Suggested helps to reading. 
 
 n. Prayer. 
 
 1. Thfe habit of prayer. 
 
 2. Place of prayer. 
 
 3. Time for prayer. 
 
 4. Posture in prayer. 
 
 6. Suggested helps in prayer. 
 
 m. Church Attendance, 
 
 1. Neglect of this a sin. Example of Jesus. 
 
 2. God honors faithful church attendance. 
 
 3. Habit of our great men. 
 IV. Christian Service. 
 
 1. What this includes. 
 
 2. The stewardship of means. 
 
 3. The stewardship of life. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 1. Warning against discouragement. 
 
 2. Illustration of patient continuance. 
 
BEGINNING-DAY IN THE CHRIS- 
 TIAN LIFE 
 
 New Converts' Day Sermon by W, N. Briney 
 
 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. — 2 Pet. 
 3:18. 
 
 TO get a good start in any enterprise is impor- 
 tant. That's why the pioneers in the movement 
 to restore the faith and practice of the primitive 
 church laid such emphasis upon the first principles 
 of the gospel. In their day, matters of the most fun- 
 damental importance had become greatly obscured by 
 undue emphasis upon human opinions, traditions, doc- 
 trines and speculations. By appeal to the Scriptures, 
 they revealed the simple steps that make one a 
 Christian, 
 
 It is a slander upon these great and good men to 
 say, as is sometimes foolishly charged, that they gave 
 themselves no concern about the spiritual develop- 
 ment of those who came to Christ under their minis- 
 try. Of necessity, they stressed matters of initial im- 
 portance, but did by no means neglect exhortation 
 to walk in newness of life and to grow in grace, 
 knowledge and truth. 
 
 To grow is the business of the young disciple. He 
 is a babe in Christ. He is to wax strong in Christian 
 character, to advance in spiritual wisdom, and in 
 favor with God and man. His good start is im- 
 
 91 
 
92 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 portant, but it is not all that is important. The col- 
 lege student must matriculate, be assigned to the 
 proper classes and get the right kind of start in his 
 collegiate career; but the real test of his mettle comes 
 in the months and years that follow in his student 
 life. The soldier must enlist, but the proof of his 
 courage is not so much in enlistment as in his con- 
 duct and bearing in the campaigns that come after. 
 He who would be a disciple of Christ must matricu- 
 late in the school of the great Teacher; he who would 
 become a good soldier of Jesus Christ must enlist 
 under His banner; but the real problems and conflicts 
 come in the subsequent days. Diplomas and distin- 
 guished-service medals come only to those who go on 
 unto perfection as disciples and as soldiers of the 
 Lord Jesus. There is no chance for make-believe in 
 this final test. The tree is known by its fruits. 
 
 Let not the young convert be deceived. He is 
 full of enthusiasm and new-found joy. But he doubt- 
 less finds himself, after the initial experiences that 
 made him a Christian, very much the same person he 
 was before. Any beginner in the Christian life who 
 expects to awaken the next miorning after his con- 
 version a spiritual giant, is doomed to disappoint- 
 ment and disillusionment. Nowhere in God's word is 
 it promised that the young disciple may become a 
 spiritual Samson overnight. Minerva is said to have 
 sprung full-grown from the head of Jove, but no such 
 wonders ever occur in the realm of character. The 
 mushroom comes to perfection of growth in a night, 
 but there's not enough substance to it to fill a thim- 
 ble. The oak, luxuriant in growth, strong in fiber, 
 driving down its roots to take hold of the rocks and 
 coming to its splendid perfection by weathering a 
 
NEW CONVERTS^ DAY 93 
 
 thousand storms, suggests the process by which young 
 disciples may become strong in the Lord. 
 
 The first principles of the gospel, faith, repentance, 
 confession and baptism, possess no power to change 
 one's nature. These powerfully influence his intel- 
 lectual, emotional and volitional being, but they do 
 not in themselves change him from a bad to a good 
 character. If, for example, one is possessed of an in- 
 flammable temper before taking these initial steps, he 
 finds that there is nothing in them to eradicate such a 
 troublesome characteristic, and that he has a fight on 
 his hands every day. 
 
 In becoming a Christian, one simply adopts a new 
 program of life, accepts Christian standards of con- 
 duct, and seeks in all things to make himself well 
 pleasing to the Christ whose disciple he has become. 
 He finds that abundant means and agencies have been 
 provided to help him in his struggle to master his 
 temper, to control his passions, to overcome his tempta- 
 tions and to learn the lessons the great Teacher would 
 have him know. His new program of life brings him 
 under every obligation to make full use of the means 
 of growth that God has placed at his disposal. 
 
 I. The Word of God. 
 
 Of prime importance to the young disciple, as a 
 means of growth, is the word of God. From the . 
 Bible he has been instructed how to become a Chris- 
 tian; now he needs to learn from it how to go on 
 "unto perfection and bear the fruitage of Christian 
 life. Perhaps he was presented with a copy of the 
 Scriptures at the time of his confession and baptism. 
 He could have received no more valuable or appro- 
 priate gift at the beginning of his Christian career. 
 
94 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 The Bible is food to be appropriated. As food is 
 to the natural body, the Bible is to the spiritual. The 
 Greeks accounted for the mighty strength of Hercules 
 by the fact that he was fed in his infancy upon the 
 marrow of lions. The word of God is marrow to the 
 bones of the growing Christian. Paul said to the 
 youthful Timothy, '^From a babe thou hast known 
 the sacred writings, which are able to make thee wise 
 unto salvation." Some one has said that '4ean 
 Christians own Bibles and feed on newspapers." We 
 should, of course, read newspapers and magazines, but 
 we must feed upon the Bible. We receive from it 
 the truth whereby we grow unto salvation. It is 
 good to own a Bible, but the sacred volume possesses 
 no talismanic power to bring good fortune or to keep 
 off evil. It exerts no occult influence to induce magi- 
 cal growth. It is food. If we grow, it will be be- 
 cause we feed upon its diet of divine truth; the 
 truth that develops moral fiber; the truth that makes 
 strong and vigorous; the truth that knits the muscles, 
 that calms the nerves, and that warms the blood; the 
 truth that creates spiritual energy and develops 
 Christian manhood. 
 
 The Bible is treasure to be searched for. Only by 
 so regarding it may we discover and appropriate its 
 truth. The word ^'search" is closely related to the 
 word ^^ circle." To search literally means to surround 
 a thing, as the enclosed plane is bounded by its circle: 
 This means that by careful searching we are to make 
 the truth of the Bible our own possession, incor- 
 porating its teaching into conduct and character 
 just as the circle includes the plane it surrounds. 
 There are some Bible readers who complain of not 
 getting much out of it. If young disciples will form 
 
NEW COm^ERTS' DAY 95 
 
 the habit of reading it as it should be read, they will 
 have no occasion to make this lamentation. 
 
 TJie Bible must he read carefully and systemat- 
 ically. If young people run while they read, if their 
 reading is hasty and careless, if to ease conscience 
 or to keep a pledge they take up the Bible just before 
 retiring, and with sleepy eyes and drowsy spirit read 
 a few verses, they need not expect to acquire any 
 great store of its truth. If you want to get down to 
 the heart of divine truth, you must meditate upon 
 it. Prospectors after the earth's rich deposits of oil 
 or mineral do not run with a hop, skip and jump 
 over the territory to be proven, but with pick and 
 shovel and drill they search with diligence, and ana- 
 lyze with painstaking care and perseverance. In 
 searching the Scriptures, you are in search of life 
 and character, and your search can not be too dili- 
 gent and earnest. 
 
 Tlie Bible must he read sincerely and prayerfully, 
 and with the desire to abide by its teaching. Eead- 
 ing it systematically and carefully, one grows in 
 knowledge; reading it sincerely and prayerfully, in 
 the real spirit of discipleship, one grows in grace. 
 *'If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my dis- 
 ciples." Some read the Bible for its beauty of ex- 
 pression, some to find fault with it, and some to sup- 
 port a theological opinion; but he is most graciously 
 blessed who reads to discover the will of God and to 
 live according to that will. Young disciples will find 
 that many perplexing problems of conduct will be 
 solved by a knowledge of the Bible and a willingness 
 to make the life conform to its teachings. Questions 
 regarding various forms of amusement and recreation 
 wiU find prompt and final settlement in the life of 
 
96 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 one who knows and is willing to abide by the sug- 
 gestions of the book of God. Young Christian, you 
 have the promise of your Saviour that if you abide 
 in His word, you shall know the truth that makes you 
 free. If you know and live up to its instructions, you 
 shall come to know absolutely, beyond all peradven- 
 ture of doubt, that it is the word of God, and will 
 be made free from doubt, and from every form of 
 sin. ''Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall 
 make you free." ''If any man willeth to do his 
 will, he shall know of the teaching whether it is 
 of God.'' 
 
 A copy of the American Standard Revised Bible, 
 with a good concordance, and a one-volume Bible 
 commentary or dictionary, supply to the young 
 Christian an inexhaustible mine of spiritual treasure, 
 and implements sufficient to begin the pleasant and 
 profitable task of digging up and appropriating those 
 many precious gems of truth which will adorn life 
 and enrich character. 
 
 II. Prayer. 
 
 Of scarcely secondary importance to the careful 
 and sincere reading of the Bible, is the forming by 
 the young disciple of regular habits of prayer. Habit 
 is a thing of extreme moment. A garment that fits 
 well and adjusts itself to the body is called a "habit.'' 
 Prayer should become a habit, fitting well into the 
 program of the day. If one does not do a thing 
 habitually, he will probably lose the capacity to do 
 it at all. One who does not take regular physical 
 exercise, loses not only the capacity, but the inclina- 
 tion, to exercise. The same law holds good in religious 
 experience. You will probably pray little if you do 
 
NEW CONVERTS' DAY 97 
 
 not form the habit of prayer. Men of prayer are 
 men of character and of power. Everything is 
 promised to those who are faithful in this beautiful 
 and gracious ministry. Nothing in the way of spirit- 
 ual growth and prosperity will be denied to that 
 disciple who is much in communion with God. One 
 need not be saying his prayers always, but he should 
 live in such intimacy with God as to speak with Him 
 at any moment, as one speaks unto a familiar friend. 
 And yet if one is to form the habit of prayer, regu- 
 lar times and seasons are necessary. 
 
 Titer e sJiould he a place of prayer. Nothing is 
 better than to hold tryst with God in some particu- 
 lar place that has become hallowed by the divine 
 presence. ^' Enter thy closet." *'Shut thy door.'' 
 We read of prophets' rooms and prayer chambers 
 among the people of God in the olden time. It would 
 mean much to young people in these days to have a 
 revival of the family altar and the place of medita- 
 tion and prayer in the home. In the multiplicity of 
 rooms and apartments in the modern house, why not 
 have one dedicated to prayer and communion with 
 God? To be alone with God, in a place free from 
 intrusion, when one bares his soul to his own eyes 
 and sees himself as God sees him, there is nothing 
 better than this. 
 
 Titer e must he a time for prayer. It would seem well 
 to have regular seasons of prayer as well as a certain 
 place. It is especially helpful to pray while the day 
 is young. Jesus, knowing what problems and burdens 
 the day might bring, sometimes went out a great 
 while before dawn to hold tryst with the Father. 
 ''Ere you left your room this morning, did you think 
 to pray?" is one of the old songs that should never 
 
 7 
 
98 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 die. Morning prayer makes duty easy and delightful. 
 It adjusts the compass of the day, so that whatever 
 storms or vicissitudes may come, or into whatever 
 strange seas one may run, he is conscious that the 
 needle of his life has been adjusted to the will of 
 God. Irksome duty is turned into delightful privi- 
 lege. ''Hast thou commanded the morning?" If 
 so, you may be sure of the day, and you can never com- 
 mand it so well as by prayer. Young Christian, put 
 the seal of prayer upon the day in its very beginning, 
 and you may then face all its tasks and responsibili- 
 ties with spiritual alertness and with great hope and 
 assurance of success. 
 
 TTiere is a right posture in prayer. We are won- 
 derfully influenced by our bodies, and reverence of 
 attitude is conducive to reverence of thought. The 
 priests stood, David sat, Solomon knelt and Abraham 
 prostrated himself before God. If one is under a 
 burden, if he feels a real need, his heart will cry out 
 whatever his bodily posture may be. But in the 
 trysting-place one will probably get closer to God on 
 his knees. ''Paint me on my knees, for I have at- 
 tained unto eminence that way!'' exclaimed the first 
 Christian emperor. Not when seated upon a throne, 
 or standing in some exalted position of privilege 
 and power, does one assume his noblest posture, but 
 when on his knees paying tribute to his divine birth- 
 right. 
 
 There are helps toward prayer. The young Chris- 
 tian will find Harry Emerson Fosdick's little book 
 on "The Meaning of Prayer" very suggestive and 
 helpful. Take your concordance and find out how 
 often and under what circumstances Jesus prayed. 
 It will be a wonderful inspiration to you in your 
 
NEW CONVERTS' DAY 99 
 
 own prayer-life. It will also assist you to get a clear 
 conception of the Bible doctrine of prayer to look 
 up in the concordance, each day, some ten or twelve 
 passages until you have exhausted the more than 
 four hundred references to prayer you will find there. 
 
 III. Church Attendance. 
 
 A third means of growth accessible to the new 
 convert is attendance upon the services of the house 
 of God. If the habit of reading the Bible and of 
 prayer is necessary to the development of spiritual 
 life and character, church attendance must also be re- 
 garded as essential. This duty and privilege can not 
 be safely slighted or ignored. 
 
 Neglect of God's Jiouse is sin. Though we have 
 the Bible in our homes and the altar of prayer 
 erected there, we must not forsake ^ ' our own as- 
 sembling together.'' We ^'sin wilfully" when we do. 
 Eead Heb. 10 : 25, 26. If the new convert hopes 
 for a successful Christian career, he must not neglect 
 the house of God. Multitudes of young disciples are 
 careless about this highly important matter. The boy 
 Jesus delighted in the privileges of synagogue and 
 temple. During his public ministry He went into the 
 synagogue on the Sabbath day ^^as his custom was." 
 He felt the need of the sanctuary, and formed the 
 habit of seeking the helpful associations to be found 
 there. 
 
 FaitJi fulness to God's Jiouse brings honor. Business 
 firms prefer young men and women who are regular 
 church attendants. God will honor those who honor 
 Him. The probability of success will be greatly en- 
 hanced in business and professional life if one re- 
 spects and honors the house of God. The story is 
 
100 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 told of a young lawyer in a Southern State who was 
 invited to deliver an address of welcome to the Gov- 
 ernor on Monday evening. It was an unusual honor 
 and opportunity for a young lawyer, and he prepared 
 his address with great care. But he received a tele- 
 gram on Monday, saying the visit of the Governor 
 would be deferred until Wednesday evening. This 
 Christian young lawyer immediately sent a telegram 
 to the committee informing them that on account of 
 a previous engagement he could not deliver the ad- 
 dress on Wednesday. That engagement was the reg- 
 ular weekly prayer-meeting of his church, which he 
 had promised to lead. To many it seemed foolish for 
 the young man to miss such a great opportunity in 
 order to attend a commonplace prayer-meeting, but 
 he decided in the beginning of his Christian life that 
 nothing should swerve him from the purpose of his 
 heart to honor God in the appointments of His house. 
 He missed that fine chance to stand before the Gover- 
 nor and dignitaries of his State, but God blessed him 
 marvelously in his profession, and he is now num- 
 bered among the foremost men of that commonwealth. 
 Great men are church-going men. The really out- 
 standing men of our country have been and are 
 churchmen. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, 
 William McKinley, James A. Garfield, Theodore 
 Eoosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, and 
 a great host of America's greatest statesmen, have 
 been consistent church attendants. A young man is 
 guilty of great folly and thoughtlessness who spurns 
 the church and refuses to give it his loyal support. 
 To the church must be given the credit for the con- 
 servation of the things we hold most dear and that 
 make life tolerable. The beginner in the Christian 
 
NEW CONVERTS' DAY 101 
 
 life should suffer nothing to interfere with his regu- 
 lar attendance upon the sanctuary services. Show 
 me such a disciple, and I will lay my hand upon one 
 who is growing strong in Christian character, whose 
 faith is being confirmed, and across the horizon of 
 whose experience comes no cloud of doubt and 
 misgiving. 
 
 IV. Christian Service. 
 
 The last means of growth suggested to the new 
 convert is to engage in every possible form of 
 Christian activity. This will include financial support 
 of the church and all its missionary, educational and 
 benevolent enterprises, personal service in the Bible 
 school, the young people's societies, the prayer-meeting 
 and other departments of church life, the promotion 
 of social and community welfare, and the many other 
 forms of Christian service so abundantly provided in 
 the complex life of our day. 
 
 There must be the stewardship of means. No 
 greater blessing could crown the life of a young 
 Christian than to determine from the very first to 
 recognize the principle of stewardship in all his life. 
 This means acknowledgment of the obligation to make 
 the best possible use of that which has been com- 
 mitted to him. It means the development of any 
 kind of talent or possession to the highest point of 
 efficiency. It means recognition of the fact that *'God 
 never made a human body or an immortal soul to be 
 a depository." He wants us to be channels. What 
 we take in and pass on through heart and life, we 
 keep to bless and refresh our own souls, and to make 
 us like *' sweet Galilee," which receives and more 
 generously gives. What we keep, without passing on. 
 
102 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 stifles and kills and makes us like the ''Dead Sea" 
 which receives and gives not. Young disciples ought 
 to begin by recognizing the principle of stewardship 
 in the use of their money, and determine to bestow 
 at least one-tenth of the income upon the altar of 
 God. No Christian has a right to do as he pleases 
 with God's silver and gold. It is His. ''The silver 
 is mine, and the gold is mine.'' Even the ability to 
 procure it is from Him. "It is he who giveth thee 
 power to get wealth." Great spiritual wealth is in 
 store for the young disciple who faithfully meets the 
 obligation of the tithe. Recognition and practice of 
 this obligation has never been known to hurt, but it 
 has been known to help thousands. Accept the chal- 
 lenge of the Lord, and put the law of the tithe to 
 the test. "Prove me now herewith" is His ringing 
 challenge. Bring the first sheaf to the Lord, not the 
 last remnant. Conscientiously adjust your expendi- 
 tures to your giving. Don't reverse the process, as 
 thousands of the spiritually lean and poor do. Make 
 your expenditures conform to your giving by putting 
 aside at least the tithe, and do it first. You will 
 not suffer materially by giving a tenth of your in- 
 come. "It is the soundest and safest economic in- 
 surance it is possible for one to carry." Put it to 
 the test. You will not suffer materially and will be 
 wondrously enriched spiritually. 
 
 And there must be stewardsMp of life. But 
 Christian stewardship is more than a question of 
 Christian giving. It includes all life. Find your 
 place in church and community activities. If you 
 fail to make the most of your talents in Christian 
 service, you are guilty of a breach of divine trust, and 
 of a sin against yourself and the kingdom of God. 
 
NEW CONVERTS' DAY 103 
 
 The test of your sincerity and courage is your will- 
 ingness to serve the Lord in the use of the talents 
 with which he has endowed you, in whatever place 
 you can serve Him. That may be in the Bible school, 
 or in some auxiliary society of the home church. It 
 may be down in the slum district of your city. It 
 may be in China or Africa. It may be in the gospel 
 ministry. Be willing to go where the Lord wants 
 you to go and to do what He wants you to do. 
 
 In conclicsion, don't allow depression and dis- 
 couragement too large a place in your life because 
 of failure to grow up to your highest ideals. The 
 man who wrote our text was, for a time, shifting and 
 unstable. He was more like sand than rock. He was 
 a sort of diamond in the rough; blunt, headstrong, 
 given to profanity, and altogether unpromising. But 
 Jesus, recognizing his underlying qualities of strength 
 and leadership, by delicate use of the hard friction 
 and compression of experience, molded him into the 
 man of rock. The Christian life does not call for a 
 special type of character. It calls for untiring devo- 
 tion to high ideals, and the development, in spite of 
 obvious faults and weaknesses, of men whose faith 
 and purpose fail not. Out of rough-hewn stones 
 Christ builds the church of the living God, which, 
 after all, is ^* nothing more than a church of living 
 men. ' ' 
 
 A sculptor was working patiently one day upon 
 a block of marble. His blows upon the chisel were 
 so slight as to scarcely raise a little cloud of marble 
 dust. A friend standing near finally said: ^'Give me 
 your mallet and chisel. I can strike harder blows 
 than you and will finish the work sooner.'' But the 
 sculptor only smiled as he continued his slow task 
 
104 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 and said: ''That may be your way of making a statue, 
 but it is not mine." Months afterward, in that same 
 room, the sculptor unveiled a figure so beautiful that 
 his friend bowed his head in recognition of the genius 
 and untiring patience that could work such per- 
 fection. Even so God would have us bring our char- 
 acters to perfection. After we have patiently wrought 
 under His direction and in the use of the means He 
 has given, for a lifetime, He will reach down and 
 lift from us the veil of humanity, and we shall 
 stand pure and resplendent and perfect in His pres- 
 ence forevermore. 
 
/^A'KEY E. MO EG AN was torn in Johnson County, Ind., Aug. 
 KJ 21y I860, and received his major education in Butler College, 
 Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 In Indiana he has preached for the churches of Christ at 
 Arcadia, Atlanta and Wabash. In Minneapolis, Minn., he was 
 minister for six years, and then served the old historic Seventh 
 Street Church at Richmond, Va., for five years. He preached 
 in Paris, Ky., from 1903 to 1912,. and has teen in charge of the 
 Vine Street Church in Nashville, Tenn., since 1912. 
 
 Mr. Morgan occupies a lectureship chair in Vanderhilt Uni- 
 versity, Nashville, on the subject^ ^'Pastoral Theology.'^ He is a 
 member of the Board of Managers of the United Christian Mis- 
 sionary Society, and has been president of the American Christian 
 Missionary Society. 
 
 105 
 
Mothers' Day Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction — ^A Tribute to Mother. 
 
 1. Grod never loved us more than when He planned the home. 
 
 2. Things do not make a home, but love and sympathy. 
 
 3. The mother is the heart and soul of the home. 
 
 4. Giod needed help to show His love, and gave us mothers. 
 
 5. Motherhood is beautiful, wonderful, divine. 
 
 6. How can we repay our mothers? 
 
 106 
 
THE MOTHER AND THE HOME 
 
 Mothers Day Sermon by Carey E. Morgan 
 
 As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; 
 and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. — Isa. QQ: 13. 
 
 THIS is Mothers' Day. Each of us will find his 
 way into his own memory field to-day and, 
 wandering in and out along the pathway of the past, 
 he will gather forget-me-nots and heartsease for a 
 bouquet. "What an armful of flowers, with nectar 
 sweet as that in the cups of rose-buds and with 
 fragrance outmatching Arabic gardens! You may go 
 where you like along these roads of memory, into 
 the orchard, or the meadow, or the woodland; but 
 let me go straight to my mother, whose long absence 
 makes the world a lonesome place for me after all 
 these years. I want to hear her speak my name once 
 more. I want to feel, once more, the touch of her 
 caregs. 
 
 Man's first home was in the Garden of Eden; his 
 last home is heaven. This shows what God would 
 have the home to be. He Himself built the first and 
 the last, but man has built all the others. Man has 
 made many mistakes in his part in this age-old task; 
 but, whether he built this shelter for love in a cave, 
 a cabin or a cottage; whether it is built of logs or « 
 brick or chiseled stone — it is the best thing he has 
 ever done, the best thing in spite of his failures, and 
 the most important thing. 
 
 107 
 
108 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Is there anything in music to compare with the 
 laughter of childhood, in the happy fellowship of the 
 fireside? Is there anything in sculpture to match the 
 hearthstone group? Does not the mother with the 
 light of love in her eye and with a happy child at 
 her knee outrival RaphaePs ''Sistine Madonna''? Is 
 there anywhere in fiction a love story like that writ- 
 ten in the memory of home life? Is there any enact- 
 ment of Congress or Parliament of as far-carrying 
 influence as the law of love written in the hearts of 
 parents and child? Is there any orchard like that 
 in which child-life and the fruit of family affection 
 grow? Is there any garden to match that garden of 
 good will in which the flowers of love open and 
 bloom? Is there any soil so fertile or so friendly 
 to the seeds of virtue as that spot of earth which we 
 call home? Man has made many mistakes in this 
 holy business of home-building; but in spite of his 
 mistakes he has never done anything else so worth 
 while. 
 
 I think God never loved us more than when He 
 planned the home. His mighty heart must have 
 throbbed with sympathy and good will, and His love 
 for the sons and daughters of men must have been 
 aflame, when He thought out the home relationship 
 and when He conceived this place for rest, for shelter, 
 for happiness and for love. 
 
 It is to be noted, too, that He has so fixed it that 
 home does not depend upon the size of the house, 
 or the expensiveness of the furnishings, or the ex- 
 clusiveness of social sanctions, or the fame of world- 
 ly success. Only a few, comparatively, can have these 
 things; but the humblest may have a home. I am not 
 saying that such things are not worth while. They 
 
THE MOTHER AND THE HOME 109 
 
 are. I am not saying they are inimical to the home. 
 They are not. I am saying that they are not neces- 
 sary. Many a poor man goes to his home in the 
 evening with a gladder heart than many a rich man. 
 Get these things if you can — the beautiful rug, the 
 costly instrument of music, the dainty porcelain, the 
 exquisite vase, the canvas of the masters, the cozy 
 corner; get them all if you can; but these are not 
 the most important things. 
 
 Manhood has more to do with the home than 
 money; womanhood, than wardrobes; character, than 
 coupons; patience, than pictures; amiability, than 
 architecture; virtue, than vases; and love, than lands 
 and lawns. Let the house be furnished first of all 
 with light, laughter and love; with patience, purity 
 and peace; with honor, health and happiness; with 
 faith, fealty and freedom; with reason, righteousness 
 and religion, and then, as if by the divine alchemy, 
 the house has become a home. 
 
 The mother is the soul of the home. This is the 
 language of sentiment, but it is nobly true. The 
 foundations of the home may be of wood, brick or 
 stone; the floor may be inlaid hardwood, or pine or 
 slab or beaten sod; the roof may be shingles, slate or 
 clapboards; the illumination may be tallow candles, 
 coal-oil lamp, gas jet or electric bulb; however or of 
 whatever sort these material things may be, the home 
 is inanimate without her. Without her it has no 
 breath of life. She is its heart-beat, she is its at- 
 mosphere. Her heart pumps its life current. She is 
 its pulse. She is its life. She is its light. She tends 
 its altar and keeps the altar fires alive. Without 
 her the home is pulseless, inarticulate, empty, dead. 
 Without her, home is not home. 
 
110 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 I wonder if I might be bold enough to speak of 
 dead homes. There are many such. God have pity! 
 There is the chill of death in their chambers, for the 
 fires of love have gone out. The darkness of the 
 grave broods over them, for the light of love is in 
 eclipse. They are voiceless as the tomb, for love has 
 been stricken dumb. Their grave-clothes have been 
 woven in the loom of ill temper, or in the loom of 
 selfishness, or in the loom of wastefulness, or in the 
 loom of unfaithfulness. No one can bring these dead 
 homes back to life but the Lord of life, who has 
 power over death and the grave. But as long as the 
 mother's love lives, the home will live. She is the 
 breath of its life. She is its fragrance. She is its 
 glory, its soul. 
 
 God needed help to show His love and so He gave 
 us mothers. "What an hour that was in the councils 
 of heaven when the thought of mother was con- 
 ceived first in the heart of God; when the plan was 
 wrought out to nourish the seed of life in her flesh, 
 to warm it into life by the warmth of her blood, to 
 graft the new life into her life, to make her soul its 
 shelter and her heart its cradle lined with the eider- 
 down of love, to turn her touch into a caress and her 
 smile into sunshine and her voice into a lullaby and 
 her affection into a fortress. The mother, I think, is 
 the final proof of God. 
 
 How beautiful motherhood is! The baby is in 
 her arms. He lies on her bosom. His chubby fingers 
 play in her hair. His cheek is against her cheek. 
 His arms are around her neck. His little feet trample 
 her lap. His breath fans the fires of her love into 
 a glow that shows in color in her cheeks. Long be- 
 fore he can talk, his dimples, like tiny mouths, speak 
 
THE MOTHER AND THE HOME 111 
 
 of his love of her. The mother and her child! What 
 a picture! No wonder sculptors have chiseled this 
 scene in marble, painters have portrayed it on can- 
 vas, poets have put it into songs and public speakers 
 have pictured it in words. There are many beautiful 
 things in the world — an orchard in bloom, sunshine 
 on the hills, a valley of wild flowers, a field of ripened 
 grain, a wildwood in the springtime, a setting sun 
 and its trailing glory; but there is nothing this side 
 of heaven to match the beauty of the mother with 
 her babe in her arms. 
 
 How wonderful motherhood is ! How may we ac- 
 count for its strength, with no such physical organiza- 
 tion as that of the man; and yet unmatched in 
 strength for vigils, for carrying love's load, for 
 patient endurance, for unweary waiting, for answer- 
 ing uncounted calls, for ministries that strain the 
 soul. Is there no limit to the mother's sacrifice? 
 Will her arms never tire? Will her dear fingers 
 never grow weary? By what alchemy is her feminine 
 weakness turned into unequaled strength? Love is 
 the alchemist. Love lifts her load. Love links her 
 to her task and multiplies her power. Love is the 
 only possible explanation of motherhood. Love exalts, 
 strengthens, beautifies, glorifies. 
 
 How divine motherhood is! I have seen a mother 
 reach through prison bars to touch her boy's hands, 
 and while an agony like that of death gripped her 
 heart, her eyes looked into his as they did in cradle 
 days. Nothing could change her, however much he 
 may have been changed. He was hers, the fruit of 
 her womb, and in spite of the turnkey's key she 
 locked him in her heart. I have seen her wait in 
 her humble home for her boy's long-delayed return. 
 
112 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 When every one else had ceased to think of him, she 
 had ceased to think of every one else. I have seen her 
 eyes fill with reminiscent tears as she thought of the 
 empty cradle, and her empty arms, and her lone- 
 some love. I have heard her sing her crooning cradle- 
 song when the child, for whose soothing she had 
 learned it, had long since been listening to the songs 
 of angels. 
 
 What is it I am trying to do? Well, I am just 
 trying to keep you from forgetting. Perhaps if I 
 can make you remember these things, the fact of your 
 remembering may mean something to your own 
 mother. Possibly I may help you to smile at her 
 oftener. I am thinking that she might be hungry 
 to feel your arms around her neck, and that, if you 
 are away from her, you might send her a message. 
 Some of us, I among others, would have to send our 
 messages by way of the throne of God. I want you 
 to touch her cheeks as in childhood days. She has 
 carried heavy loads for you. I do not want your 
 neglect of her to be piled on top of her already 
 Leavy load. 
 
 ''Nobody knows the work it takes 
 To keep the home together. 
 Nobody knows of the steps it takes. 
 Nobody knows but mother. 
 
 *' Nobody listens to childish woe 
 Which kisses only smother. 
 Nobody ^s pained by naughty blows, 
 Nobody, only mother. 
 
 *' Nobody knows of the sleepless care 
 Bestowed on baby brother. 
 Nobody knows of the tender prayer, 
 Nobody, only mother. 
 
THE MOTHER AND THE HOME 113 
 
 ''Nobody knows of the lessons taught 
 Of loving one another; 
 Nobodv knows of the patience sought, 
 Nobody, only mother. 
 
 ''Nobody knows of the anxious feara 
 Lest darlings may not weather 
 The storms of life in after years. 
 Nobody knows but mother. 
 
 "Nobody kneels at the throne above 
 To thank the heavenly Father 
 For the sweetest gift — a mother's love. 
 Nobody can but mother.'' 
 
 You will not expect the impossible of mother. 
 She is only human. It is all right to have a high 
 ideal of motherhood, but we must be slow to condemn 
 if she does not always measure up to it. Her love 
 will prompt her to be brave in the midst of her 
 cares. Her load will never be light, but she will 
 cry to God for strength to carry it. She will be 
 strained, tested, tried, put to it by her many duties. 
 Her nerves will be keyed up often until they are 
 ready to snap. She will have many hindrances and 
 many trials of temper, and there will be confusion, 
 clamor and uncounted claims and noise. But she will 
 try to remember that in the home too much noise 
 is better than too great silence. She will remember 
 that there comes to some homes a silence that sounds 
 louder in the lonesome chambers of the soul than 
 all the clamor of childish voices. She will know that 
 it is better to have muddy shoes on the carpet than 
 to have them cleaned and laid away. She will know 
 that it is better to have finger prints on the window- 
 panes and mirrors than to have the fingers of a great 
 sorrow clutching at her heart-strings. 
 
114 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 ^^The little toy dog is covered with dust, 
 But sturdy and staunch he stands^ 
 And the little tin soldier is heavy with rust 
 And his musket molds in his hands. 
 
 ^ ^ Time was when the little toy dog was new 
 And the soldier was passing fair; 
 But that was the time when our Little Boy Blue 
 Kissed them and put them there. 
 
 "** 'Now, don't go till I come/ he said, 
 ^And don't you make any noise/ 
 So, toddling off to his trundle-bed, 
 He dreamt of his pretty toys. 
 
 *'And as he was dreaming, an angel's song 
 Awakened our Little Boy Blue. 
 Ah! the years are many, the years are long, 
 But little toy friends are true. 
 
 ''Aye, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand. 
 Each in 'its same old place. 
 Awaiting the touch of a little hand 
 And the smile of a little face. 
 
 ^'And they wonder, as waiting the long years through 
 In the dust of that little chair. 
 What has become of our Little Boy Blue 
 Since he kissed them and put them there. ' ' 
 
 So, with all her load of love, she will have sorrows 
 and heartaches. 
 
 But what response can be made to the mother's 
 sacrifice? Can the yonnger children also help her to 
 carry her load of love? Their young feet can run 
 many an errand. Their swift hands can unravel many 
 a tangle. Their new strength can lighten many a 
 task. They can love and help carry her burden. 
 They can laugh and lift, and their laughter will 
 lighten the load. Their desire to help will help more 
 than their effort to help. Their sympathy will lift 
 
THE MOTHER AND THE HOME 115 
 
 like a block and tackle. Their good will will lift like 
 a derrick. Their love will lift like a Corliss engine. 
 It is not so much, after all, what can be done with 
 the hands as what can be done with the heart, that 
 helps. 
 
 Oh, son or daughter, whoever you are, wherever 
 you are, thank God for your mother. The very name 
 in my memory is filled to the brim with gifts from 
 Grod. Its syllables on my tongue are heart-throbs. 
 Its letters are leaping pulses. It's the holiest name 
 in human speech except the name of God, who pities 
 like a father, who comforts like a mother and who 
 loves like both. 
 
GEOEGE A. MILLER was horn at Mt. Morris, Ills., in 1864, 
 and received his education at Mt. Morris College, Carthage 
 College and Eureka College, Ills. In 1890 he received the degree 
 of A.B. from EureTca College, and in 1893 the degree of A.M. 
 from the same institution. He later took postgraduate work in 
 the University of Chicago. From 1894 to 1907 he was mimister 
 of the First Church of Christ, Covington, Ky., and since 1907 ha^ 
 been minister of the Ninth Street Church, Washington, D. C. 
 
 Mr. Miller urns a member of the Executive Committee of the 
 Foreign Christian Missionary Society for twelve years. In 1904 
 he was u member of the University of Chicago Travel Study Class, 
 visvting Egypt, Palestine, Syria amd Europe. 
 
 He was president of the American Christian Missionary Society 
 in 1913; president of Pastors^ Federation of Washington City, 
 1917 ; president of the Interrmtional Convention of the Disciplef; 
 of Christ, 1921. Has been president of the Ministerial Council 
 Central Union Mission of Washington City from 1912 to present 
 time, and president of the Washington City Bible Society since 
 1913. 
 
 117 
 
Fathers' Day Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction. — In which father's right to a special day is 
 set forth as equal to mother's. 
 
 I. Tlie Father's Responsibility. 
 
 1. Children are imitators and close observers. 
 
 2. Father's excuses are inexcusable. 
 
 3. The custodian cf immortal souls. 
 n. The Father's High Honor. 
 
 1. Fatherhood among men reflection of Fatherhood of 
 
 G-od. 
 
 2. No true father wiU rear children in the midst of 
 
 godlessness. 
 
 m. The Father's Supreme Privilege. 
 
 1. The privilege of church membership and co-operar 
 
 tion. 
 
 2. The privilege of founding and maintaining a Chris- 
 
 tian home. 
 
 3. The privilege of co-operating with God. 
 IV. The Penalty for Ignoring These Things. 
 
 118 
 
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF 
 FATHERHOOD 
 
 Fathers' Day Sermon by Geo. A. Miller 
 
 Train up a chil4 in the way he should go: and even when he 
 is old he will not depart from it. — Prov. 22: 6. 
 
 And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but 
 nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. — 
 Eph. 6:4. 
 
 FOR a number of years our churches have been 
 observing Mothers' Day. This is a beautiful 
 custom and is proving very helpful to the church. 
 It is also a help and a blessing to the mothers and 
 children. Father, however, has been almost entirely for- 
 gotten or ignored in these services. He has come too of- 
 ten to think he has no part either in the church service 
 or the home. It is time we should give father a square 
 deal and bring him to realize that he is an important 
 factor in the life of his children and of the church. 
 I would not, for a moment, take away one particle of 
 honor and responsibility from mother, but I would 
 like to stress the importance of father's responsibility 
 and influence. It may be that we have felt the im- 
 portance of preaching to mother more than to father 
 because, formerly, there were more mothers present 
 at the church services. If the fathers have at any 
 time felt slighted because they were not given a more 
 prominent part in the special days of the church cal- 
 endar, it is possibly because they have not been active 
 
 119 
 
120 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 enough to deserve such a place. They have remained 
 at home or been so given over to business that they 
 have neglected their true church and parental duties. 
 My text shows the responsibility of parents in general, 
 and fathers in particular. 
 
 We all realize the importance of training children 
 for the great work of life here and hereafter. This 
 can not be truly done unless both parents perform 
 their respective parts. Early training may for awhile 
 seem to be lost in the life of an individual, but in 
 later years it will have its influence. ''When he is 
 old he will not depart from it," said the sacred writer. 
 Paul realized the importance of the father's respon- 
 sibility to his children. ''Nurture them in the chasten- 
 ing and admonition of the Lord." It is not enough 
 to feed and clothe them. The child that God has 
 given is a living soul. His spirit is a part of the 
 Great Spirit of the universe. His soul, as well as his 
 body and intellect, is to be nurtured and developed. 
 Who is to do this? Too often it is looked upon as 
 the duty and obligation of the mother alone. Paul 
 says it is the father's duty as well. You fathers 
 can not shift your responsibility to any one else. 
 There is no excuse that you can give, that will re- 
 lieve you of this obligation to your child. I suppose 
 in this modern day the most common excuse is that 
 "I am too busy to look after those things. I leave 
 them to my wife." You ought to be ashamed of 
 yourself to make such an excuse. You admit the duty 
 in making the excuse, and no duty in the world is 
 more important. Two boys were playing across the 
 street when the father of one of them passed on the 
 other side. The neighbor boy said, "Who is that 
 man?" The reply was, "Oh, he's a man that sleeps 
 
RESPONSIBILITY OF FATHERHOOD 121 
 
 at our house/' Does your boy think of you only as 
 a roomer in what he calls home? Fortunate is the 
 child that has a true home in which both father and 
 mother preside with equal solicitude and a sense of 
 equal responsibility. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that children are not 
 close observers. A man once speaking before a Bible 
 school was stressing the need of observation. He re- 
 marked that children do not observe closely and to 
 prove it he would use an illustration. There was a 
 class of small boys on the front seats. He said, 
 ''Now, you boys give me some numbers of two figures, 
 and I will put them on the blackboard.'' One gave 
 ''fifty-seven" and he put down seventy-five. Another 
 said "forty-two" and he put down twenty-four. Then 
 a little fellow that lisped called out, "thixthy-thix, " 
 and added, "I'd like to thee the thucker change 
 that." Not only is your child a close observer of 
 folks in general, but he is a close observer of you in 
 particular. 
 
 Whatever may have been the indifference of the 
 fathers to the church and Bible school in the past, we 
 can see a great and growing interest at the present 
 time. Never was there a day when so many men 
 were in attendance at church and interested in the 
 things pertaining to the spiritual life. We have only 
 to look about us to see great men's classes; they num- 
 ber hundreds and even thousands. Think of a class 
 of a thousand or more men meeting every Sunday 
 morning to study the word of God. What a great 
 object-lesson to the growing boy! What an oppor- 
 tunity for a father to set an example to his son! 
 
 It is easy to make excuses for not going to the 
 Bible school or church. One of the most familiar is, 
 
122 SPECIAL SEEMONS 
 
 ''When I was a boy my parents made me go until I 
 became tired of it.'' Did your parents make you 
 wash your face when you were a boy? Did they 
 make you clean your shoes? Did not these things 
 make you tired? Then, why do you do them now? 
 Shame on you — ^big, lazy, no-account men — to blame 
 your own meanness and neglect upon your godly, 
 Christian parents! It seems to me they should rise 
 from their graves to haunt you all the rest of your 
 days. Your excuse is worse than none and is an open 
 condemnation of your conduct, showing that you are 
 an ungrateful, blasphemous son of good parents. 
 They did their duty and you abuse their memory. 
 Much has been said in criticism of preachers' boys, 
 but if you will study the lives of the preachers and 
 the noted men of to-day you will discover that a 
 surprising number of them are preachers' sons, and 
 that practically all of them are from Christian homes, 
 where they have been brought up to attend the ser- 
 vices of the church regularly. Instead of blaming 
 your parents, you have occasion to thank them for 
 making you do your duty when you were young. 
 
 Every father should realize the great obligation 
 resting upon hdm in the training of the immortal soul 
 that has been given into his keeping. The soul of his 
 child is of more value than all else in this world and 
 to nurture it is his highest privilege. Man has been 
 endowed with the ability to achieve great things. He 
 has built the Pyramids and the Parthenon; he has 
 tunneled the Alps and made a way for trains under 
 the East River; he has dug the Suez and Panama 
 Canals; he has erected great cities and accomplished 
 many wonderful works — ^but the greatest of all his 
 endowments is the ability to work with God in train- 
 
RESPONSIBILITY OF FATHERHOOD 123 
 
 ing a human soul in the way of eternal life. It is 
 a task big enough to call forth the best effort of the 
 greatest men of this or any other time. Great men of 
 all ages have realized this obligation. 
 
 Not long ago a prisoner brought an awful accusa- 
 tion against his father, who was a very eminent law- 
 yer. "When asked if he remembered his father, the 
 prisoner said: ''Perfectly; whenever I entered his 
 presence he said, 'Run away, my lad, and don't trouble 
 me.' " By keeping his boy from "troubling" him 
 the great lawyer was able to complete his famous 
 work on "The Law of Trusts," but his son in due 
 time became a practical illustration of the most sa- 
 cred of all trusts violated. 
 
 True fatherhood among men is but a reflection of 
 the fatherhood of God. What a high and holy po- 
 sition. How full of possibilities for eternity. I cer- 
 tainly pity some children when I see their fathers. 
 What can you expect of a half-grown boy when he 
 sees his father with a cigaret in his mouth? It is im- 
 possible to understand the type of mind that will at- 
 tempt to justify the setting of such an example before 
 a son. Is such a man reflecting the fatherhood of 
 God? 
 
 A babe is the most helpless and dependent thing 
 that is born into the world. Its absolute dependence 
 is for the purpose of making it a care and a respon- 
 sibility to its parents. All parents should see in 
 their children's eyes the soul of God born anew into 
 the world. 
 
 ''They are idols of hearts and of households, 
 They are angels of God in disguise; 
 His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses, 
 His glory still gleams in their eyes." 
 
124 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 And if parents can see God looking out upon them 
 through the eyes of their little ones, the little ones 
 should find God waiting for them in the hearts of 
 their parents. 
 
 No true father would want to rear his child in a 
 community where there is no church or where that 
 child would receive no religious instruction. But, 
 what are you fathers doing to build up the church 
 in your community? It would be a very poor, good- 
 for-nothing excuse of a father who would sit and do 
 nothing while others fed and clothed his children. 
 It would be just as bad, if not worse, for an able- 
 bodied father to expect others to pay for his chil- 
 dren's education. Is it not worse for you to expect 
 some one to bring up your children in the nurture 
 and admonition of the Lord, while you loaf on the 
 job of real fatherhood? You should do your duty in 
 the development of the soul that God has given into 
 your keeping. Your child is a gift from God. 
 
 The welfare of children demands a home. That 
 home should be a Christian home. It can not be a 
 Christian home if both parents are not Christians. 
 It is said that if children from the cannibal South Sea 
 Islands were brought to a Christian land and put 
 into Christian homes they would grow up to be 
 Christians, and if children of our land were taken 
 early in life to the South Sea Islands they would 
 grow up to be cannibals. God so created man and 
 woman that each is the complement of the other, and 
 it requires both to make one complete person. One 
 supplies what the other lacks. God did not create 
 woman from the head of man that she should rule 
 over him, nor from his foot that he should trample 
 upon and degrade her, but from his side that she 
 
EESPONSIBILITY OF FATHEEHOOD 125 
 
 should be a helpmeet to him. In the rearing of chil- 
 dren the strength and power of manhood is to be 
 mingled with the love and tenderness of womanhood, 
 that the child life may be complete. If one parent 
 should be taken by the hand of death, then the double 
 responsibility falls upon the other. The mother must 
 then, as far as possible, supply the place of the father, 
 or the father the place of the mother. It is very much 
 harder for the mother to do this if the father is 
 living. I have seen fathers that were but a hindrance 
 in the spiritual development of their children. It 
 would be far better for the souls of some children if 
 their fathers were dead. Is it possible that this is 
 true of you? May God have mercy upon your soul 
 if it is. 
 
 The church is the spiritual power-house where a 
 man becomes charged to carry home the electric cur- 
 rent of Christlikeness to his children. It is impossible 
 to convey spiritual life to your children if you have 
 none yourself. No lodge, club or fraternal organiza- 
 tion, I care not how good it may be, can take the 
 place of the church. The church is the only institu- 
 tion that can develop the soul. It is the one divine 
 institution on earth. "Whatever there is of religious 
 or spiritual value in the lodge and its ritual was 
 borrowed from the church and from the Bible. The 
 school, the club, the lodge — each has its place, but 
 none of them can take the place of the church of 
 Christ on earth. The school develops the intellect; 
 the club, the social life; the lodge, the fraternal life; 
 but the church is the only ordained institution to 
 develop the spiritual life of the individual. Which 
 is the highest and most important? Browning says: 
 ''Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.'' 
 
126 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 What part of your life-work and energy are you 
 giving to the eternal things? How much time are 
 you fathers giving to strengthen the eternal spirits 
 of your children? The Creator has implanted in the 
 bosom of every human being a longing for God and 
 immortality. Sabatier says: ''Man is an incurably 
 religious animal/' You may harden your conscience; 
 you may neglect your duty to your God and your 
 family; you may destroy your own soul and ruin the 
 souls of your children — -but you can not entirely get 
 rid of the feeling within you that you were designed 
 to be a child of God, an heir of heaven. You may 
 live in the cellar of your being; you may give your 
 life to the gross materialism of your day; you may 
 freeze your soul in selfishness, until it becomes as 
 hard as the gold and silver you are seeking — ^but you 
 will never be entirely satisfied with these things. 
 
 What is the greatest inheritance you can leave to 
 your children? Is it wealth? This they can misuse 
 and destroy. Is it fame? This they can mar and 
 abuse. Is it opportunity? This they can ignore or 
 despise. Is it a good name? This they can tarnish 
 or disgrace. The greatest inheritance you can leave 
 is training in righteousness. 
 
 It is sad to see men to-day trifling with life's se- 
 rious problems and giving their best thought and at- 
 tention to the fleeting things of this world. They dis- 
 miss their conscience with a laugh; they kill their 
 capacity for worship by neglect; they destroy their 
 inheritance of spiritual life through pleasure and 
 gratification of self; they see nothing in religion. 
 Why should they? They never put forth a single ef- 
 fort to develop the religious part of their natures. 
 The landscape artist, Turner, was once painting a 
 
RESPONSIBILITY OF FATHERHOOD 127 
 
 sunset from nature. A lout of a fellow was watching 
 him as he painted. As the watcher looked at the 
 sunset and then at the picture he said to the artist, 
 '^I do not see anything so wonderful about a sunset.'' 
 ^^No," said the artist; ^' don't you wish you could?" 
 How can one who is dead in trespasses and sin see 
 anything in religion? To a blind man there is no 
 light. To a deaf man there is no sound. To a blas- 
 phemer there is no God. To a materialist there is 
 nothing spiritual. It is more easy to commit soul 
 suicide than suicide of the body. Use the means for 
 spiritual growth God has given and you will see Him. 
 Train your child as you should and he will behold 
 God and His glory. 
 
 What can a father expect of his son, when he him- 
 self spends the Lord's Day with his pipe and Sunday 
 paper? "What will the son think of soul values if the 
 day of worship is used only for joy riding and 
 picnics ? 
 
 There is a great cry at present about *^Blue 
 Laws." There are no Blue Laws being proposed nor 
 enacted. The noise about it is propaganda of the 
 moving-picture combine and other commercial inter- 
 ests, to break down the sacredness of the Lord's Day. 
 There would be no rest-day if there had been no 
 church. You may abuse the church for wanting to 
 keep this day as a time of true recreation and wor- 
 ship, but you would be going the weary treadmill of 
 seven continuous days of toil and labor each week, if 
 it were not for the church. A man may become so 
 degraded that he abuses the mother who gave him 
 birth, but it is far from honorable and manly. You 
 can abuse and neglect the church that has brought to 
 you countless blessings, but it is something that should 
 
128 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 bring the blnsli of shame to the cheek of every true 
 man. Dr. Kelly, of Baltimore, one of the greatest 
 surgeons and physicians of the land, spends nearly 
 every Sunday in speaking on the value and need of 
 keeping the day sacred and set apart for worship. 
 Are you giving your child a fair chance in life if you 
 are keeping him from the Lord's house on the Lord's 
 Day? ''Forsake not the assembling of yourselves to- 
 gether as the manner of some is." 
 
 I wish I could give a list of the great men who 
 have honored the church; men who have been devout 
 and faithful in attendance upon its services and its 
 ordinances. There are such men as Gladstone, who 
 was a lay reader to the end of life. Lloyd George, 
 who was brought up by a preaching elder uncle. 
 President Harding, who refuses every invitation to 
 play golf on the Lord's Day. Garfield and Eoose- 
 velt, who never missed a Sunday service. Bryan and 
 Hughes, devout and faithful to their religious obliga- 
 tions. Nearly every President our country has ever 
 had was an out-and-out churchman. You are not 
 in great company when you neglect the church. Do 
 you say, ''I can be a Christian without going to 
 church"? I doubt it. An artist must go to a school 
 of art, a lawyer to a school of law, a doctor to a 
 school of medicine, and a Christian to the school of 
 Christ. The church is that school. You can be a 
 better Christian by attending church regularly. At 
 least, your influence does not count on the side of 
 Christianity if you do not go to church. 
 
 The only way you became a Christian was by the 
 way of the church. The preacher, whom you neglect 
 and often scoff at, has more interest in your soul than 
 you have yourself. By staying away from the church 
 
EESPONSIBILITY OF FATHERHOOD 129 
 
 you are wronging yourself much more than you can 
 possibly wrong the church or the preacher. One of the 
 saddest things in the world is to hear a father 
 say, **We do not go to church/' while there is stand- 
 ing at his knee a boy who is soon to go out into the 
 world of sin and temptation without the help and 
 protection that the church gives. I once had a father 
 praise to me the godly, faithful. Christian life of his 
 father, while he admitted in the presence of his own' 
 children that he never attended church. He had re- 
 ceived on his own admission a great blessing from his 
 father, but did not seem to realize that he was giv- 
 ing nothing of spiritual value to his own children. 
 What will those children have to say of their father? 
 When William E. Gladstone died, the leader of an- 
 other nation said: ''The world has lost its greatest 
 citizen/' and Morley says of him: ''He cared for the 
 church as much as he cared for the state; he thought 
 of the church as the soul of the state." The world's 
 greatest citizen, the mightiest statesman of Britain, 
 could not afford to ignore the church. Neither can 
 you or I. 
 
 Another foolish excuse a man often gives for not 
 attending church is, "I am better than some of the 
 men in the church." To say that you are better than 
 the worst is to make a very lame and foolish com- 
 parison. Why not compare yourself with the best? 
 Most any farmer can find in his cornfield an ear that 
 is better than the poorest nubbin in his neighbor's 
 field. That proves nothing in his favor or against 
 his neighbor. Stand up before God like a man and 
 let your own life count for itself. Why contemptu- 
 ously exclaim, "Hypocrites in the church!"? Maybe 
 there are, but there are more outside. The only way 
 
130 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 you can ever rid yourself of the company of hypo- 
 crites is to become a hermit and live alone in a cave. 
 Even then I suspect you will be with one of the 
 biggest of the lot. Those who find fault with the 
 church to-day say: ''Why does not Christianity adapt 
 itself to modern life?'* "Well, why does not modern 
 life adapt itself to Christianity? That would be bet- 
 ter for modern life. If you are looking for a great 
 task in the world, you will find it in the service of 
 Jesus Christ. Here is the true man's biggest job. 
 
 The three truly great things in one 's life are heredity, 
 environment and will. Every father deals largely 
 with the first two. Heredity is the unseen hand 
 stretched from the lives of our forefathers over our 
 own lives. We hand down to our children our ten- 
 dencies to physical and mental diseases. Some one 
 asked how early to begin the education of a child. 
 The answer was, ''With his grandfather." I have 
 known children who have had to fight temptations 
 and passions all their lives on account of the sins 
 of their fathers. What is true of the physical is 
 just as true of the moral and spiritual. Environment 
 is the total of the surrounding things that influence 
 our lives — ^things which we touch and which touch 
 us in the daily business of living. What kind of an 
 environment are you endeavoring to throw about your 
 children? The will is that power within us which 
 enables us to make resolutions and keep them. Will 
 power may overcome heredity and environment, but 
 many fathers are making the task a hard one for 
 their children. It is possible for heredity to hand 
 down a weak will, and then the case of the child is 
 hopeless and the parent is to blame. I fear there are 
 children who will open their eyes in hell and blame 
 
EESPONSIBILITY OF FATHEEHOOD 131 
 
 their fathers for an eternity of suffering. Will your 
 children be among them? There are fathers who 
 through all eternity will regret the woe they have 
 brought upon their children. Are you to be one of 
 those fathers? God pity you, if you are. My friend, 
 would it not be the part of wisdom for you to so link 
 up your life, and the lives of your loved ones, with 
 the church of Jesus Christ as to enable you to 
 face eternity with calmness and assurance? "When 
 the ''Titanic'' sank, the name of God was on every 
 lip, and the heroic musicians went into eternity play- 
 ing ''Nearer, My God, to Thee.'' When Captain 
 Scott sat facing death amid his dead companions in 
 the frozen south, the last message he wrote to the 
 people of Britain linked his country and his family 
 with God. When Shakespeare died, he left a will, 
 the first clause of which declared, "I commend my 
 soul into the hands of God." The last words that 
 Tennyson wrote were these: 
 
 'Tar though from out the bounds of time and place 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 When I have crossed the bar.'' 
 
 What a blessing it is to have the light with you as 
 you journey along the way of life, and how much 
 greater the blessing to have it with you in the end. 
 The other day a man that graduated from Dartmouth, 
 just sixty years ago, wrote the following poem: 
 
 ''As I review the years long passed, 
 The best of all has been the last. 
 Not that my childhood days were sad, 
 Or any part of life was bad ; 
 But, like a spring among the hills — 
 Creating dancing, rippling rills — 
 
132 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Deepening and broadening as it goes, 
 
 Until into the sea it flows, 
 
 The tributes all along its course 
 
 But clarify and give it force. 
 
 Friendships and books have borne their part, 
 
 Enlarged my mind, possessed my heart; 
 
 Lifers cares and toils, its hardships, too. 
 
 All pass alike in glad review. 
 
 Its path has brightened all the way. 
 
 And reached at last the full-orbed day. 
 
 Like rivers, broadening as they flow, 
 
 Deep falls and cascades soon outgrow; 
 
 Thus down life's placid stream I float, 
 
 My Master captain of the boat. 
 
 And, as I to the haven near, 
 
 Eeleased from care, without a fear. 
 
 Along the shore I see the lights; 
 
 Hear music, foretaste of delights. 
 
 Ere long I'll join the song of praise 
 
 Which I have practiced all my days.'' 
 
 May our lives be thus lived for God and our 
 children. 
 
/' J^ SPENCEB xvtas torn in Belmont County, 0., and received 
 • his education in the public schools, in Hillsdale College, 
 Hillsdale, Mich,, an^d vn Bethany College, Bethany, W. Va, He 
 was minister of the ch/wrch of Christ in Bellaire, 0., five and a 
 half years; Baltimore, Md., two years; Clurlcsville, Tenn., two 
 and a half yea/rs; a group of churches in Virginia, while editor 
 of the ^* Missionary WeeMy,^* nine and a half years; Winchester, 
 Ky., two years; Broadway Church, Louisville, Ky., one year, and 
 Central Church, Lexington, Ky., twenty-seven years. For twenty, 
 of the twenty-seven, years he was superintendent of the Central 
 Church school. On July 24, 1921, the Central Church elected him 
 pastor emeritus, on salary, for the remainder of his life, 
 
 Mr, Spen>cer has teen a pastor and evangelist for nearly fifty 
 years, addimg npproximately eight thousand persons to the church 
 during his ministry. He was a member of the Executive Com- 
 mittee of the Foreign Christian Missionary Society for fi-fteen 
 yeurs, and is a trustee of Hamilton College, a curator of Transyl- 
 vama College, a director of the Christian Board of Publication, 
 a trustee of the Board of Ministerial Belief and a member of 
 the Board of Managers of the United Christian Missumary Soci- 
 ety. He resigned from the active ministry that he might spend 
 his time in writing and in evangelistic meetings. 
 
 133 
 
Decoration Day Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 IntTDduction — ^Was3iington*s Warnings to Americans. 
 
 I. Unity of Government and Obedience to Autliority. Impor- 
 tant in both cburch and state. 
 
 1. The high principle of neighborliness. 
 
 2. The principle of the second mile. 
 
 3. Personal reminiscences. 
 
 II. Altruism, and Not Selfishness, Must Be the Motive of 
 
 Nations. 
 
 1. Was America selfish in the World War? 
 
 2. Two kinds of narrowness. 
 
 3. Daniel Webster and Justice Harlan. 
 
 III. The Flag that Stands for Both Unity and Altruism. 
 
 1. History and significance of our flag. 
 
 2. Story of **Two Little Confederates." 
 
 134 
 
CHRIST AND DECORATION DAY 
 
 A Decoration Day Sermon by I. J. Spencer 
 
 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
 all thy soul, and with all thy mindj and with all thy strength. 
 T^he second is this, Thoa shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. — 
 Mark 12: 30, 31. 
 
 WHY connect the name of Christ with Decoration 
 Day? Because we should love Him with all 
 the heart, mind, soul and strength; and because what- 
 soever we do we should do in the name of the Lord 
 Jesus, *' bringing every thought into captivity to him.'' 
 
 The thirtieth of May is a national holiday, and in 
 observing it we make it a holy day by the Christian 
 consideration of the welfare of our country, while at 
 the same time we honor the memory of those who 
 sacrificed their lives in response to their nation's call. 
 Our patriotism and religion should be conjoined. 
 
 President "Washington, in his farewell address, pre- 
 sented three particular cautions with respect to Amer- 
 ica's future, which we may at this time recall with 
 profit. He said that the unity of government is the 
 main pillar of our independence and tranquility at 
 home and abroad. He declared that '^ against this 
 point in our political fortress the batteries of internal 
 and external enemies will be constantly directed." He 
 urged that, as of infinite moment, we should cherish 
 it as '''the palladium of our political safety and pros- 
 perity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxi- 
 
 135 
 
136 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 ety, and indignantly frowning upon every attempt to 
 alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or 
 to enfeeble the sacred ties that now link together the 
 various parts." 
 
 He then warned against such geographical distinc- 
 tions as North, South, East and West, which, by fos- 
 tering ideas of separate interests and character, are 
 calculated ^'to weaken the bonds of our union and to 
 create prejudices, if not antipathies, dangerous to its 
 existence. ' ' 
 
 The church, too, should keep ^Hhe unity of the 
 Spirit in the bond of peace" and not foster division 
 among its members. A united church — ^united in 
 spirit, purpose and function — is eminently to be de- 
 sired for the sake of the unity of our Government, 
 as well as for other spiritual reasons. The church is 
 of incalculable value in the leadership and progress 
 of the nation. 
 
 Washington also earnestly recommended implicit 
 ''obedience to law" as one of the fundamental 
 duties ''enjoined by the maxims of liberty." He 
 said: "The very right of the people to establish 
 government presupposes the duty of every individual 
 to obey the established government." He denounced 
 all combinations and associations under whatsoever 
 plausible representation, "with the design to direct, 
 control, counteract or awe the regular deliberation 
 and action of the constituted authorities." 
 
 To-day, as well as in the lifetime of President 
 Washington, obedience to the laws of the Government 
 needs emphasis and needs the good example of the 
 church. He wisely admonished against the "excite- 
 ments of party spirit," suspicion, faction and the ex- 
 cesses to which they tend. He warned against dema- 
 
CHRIST AND DECORATION DAY 137 
 
 gosrues who vannt themselves as infallible leaders. 
 Such a warning is also appropriate to the church. 
 
 ''The Father of His Country " inculcated, with 
 fervent eloquence, supreme regard to religion and 
 morality. He said that ''of all the dispositions and 
 habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and 
 morality are indispensable supports." He declared 
 that no man conld be a patriot "who should labor to 
 subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these 
 firmest props of men and citizens. The mere politician, 
 equally with the pious man, ought to respect and 
 cherish them." He asked: "Where is the security for 
 property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of re- 
 ligious obligation desert the oaths which are the in- 
 struments of investigation in courts of justice?" 
 "Whatever may be conceded to a refined education, 
 or minds of a peculiar cast," he continued, "reason 
 and experience both forbid us to expect that national 
 morality can prevail in the exclusion of religious 
 principles." 
 
 Unity of Government, obedience to constituted Gov- 
 ernmental authorities and the supreme value of re- 
 ligion and morality, which Washington urged in his 
 farewell address to the American people, are as im- 
 portant now as they were when Washington recom- 
 mended them. 
 
 A nation as well as an individual is called to be 
 unselfish and neighborly. The Good Samaritan nation 
 will not pass by on the other side, but will show kind- 
 ness to another country in distress. Jesus taught His 
 disciples that when they made a feast they should not 
 invite their friends and rich neighbors in the hope of 
 reciprocation; but that they should invite the maimed, 
 the blind, the poor; and that their reward would be 
 
138 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 received in the resurrection of the just. The principle 
 is as applicable to a church and to a nation as to a 
 person. 
 
 Can the teaching of Jesus be applied to corpora- 
 tions and governments, industry, business, and the en- 
 tire social life of the world? In all these God may be 
 first and best loved, and the neighbor may be regarded 
 and treated as justly and kindly as one would treat 
 himself. Our Lord enunciated the great, practical law 
 of arbitration, and commanded it. It is invaluable in 
 controversies between labor and capital. Reconcilia- 
 tion to a wronged and offended brother is essential to 
 right worship. The fruit of the Holy Spirit will be 
 found in the character of American statesmen when 
 the church shall have discharged its high duty in the 
 regeneration of its members through the gospel. Our 
 Government waits upon the character of its religion. 
 The Sermon on the Mount instructs our national lead- 
 ers to go the second mile and to return good for evil. 
 It teaches them to let the nation's light so shine among 
 the powers that they, too, will glorify the Father in 
 heaven. The neighbor may be a person, a community, 
 the whole country, the world, the church on earth and 
 the whole kingdom of heaven. Christ is the neighbor 
 of the lost and neighbor also of the redeemed. To 
 love one's neighbor as himself links all creation to- 
 gether and leads one to pray, ''Our Father, be merci- 
 ful to all." 
 
 In memory of the appointment and significance of 
 Decoration Day, I declare that I know of no reason 
 why any one should be bitter or resentful either to- 
 ward the North or the South on account of the sad 
 events of the Civil War. If my father and older 
 brothers had been born and reared in Alabama, in- 
 
CHRIST AND DECORATION DAY 139 
 
 stead of Ohio, they wonld have given their lives for 
 the Southern cause as they gave them for the Union. 
 
 As a child I remember a Sunday afternoon con- 
 versation between my older brothers, during the Civil 
 War, in which they expressed their willingness to vol- 
 unteer, but I did not regard the matter seriously. 
 A few weeks thereafter the family carriage was driven 
 to the railway station that their parents, two sisters 
 and myself might see them pass, in uniform, with 
 their regiment to the war. I remember how quietly 
 the horses moved that morning and how silent were 
 those it bore. I remember the coming of the train and 
 the waving of my brothers' hands in their tender 
 farewell. Scarcely three months had passed when a 
 telegram called my father to their bedside. Both were 
 sick. One was dying. His body was expressed to our 
 home for burial. A few^ weeks more, and father, along 
 with the other brother, died. Their bodies were laid 
 side by side in the Quaker burial-ground near the 
 Plainfield meeting-house. The building and its beauti- 
 ful grove no longer attract the crowds of worshipers, 
 old and young, who erstwhile assembled there as fa- 
 miliar friends. The house has fallen into decay, but 
 the birds still sing their grateful, happy songs and 
 myrtle twines around the graves. Gentle and patri- 
 otic neighbors strew those mounds with fresh, bright 
 blossoms as the decoration season comes with each 
 return of May. 
 
 I remember that with the quick departure of those 
 loved ones' from our home the roses left my mother's 
 cheeks and the dark color of her hair changed to white 
 like the snow. But, through the power of religion and 
 the comfort of the word of God, her heart mounted to 
 victory. She uttered no word of narrow bitterness 
 
140 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 withal. Another brother of mine, who also shouldered 
 his musket and followed the flag, has joined the three 
 whose bodies sleep under the myrtle leaves in Plain- 
 field burying-ground. Mother, likewise, has entered 
 into her rest. I am sure that no resentment nor sor- 
 rowful memory beclouds the sky of their happiness 
 now. We are called to emulate their example and to 
 look upon the bright bow in the cloud, and upon the 
 cloud itself as only a background for the splendor it 
 enfolds. 
 
 As I look back upon the tragedy of the Civil War 
 I think how innocent were the soldiers themselves, both 
 North and South. Their thoughts were clouded, more 
 or less, with misunderstandings, but their hearts were 
 kind, brave and uncruel. Since they died, new light 
 has flashed forth from the word of God. The Lord 
 has been coming in glory, shining out from the cloud 
 and the letter of the Scriptures. Our national expe- 
 riences, also, since the civil contest of the sixties, have 
 been healing. ^^When I was a child I spake as a 
 child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now 
 that I have become a man" — and the apostle was writ- 
 ing of becoming a man in love's vision, spirit and 
 power — ''I have put away childish things." I have 
 thought, ever since I was able to think, that if all the 
 leaders of our nation, both North and South, had only 
 known God's will and method concerning the abolition 
 of slavery, there had been no American Civil War. 
 I can not think that the divine method of overcom- 
 ing the differences that provoked the war, between 
 brethren of the South and of the North, was the shed- 
 ding of rivers of fraternal blood. 
 
 The present controversy as to whether America was 
 selfish in the late World War or altruistic, has two 
 
CHRIST AND DECORATION DAY 141 
 
 important aspects diametrically opposed the one to the 
 other. Our Ambassador to England is reported to 
 have said that our nation did not enter the World 
 War to help save France or England, but to save it- 
 self; and that we sent our soldiers overseas most re- 
 luctantly and laggardly; that ''we fought because we 
 were afraid not to fight." He is reported to have 
 said, also, that our country ''will not have anything 
 whatsoever to do with the League of Nations, directly 
 or indirectly, openly or furtively." 
 
 Ex-President Wilson had declared: "We have no 
 selfish end to serve. We desire no conquest or do- 
 minion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no ma- 
 terial compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely 
 make. We are but one of the champions of the rights 
 of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights 
 shall have been made as secure as the faith and the 
 freedom of the nations can make them." 
 
 Premier Lloyd George, in welcoming Col. George 
 Harvey as our Ambassador to the Court of St. James, 
 said: "We appeal to America not merely as a nation 
 of high ideals. We know that it is not a country that 
 will say, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' The world 
 has become more interdependent than it ever was be- 
 fore." Thus the British Premier indicated his faith 
 that the United States not only had the willingness 
 to be helpful to the world, but was ready to translate 
 that willingness into action. 
 
 I do not doubt that both the conceptions and the 
 motives that moved our nation to enter the war were 
 mixed. Some citizens were impelled by lower and 
 some by loftier impulses. I am reminded that Jesus 
 said to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born from above, 
 he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." The kingdom 
 
142 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 shines, but he can not perceive it. Our Ambassador, it 
 would seem, could not visualize the celestial forces 
 which others realized. He saw only the natural, world- 
 ly, selfish causes in operation. 
 
 The little poem called ''Flanders Field,'' by John 
 McCrae, will illustrate what I mean by the altruistic 
 motives that stirred and constrained the Allies, along 
 with our American patriots and soldiers. No piece of 
 verse in recent years has been •more widely read in 
 the civilian world, and it was called ''the poem of the 
 army" and was also the poem of the soldiers' hearts. 
 It was used on every platform from which men and 
 women were urged to adventure their riches and their 
 lives to "make the world safe for democracy.'' 
 
 ''In Flanders fields the poppies blow 
 Between the crosses, row on row, 
 That mark our place; and in the sky 
 The larks, still bravely singing^ fly- 
 Scarce heard amid the guns below. 
 We are the dead. Short days ago 
 We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow^ 
 Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
 
 In Flanders fields. 
 Take up our quarrel with the foe; 
 To you from failing hands we throw 
 The torch; be yours to hold it high. 
 If ye break faith with us who die. 
 We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
 
 In Flanders fields.'' 
 
 The same author, in a stanza from another of his 
 poems — "The Anxious Dead" — answers the challenge 
 thus : 
 
 ''Tell them, guns, that we have heard their call. 
 That we have sworn, and will not turn aside; 
 That we will onward till we win or fall. 
 
 That we will keep the faith for which they died." 
 
CHRIST AND DECORATION DAY 143 
 
 Among the many answers to '^Flanders Fields" was 
 the following by Mr. Lillard, that appeared in the 
 New York Evening Post: 
 
 * ^ Rest je in peace, ye Flanders dead ; 
 The fight that ye so bravely led 
 We've taken up.'' 
 
 There are two kinds of narrowness, whereas 
 some had supposed there was but one. The usual 
 conception of the thing is that of a straitened 
 mind or faith. It has been associated w^ith a 
 provincial understanding, a creed, a partisan view, 
 resulting from ignorance of what lies outside its 
 vision; while a limited love, a circumscribed in- 
 terest in and sympathy with others, has generally 
 escaped the odious appellation. But narrowness of 
 heart is more to be deplored and more fatal than a 
 meager understanding. In other words, a love re- 
 stricted to self, and to those related and favorable to 
 self, is more injurious and blameworthy than that 
 which belongs only to an unenlightened understanding. 
 One may have great knowledge, great faith, and yet 
 be prejudiced, partisan, sectarian and selfish in his af- 
 fections. The distinction is strikingly presented by 
 the apostle Paul in the thirteenth chapter of First 
 Corinthians and by the Sermon on the Mount. To be 
 a patriot is better than to be a paltry politician. To 
 be a Christian is better than to be a sectarian. To be 
 an American is better than to be a Kentuckian. For a 
 good Samaritan to succor a half-murdered man of a 
 hostile nation is better than to show mercy to another 
 because he is a fellow-citizen, and may return the 
 favor. Caste, clannishness, partisanship, sectarianism, 
 nationalism, should give place to Christianity which 
 
144 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 feels, thinks and acts in the terms of all humanity; 
 that prays ''Thy will be done on earth/' and both 
 gives and goes that ''every creature'' may be regen- 
 erated and become a citizen of heaven. 
 
 We shall not love our own country less because we 
 love other countries more. And, in order that we, as 
 Americans, may the better serve the nations of earth, 
 it behooves us to keep our political house in proper 
 order. 
 
 Applying this principle, let us hope as did Daniel 
 Webster when he said: "When my eyes shall be turned 
 to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I 
 not see him shining on the broken and dishonored 
 fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dis- 
 severed or on a land rent with civil feuds. Let their 
 last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gor- 
 geous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored 
 throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms 
 and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a 
 stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, 
 bearing for its motto: 'Liberty and union, now and 
 forever, one and inseparab"'e.' " And I think our hearts 
 would add: "May that motto apply not only to the 
 United States of America, but to the united states of 
 the whole world." Let us still pray: "Thy will be 
 done on earth as it is done in heaven." 
 
 Justice Harlan said: "To every American the flag 
 is the symbol of the nation's power, the emblem of 
 freedom. It signifies government resting on the con- 
 sent of the governed; liberty regulated by law; protec- 
 tion of the weak; security against arbitrary power, 
 and safety for free institutions against foreign inva- 
 sion." Does it not stand, also, for altruistic ideals 
 over against selfish aggrandizements and materialistic 
 
CHEIST AND DECORATION DAY 145 
 
 ambitions? "When thoughtful persons look upon the 
 flag they do not see the flag itself, but the nation it 
 represents. It bears no ramping lion and no fierce 
 eagle. It holds no insignia of autocracy or oppression. 
 It carries no sign of royalty, no crown, no scepter. It 
 carries warmth and light in every fold and every 
 thread of all nations and all mankind. Only our loyalty 
 to the cross can glorify and immortalize our banner. 
 
 It reminds one of the words of the Psalmist: 
 ''Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, 
 that it may be displayed because of the truth.'' If 
 the fear of God shall characterize our people, then our 
 God-given flag should be displayed because of the 
 truth. 
 
 The flag of the United States has been called 'Hhe 
 flag of Dawn.'' If the designation be appropriate, we 
 should in nowise keep back its radiance from the na- 
 tions that sit in the darkness and shadow of death. 
 The patriots who fashioned our national banner felt 
 the sacred responsibility and significance of the flag 
 we cherish. "When Betsy Ross, in her day one of the 
 most skilled women of Philadelphia in the use of the 
 needle, artistic in her taste and a genius in the free- 
 hand designing of patterns, was asked by Washington 
 and others to make a flag for the United States, she 
 humbly replied, ''I'll try!" She suggested that it 
 ought to be one-third longer than it was wide; that 
 its stars would be more beautiful if five-pointed, in- 
 stead of six; and that they should be arranged in reg- 
 ular form. George Washington drew his chair up to 
 the table and sketched a design embodying her sug- 
 gestions. Her first sample was so pleasing that it was 
 carried to Congress on the very day it was completed, 
 and was adopted on June 14, 1777. 
 
 10 
 
146 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 The story is told of a certain man who came from 
 England to this country and became naturalized. 
 Later he went to Cuba when the war broke out there 
 in 1867. He was arrested under the suspicion that he 
 was a spy. He was tried and condemned to be shot. 
 He sent for the British and American Ministers, who 
 looked into his case and found he was innocent. They 
 said to the Spanish authorities: ^^This man is inno- 
 cent;" but they replied: ''He has been tried under the 
 Spanish laws, and found guilty, and must die." The 
 Spanish soldiers were ordered to put an end to his 
 life. Just as they were about to shoot him, a carriage 
 drove up rapidly, and the two Ministers leaped out of it 
 and flung the British flag and the ''Stars and Stripes" 
 over him, and said to the soldiers: "Shoot, if you 
 dare!" The shot was not fired. Those banners gave 
 to the prisoner the protection of both Governments. 
 There was power behind those colors. No wonder men 
 are patriotic when they have such banners to protect 
 and to inspire them. 
 
 General Gordon told a story of the Confederate 
 and Union armies encamped on opposite sides of the 
 Eavanna River ready for conflict on the morrow. The 
 Northern band struck up "The Star-Spangled Ban- 
 ner," and the boys in blue cheered and cheered. Then 
 across the river the Southern band retaliated with 
 "Dixie," and the air rang with the cheers of the boys 
 in gray. Defiantly the Union band played "Hail Co- 
 lumbia" and the Confederates came back with "The 
 Bonnie Blue Flag." Finally one of the bands 
 played "Home, Sweet Home," and the other immedi- 
 ately took up the same refrain. 
 
 Sectionalism, group interest, sectarianism, national 
 and individual avarice, isolation and selfishness, will 
 
CHRIST AND DECORATION DAY 147 
 
 be banished when the spirit of Christ shall have con- 
 quered the hearts of the American people. The church 
 should vote only for true and competent men for of- 
 fice. But the real function of the church toward our 
 Government, local and national, is to create men 
 through the gospel, regenerate citizens through the 
 truth, in such numbers and of such a character that 
 they shall be fitted completely to adorn all the offices 
 and to discharge worthily every responsibilitji -vb 
 which the people may call them. 
 
 I love to idealize the flag as a banner of goodness 
 and truth, bringing political deliverance to the cap- 
 tives and 'liberty to them that are bruised." Let 
 every patriot lift it high for the display of the truth. 
 Let it whisper to the air, '^Spread wide my folds, for 
 no blot shall stain them.'' Let it challenge the rain 
 and the snow, that its face shall be as pure as they. 
 Let it say to the dawn: ''My red is not the blush of 
 guilt, but the flush of love and joy." Let it address 
 the sky, saying, ''Enrich and deepen my field of blue 
 for the brighter shining of my constellation." Let it 
 command every national cloud to depart or be trans- 
 figured by its glory. Let it petition the sun to pour 
 its light upon it, that, as it moves around the world, 
 all mankind shall know that its power and its pur- 
 poses, like its colors, come from heaven. 
 
 Thomas Nelson Page tells a story of "Two Little 
 Confederates," who lived on a plantation, called Oak- 
 land, in Virginia, and whose names were Frank and 
 Willy. The Civil "War had begun and soldiers from 
 both armies appeared often in the neighborhood. Their 
 brother Hugh, at the age of seventeen, had volunteered 
 and they were very proud of him. They played that 
 they were soldiers, and sometimes ventured into dan- 
 
148 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 gerous proximity to the fighting. One day they were 
 captured by a squad of Federals and were questioned 
 as to the whereabouts of Hugh and a Confederate 
 General. They refused to tell. Frank was taken away 
 from Willy and threatened with punishment for his 
 obstinacy. His hands were tied behind him and he 
 was placed against a tree as though he were to be 
 shot. He still refused to betray his trust. The cor- 
 po/^rs pistol looked big to Frank and he wondered 
 where tfe, "bullets would hit him; if he would be left 
 all night in the woods and if his mother would come 
 and kiss him. ''I want to say my prayers/' he said, 
 and all grew dark before his eyes. He fainted away. 
 Then a big, young soldier, who had said it was ^'use- 
 less" to intimidate the boy, showed kindness. Water 
 was dashed in his face and he awoke with his head 
 in the lap of the big soldier, who said, '^We were just 
 trying to scare you a bit, and carried the joke too 
 far." The big dragoon took him in his arms to carry 
 him back to Willy. ''I can walk,'' said Frank. ''No, 
 I'll carry you, bless your brave little heart." The 
 big soldier was looking at the light, curly head rest- 
 ing on his arm, and gave Frank a caress for the sake 
 of his own little, curly-headed son about Frank's size 
 at his home in Delaware. ''I hope you'll get back 
 to him safe and well," said Frank. 
 
 Soon thereafter the boys ventured upon a battle- 
 field while yet some bullets were flying and they heard 
 a distressing call for water! They drew near and 
 saw a blue-coated soldier lying propped against a 
 tree, with a ghastly wound in his head. He could not 
 see. His face was ashy pale and he still begged for 
 water. Frank whispered to Willy, ''He's my sol- 
 dier." Cutting the wounded man's canteen loose from 
 
CHEIST AND DECORATION DAY 149 
 
 its strap, and disregarding the danger of being shot, 
 Frank ran to the stream and brought the coveted 
 drink. He pressed it to the dying man's lips, bathed 
 his face and watched it as the tide of his life went 
 ebbing away. The soldier thought, in his delirium, 
 that he was again at home and called for water from 
 the well by the dairy. The boys poured more water 
 into his fevered lips. Then the soldier said, ''Come, 
 my darling, and say your prayers with father.'' 
 ''Now I lay me down to sleep." Frank said: "Willy, 
 let us pray with him." "If I should die before I 
 wake." But the departing soldier's voice was now so 
 weak that it could scarcely be distinguished, "I pray 
 the Lord my soul to take," and the two little Confed- 
 erates finished the prayer. The good soldier's soul 
 had been taken. 
 
 The boys ran home and told the story to their 
 mother. An old ox-cart, the only vehicle left upon 
 the place, brought the lifeless body to Oakland. It 
 was buried, tenderly, in the garden. The mother of 
 the boys read the burial service, an uncle of the lads 
 offered a prayer and the little family group sang 
 "Abide with me." A small packet of letters and a 
 gold watch were taken from the pocket of the de- 
 ceased, and sealed and placed in a bureau drawer to 
 remain until called for. 
 
 A year later, after Lee's surrender, when poverty 
 reigned at Oakland, the boys met an elderly lady and 
 a boy about the size of Frank, coming from the rail- 
 road station. They recognized the driver and his one- 
 horse wagon, but knew the two passengers were 
 strangers, for they had seen no boy so well dressed as 
 the young stranger. "Are there any Union soldiers' 
 graves around here?" inquired the gray-haired lady. 
 
150 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 They said ''Yes," and she told them her story. They 
 inquired the name of her son who, she said, had been 
 reported missing. ''Willy, that was our soldier,'' ex- 
 claimed Frank. They climbed into the wagon and told 
 her how brave and kind he had been, and added : ' ' He 
 is buried in our garden.'' Their mother met the 
 mother of the big, young soldier like a sister meeting 
 her sister in distress, for her son Hugh had been 
 wounded and captured in a charge at Petersburg, and 
 as yet she knew not where he was. The body of the 
 big, young soldier was exhumed and carried back to 
 his home on the Brandywine, in Delaware. Hugh and 
 his father came home again. Boxes of clothing and 
 provisions arrived from the Northern mother who had 
 found love and comfort in her visit to Oakland. 
 Among the presents were two new guns for the "Two 
 Little Confederates" and a complete trousseau for 
 "Cousin Belle," who was to marry "the General," 
 with Hugh to serve as his best man, and the boys were 
 to be ushers. 
 
 This story illustrates the parable of the Good 
 Samaritan and reminds us of Him who is good and 
 neighborly to all. 
 
 When all the mists have rolled away, and narrow- 
 ness of heart and mind shall have- expanded under 
 the warmth and light of the Sun of righteousness, we 
 shall know the meaning of the text, to love God with 
 all the heart, mind, soul and strength, and our neigh- 
 bor as ourselves. 
 
/JETEVE HOLMES was horn in 187^ in Cincinnati, 0., and 
 .^JL received his early education in the grade schools. He spent 
 one year in Bethany College, W. Va., then entered Hirom Col- 
 lege, Hiram, 0., and graduated with B.A, degree in 1899. He 
 spent two years at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 
 as gradate student in Semitics am^d Hebrew antiquities, followed 
 hy three years at same institution o^ gradnmte student vn philos- 
 ophy, psychology and ethics, holdi/ng scholarships and Harrison 
 fellowship. In 1908 he received his Ph.D, degree from Pennsyl- 
 vanva TJnmersity, 
 
 While Mr, Holmes was doing worJc in the Pennsylvoma Uni- 
 versity he served as minister of the Sixth Church of Christ, Phila- 
 delphia. In 1903-4 he was miniver of the Memorial Church, Ann 
 Arbor, Mich., and then served for four years as religious-worTc 
 director, Pennsylvania Eailroad Y. M. C. A., Philadelphia. He 
 was assistant professor of physiology in the University of Penn^ 
 sylvama from 1908 to 1912, and from that time to 1918 was dean 
 of the general Faculty at the Pennsylvania State College. During 
 this sa/me decfade he was lecturer in various lyceums, instituteSf 
 clubs and Chautauqua bureaus, and from 1918 to present time has 
 been president of Br alee University, Des Moines, la. He is a mem- 
 ber of wumerous clubs, fraternities and ed/matvotml associations. 
 
 151 
 
Education Day Address 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 I. Wliat Education Is Not. 
 
 1. Not merely book-learning. 
 
 2. Not knowledge of mass of disconnected facts. 
 
 II. Wliat Education Is. 
 
 1. Both a process and a product. 
 
 2. Process is habit-making, product is liabits. 
 
 III. Apply This Doctrine to the Church. 
 
 1. The religiously educated have habits of worship. 
 
 2. They have the habit of seeing things in right rela- 
 
 tion. 
 
 3. To learn to see and hear rightly is to become edu- 
 
 cated. 
 
 IV. Insight. 
 
 Education opens the inner eye to new worlds. 
 
 V. Doing the Word. 
 
 If a man really sees and feels the truth, he wUl do the 
 truth. 
 
 Illustration and application. 
 
 152 
 
A THEORY OF CHRISTIAN 
 EDUCATION 
 
 An Education Day Address by Arthur Holmes 
 
 They should perceive with their eyes, 
 And hear with their ears, 
 And understand with their hearty 
 And should turn again. — Matt. 13: 15. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE text quoted is very properly a text on edu- 
 cation. It is so both by content and context. 
 Jesus, the great Teacher, has just been engaged in in- 
 structing His students or disciples. His method is a 
 perfect example of the art of teaching. He uses 
 stories called parables to arrest their attention, and 
 to convey his meaning, the best method of oral in- 
 struction yet invented. Seizing upon events common 
 and familiar, like sowing, he leads his hearers from the 
 known to the unknown. From the concrete things of 
 every-day life — ^material, palpable, tangible — ^he pro- 
 ceeds to the abstractions of that spiritual kingdom so 
 profound in its inner implications that the most acute 
 powers of prophets, seers and sages have not yet 
 fathomed all its depths. Then he closes with a warn- 
 ing dissertation on the process of learning in its 
 three steps of perceiving, understanding and acting. 
 
 *' Perceive with their eyes, 
 And hear with their ears, 
 And understand with their heart, 
 And should turn again. '^ 
 153 
 
154 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Sight, insight and action! Herein are contained all 
 the stages of all learning; herein is epitomized all 
 education in all its processes, secular or religious. 
 This is true whether applied to perceiving, under- 
 standing and side-stepping a rattlesnake or a card- 
 game; whether perceiving, understanding and apply- 
 ing a mathematical formula or a spiritual principle. 
 
 What Education Is Not. 
 
 Naturally such a conception of education may 
 sound strange to the average man, to whom the word 
 '^ education" immediately brings up a number of more 
 or less clear implications. To him ''going to school" 
 and ''getting an education" mean the same thing. 
 Likewise, the layman associates education with book- 
 learning. The printed page and a mind "debauched 
 by learning," to borrow Bishop Berkely's famous 
 phrase, go hand in hand. One without the other is 
 inconceivable to the average American, who has be- 
 come imbued with a worship for education not equaled 
 in any other land, except possibly in Germany, the 
 land of " Ideaolators. " Education, schools, books — 
 this is the holy trinity of desires contained in every 
 good American father's ambition for his boy. 
 
 From this primary misconception naturally flow 
 others, commonly found floating about in the atmos- 
 phere of newspapers, magazines and public speeches, 
 all of them glaringly evidential of the lack of insight 
 concerning this vital matter of education. The most 
 prominent subsidiary notion is that one which makes 
 education consist of a knowledge of a mass of hetero- 
 geneous and disconnected facts, an idea recently illus- 
 trated by a noted questionnaire, sent out by one of our 
 most prominent men of practical affairs, in which he 
 quizzes college graduates upon a number of facts 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 155 
 
 which can be found in any book of reference in any 
 library of the land, and with which no man of liberal 
 education would try to encumber his mind. 
 
 A man so educated might be densely ignorant 
 about life and its usages. On proper occasions, he 
 might exhibit his learning with pride by conversing 
 with a visiting national politician or Chautauqua 
 lecturer, or in answer to anxious inquiries about rare 
 phenomena, as, for example, whether the suspected 
 possibility of the earth's colliding with a comet would 
 be diastrous to the world; or what mushrooms are 
 edible; or how a man might find where to drive a 
 nail into a plastered wall so as infallibly to strike an 
 upright beam; or is there anything in carrying a po- 
 tato in one's pocket for rheumatism? A knowledge 
 of such things may be unusual, but is it useful? 
 
 The belief that unusualness of knowledge is the 
 essence of education is a belief resulting directly from 
 the necessity of acquiring education away from the 
 usual walks of life in a school or college, and out of 
 books. Because ordinary men have not studied books, 
 the book-learned man assumes a superiority over his 
 fellows. The superiority is sometimes exploited by 
 educators themselves as the chief value of their im- 
 partations. It is said, untruly perhaps, that a Greek 
 professor, advocating the retention of his language in 
 the college course, brought forth as his final argument 
 the assertion that the study of Greek gives to the man 
 who has studied it a feeling of superiority over the 
 man who has not studied it! This aristocracy bred 
 by education, as commonly conceived, is far from the 
 conception of the statesmen who insist that education 
 is, and must always be, the foundation of democratic 
 government. 
 
156 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Emphasis upon peculiar and unusual knowledge 
 leads to another misconception contained in the de- 
 fense of certain subjects in every curriculum, which 
 are there by force of tradition, and can give no useful 
 reason for their existence except to dispense a livelihood 
 to some incumbent of a chair. The existence of such 
 subjects is defended upon the ground of their value 
 as *^ mental discipliners. " They somehow affect the 
 '^mind.'^ They provoke '^ culture. '^ Modern educa- 
 tional experiment has exploded this venerable theory, 
 but the masses still hold it. 
 
 To strip from education all these and other mis- 
 apprehensions, and to set forth simply and clearly 
 what education is, and what it does for its possessors, 
 ought to be the clear purpose of every speaker upon 
 the subject. Education is too valuable for personal 
 life, for the continuation and maintenance of our Gov- 
 ernment and our religion, for the happiness of man- 
 kind in general and peoples everywhere, to have its 
 utility blurred and falsified by outworn draperies of 
 mediaeval superstitions and its free movement ham- 
 pered by burdensome traditions of a long-dead past. 
 Education is not the acquisition of a body of hetero- 
 geneous facts, not mere book-learning, not a knowledge 
 of school-worn and school-made traditions, not the use- 
 less and ornate embellishment of an intellectual 
 aristocracy. 
 
 What Education Is. 
 
 When we turn our attention to declaring what 
 education is, we are tempted to wrap up our idea in 
 a neat bundle, tie it with red tape, and deliver it 
 labeled with a definition. But to people who know 
 that a cow-pasture is something more than a wire 
 fence around a vacant lot, definitions of organic 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 157 
 
 processes, wide-reaching and all-embracing in their 
 human interest, can not be so cleverly and expeditious- 
 ly handled. Dynamic processes throbbing with living 
 interests do not come in bundles; individual, social 
 and human activities can not be confined with the 
 curfew-call of a philosophic definition. For those who 
 must feed upon such intellectual pabulum, the dic- 
 tionary is always handy; encyclopedias are not absent 
 and the volumes of educators fill the shelves of our 
 libraries, though it will be found that, in the best of 
 these, satisfactory definitions of education are con- 
 spicuous by their absence. Our immediate business is 
 to try to understand education in essential points and 
 make application of this understanding in a thoroughly 
 practical way to the spiritual and mental life of all 
 people. The moment we try to do that, we are con- 
 fronted with the alternatives of being too narrow or 
 too broad; of settling the whole matter by quoting 
 glibly some pseudo-educationist's aphoristic summary 
 which presents only one phase of the subject; or else 
 taking refuge in the frequent example of those who 
 must speak when they have nothing to say and broad- 
 ly asseverate that ''education is life!" 
 
 To avoid these two extremes, let us begin by point- 
 ing out the obvious fact that education is both a 
 process and a product. The process aims to develop 
 men. Men are born with an inheritance ; that inheri- 
 tance is developed by environment and teaching, by 
 the mechanical forces surrounding them and by the 
 more or less conscious efforts of their fellows. The in- 
 herited faculties, like imagination and reason, for ex- 
 ample, enable men to discover and to create new in- 
 ventions and works of art. The inherited and the cre- 
 ative are not education, nor are they due to education. 
 
158 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Education embraces that zone of human activities ly- 
 ing between these two. That zone of activities is oc- 
 cupied by habits. Education, then, is the process of 
 habit-making, and its product is habits — ^habits of feel- 
 ing, habits of perceiving, habits of thinking, habits of 
 acting. When Pepys heard a piece of music and thus 
 acquired and retained a state of sesthetic exaltation 
 lasting all night, he enjoyed one habit of feeling, due 
 to his musical education. When Newton discovered 
 the similarity existing between a white feather, a lump 
 of coal, and the full moon, and named the similarity 
 *' gravitation, " he did it by relating by similarities; 
 in his case mathematical similarities, in which he was 
 profoundly educated. When Darwin saw amongst a 
 multitude of organic facts the one similarity of *' strug- 
 gle for existence," so contrary to the accepted doc- 
 trine of the lilies of the field and the birds of the 
 air, he did it because he was in the habit of thinking, 
 or noting similarities. When Byron swam the 
 Hellespont, he was an educated swimmer in the habit 
 of taking long aquatic trips. When Demosthenes spoke 
 *^0n the Crown,'' he was by habit an orator. When 
 Jesus went to the cross instead of fleeing for His life, 
 He had acquired the habit of doing His Father's 
 will. When a child repeats the multiplication table, he 
 has acquired certain habits of mental association which 
 it is almost impossible to break. Habits — habits of 
 mind and body — these are the distinct and the whole 
 province and product of education, in whatever form 
 it may appear and to whatever height it may ascend. 
 
 Apply This Doctrine to the Church. 
 
 A religiously educated man is one whose habits 
 of worship are regular. He prays without ceasing, 
 regularly, easily; finding the exercise as sweet and 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 159 
 
 nonrishing to his soul as his habitual meals are to his 
 body. Contrasted with him is the man who has no 
 religious education, no habits of discerning the face 
 of God, nor bending his knee in worship, nor draw- 
 ing from the holy Word messages of deep consolation 
 and untiring inspiration. How laboriously does the 
 minister of God labor with those of his congregation, 
 whose religious education is only half finished; whose 
 attendance at church is spasmodic as the weather; 
 whose spiritual life vacillates between the mounts of 
 transfiguration and the low-lying valleys of worldly 
 pleasure; whose spiritual feeling, perceptions and ac- 
 tions are all uncertain, unfixed, undisciplined by the 
 habit of fidelity to the Lord. The process of changing 
 such a man into a really religious man is the process 
 of habit-making, and that is religious education. Let 
 us see how the Master indicated the process in His 
 talk to His disciples or students. 
 
 Perceiving is the first step in the learning process. 
 The insistence of the Master that some people have 
 eyes and see not seems paradoxical in its opposition 
 to the common experience of mankind. Yet His as- 
 sertion is in perfect accord with all modern research 
 into human idiosyncracies. It is literally amazing to 
 a student of human capacities and capabilities to dis- 
 cover how profoundly different men really are, though 
 superficially they may appear to be the same. There 
 are adults and children without any visible physical 
 defects, who can not see many common objects. They 
 are psychically blind. Many there are who can not 
 see green or red anywhere in nature. They are color- 
 blind. Mentally diseased patients are found who, af- 
 flicted with varieties of amnesia, are totally unable 
 to see printed words, or only certain printed words, 
 
160 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 or to hear spoken words, or only certain spoken words. 
 Some can read pages all except the letter ''a;" when 
 that letter appears to the normal person it is a blank 
 to the patient. These amnesias can be reproduced by 
 hypnotism, and subjects can be blinded temporarily 
 to objects perfectly visible to others. These, and many 
 other astounding facts, have been discovered and re- 
 corded in works of science dealing with such subjects, 
 and all of them must be taken into consideration by 
 any one dealing with a large and promiscuous public. 
 But, disregarding the special and abnormal cases, 
 it is also true with all people that they do not see 
 everything before their eyes, even when their eyes are 
 wide open. In fact, no one can see continuously; his 
 attention will not permit it. He sees only in beats; 
 things appear and disappear, appear and disappear. 
 Try a simple experiment. Look steadily at a star al- 
 most invisible; watch it without faltering; fix upon it 
 your whole attention. Note that it will repeatedly 
 appear and disappear in spite of all you can do. The 
 same situation is true with all the senses. The waver- 
 ing sound of a fading, long-drawn bell-tone is another 
 illustration. The tone itself is steady, but our per- 
 ception of it rises and falls like the waves of the sea. 
 "What is true in these cases is true, but unnoted, in 
 all cases; we see and we do not see; hear and do not 
 hear. Ordinarily, what are called after-images, which 
 will follow upon any strongly perceived object, bridge 
 over these gaps and seem to make our perceiving con- 
 tinuous, just as they do at a moving-picture show, 
 where the pictures do not follow one another continu- 
 ously upon the screen, but come and go by jerks as 
 the mechanism of the machine proves. In fact, an 
 interesting investigation has been made to show how 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 161 
 
 mucli of the total time of one performance is passed 
 with nothing on the screen whatever, and a calcula- 
 tion has been made to find what percentage of the ad- 
 mission fee is paid by each spectator for looking at a 
 perfectly blank sheet! Yet how many of each thou- 
 sand people will not swear that he sees pictures on 
 the screen each and every instant of his looking-time ! 
 Verily, the movie-goers have eyes and see not! 
 
 But this is not all. Nobody sees everything before 
 his eyes. He sees only some things; others he misses. 
 "Why does he see what he sees? The answer tersely 
 put is: ''He sees what he wants to see! He hears 
 what he wants to hear!" John uttered a profound 
 truth when he said, ''He that loveth, knoweth God." 
 First, what he wants to hear, and see by reason of in- 
 herited interests, or instincts. Some are they who are 
 born with low instincts; some with the instincts of 
 gentlemen and ladies. From earliest consciousness, 
 their worlds are different because their inborn inter- 
 ests are different. From the same fireside one boy 
 flies to the city, another to the ocean, another to the 
 wilderness, another stays and farms the old place. 
 The difference in their preferences is the difference 
 in their inborn tastes. The whole task of conscious 
 education is to overcome inborn aptitudes for low and 
 evil sights and sounds, and to implant an interest for 
 the good, the true and the beautiful. That can be 
 done by teaching and by self-decision. A lady and a 
 gentleman were walking along a slum street on one 
 side of which foul waste water ran in the gutter, while 
 on the other was a lumber-yard, full of spruce timbers. 
 "Huh," said the man in disgust, "smell that gutter!" 
 "No, thank you," sweetly responded the lady, "I pre- 
 fer to smell the lumber." Blessed are they who have 
 •11 
 
162 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 ears to hear and prefer to hear the gently intoned 
 words of the Master as they floated on the sweet air 
 of Galilee with their message of eternal healing. 
 
 Then, again, we see what we have been in the habit 
 of seeing. Repetition engraves upon the walls of our 
 memories deeper and deeper reliefs in hardening repli- 
 cas of the objects gazed npon. This crowd of mem- 
 ories, which the psychologist calls the *' apperceptive 
 mass," enables men to see and hear, and, to a large 
 extent, determines what they shall hear and see. 
 ''Unto yon," said Jesus to His disciples, who had al- 
 ready learned some things from Him (or, to put it in 
 the barbarous language of psychology, had already 
 acquired a religious ''apperceptive mass"), ''is given 
 to know mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. . . . For 
 whosoever hath [this apperceptive mass], to him shall 
 be given, and he shall have in abundance." In these 
 simple words He announces a law of human nature, 
 not only profound in its application, but sound in its 
 scientific conception. "What a warning to us to use 
 rightly our eyes and ears! To pluck out those eyes 
 if they offend by seeing the unholy; to stop our ears, 
 and run for our spiritual lives from people with the 
 poison of asps under their tongues! Once we see or 
 hear certain intense and crashing sights and sounds, 
 and never again will the dark mercifully shut out the 
 horror nor will forgiving silence bring forgetfulness. 
 Always will the law of God taunt us with recurring 
 vision of the forbidden thing. 
 
 What I mean by limited vision is lucidly brought 
 out by the experience of a hired man over in Illinois, 
 who all his life had raised hogs. He spent his days 
 and his nights with them; fed them, tended them, 
 nursed them, knew their nature, their grunts and 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 163 
 
 sighs, their likes and dislikes, diseases and tempers. 
 When in 1893 the exposition was given in Chicago, 
 he saved his money for months, went to the fair and 
 spent a week, came back home and amazed his em- 
 ployer's family by not saying a word about the won- 
 ders he had anticipated seeing and hearing. One day 
 the farmer's wife could stand it no longer. *'John," 
 she said at dinner, ''tell us what you saw at the ex- 
 position. We are all dying to hear." John laid down 
 his knife and fork, looked off into vacancy and then 
 triumphantly recalled what he had seen in the terse 
 statement, ''I saw von beeg hawg!'' 
 
 Naturally, that was all he could see. In that re- 
 spect he was a perfectly cultured gentleman. He had 
 studied hogs in all phases from their suckling baby- 
 hood to their final destiny in blutwurst. But when 
 the uproar of the city struck upon his ears, he was 
 deafened, and when the world treasures of that ex- 
 position tumbled themselves upon his bewildered sight, 
 he was blinded with the chaos of variety and saw 
 nothing until, wandering into a side-show, he came 
 upon a dear, familiar friend, one whom he could see, 
 understand, appreciate, and over whose pen he leaned 
 with steadfast and perfect admiration. 
 
 That story makes me almost believe that heaven 
 will not be heaven for some unless there are count- 
 less millions of ineffable swine reaching mile upon 
 mile as did the human faces appearing to De Quincey 
 in his opium dreams. 
 
 The way to the ability to see is the way of educa- 
 tion. We must have things pointed out to us by some 
 teacher. ''Look at zee feesh!'' Agassiz used to say 
 to the beginner, who came to him to learn the mys- 
 teries of nature. The student would look at "zee 
 
164 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 feesh" a few minutes and present himself to the pro- 
 fessor, who would ask a question or two, and then re- 
 peat, ''Look at zee feesh!'' The crestfallen student 
 would look and report, look and report, and again 
 and again be sent back to the task of looking at a 
 dull-eyed, dry-scaled, stuffed fish, sometimes looking 
 for months before the professor thought he had seen 
 it. That is the process, whether with fish or paintings, 
 music or religion. We all must learn to see! No one 
 can see without that training. Let him, who thinks 
 otherwise, tell where fishes' ears are? They hear. 
 How? If that is too hard, tell whether a cow's ears 
 are placed before her horns or behind them! "Which 
 way do the horns of a waning moon point? What is 
 the difference in process between a horse's getting up 
 and a cow's? Or, to be personal, and hence absolutely 
 familiar, how many teeth do you have — of your own? 
 When you fold your hands, which thumb is on top? 
 Wives, ask your husband of ten years' standing what 
 color your eyes are! Husbands, ask your wives how 
 many pockets you have in your suit! Certainly none 
 of these things is worth knowing, but they all illus- 
 trate the fact that unless we have pointed out to us 
 perfectly plain things in our world, we will never, 
 never see them, no matter how sharp our eyes are. 
 
 All of us have had the humiliating experience 
 which came recently to me in the revelation of my 
 own blindness to pictures. With an art professor, I 
 was admiring the works of a world-renowned painter. 
 My artist friend mentioned this man's great stained- 
 glass picture in the Curtis Publishing Co.'s building 
 in Philadelphia. I confessed I had never seen it. 
 He was amazed; asked me if I had been in the build- 
 ing, and when I said ''Yes, more than once," he told 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 165 
 
 me of that wonder in glass, probably the greatest of 
 its kind in the world, hanging in the lobby near the 
 fountain. The fountain I remembered; the picture, I 
 sadly confessed, was as the nothing of nothings to me. 
 To the art teacher that was inconceivable; how could 
 any man drink at that fountain as I had done and 
 miss the imperishable picture on the wall? Simply 
 because I did not see, and in that respect missed the 
 fountain of living water, one deep draught of which 
 would have left me with the image of an eternally 
 satisfying vision of loveliness. 
 
 Still another modifier of what we see must be 
 mentioned. It has recently been emphasized in Ein- 
 stein 's famous relativity theory. According to Sir 
 Oliver Lodge, the essence of that theory consists in 
 the recognition that the world is what it is because of 
 the observer's position. Certainly this is true of much 
 that we do see. If, on a train traveling forty miles 
 an hour, I drop my knife, it falls straight to the floor 
 and lands at my feet. A man who could stand out- 
 side and see the path of the falling knife, would see 
 that it fell not in a straight line, but in a pronounced 
 curve. "Which is correct? Place one hand in cold 
 water, the other in hot water, then, after an interval, 
 place both in the same basin of tepid water; to one 
 hand the same tepid water feels cold; to the other, 
 warm. "Which is it? Hot — cold? Husband says pan- 
 cakes are cold; wife insists they are warm enough 
 for anybody; a family jar shakes the felicity of matri- 
 monial adventure and threatens the permanency of 
 the home, all because of Einstein's relativity. Jam 
 is sour or sweet depending upon whether we have been 
 just previously eating pickles or ice-cream. A door 
 looks three feet wide when we stand directly in front 
 
166 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 of it ; but its width decreases in infinite stages to noth- 
 ing as we move in a half-circle from facing it to one 
 side of it. Once, from a hill on a bright day, I gazed 
 upon the far landscape of a beautiful country. Like 
 a silver ribbon, all sparkling in the sunshine with a 
 million diamond ripples, ran a river through the trans- 
 lucently emerald plain, dotted here and there with 
 clumps of trees that reminded me of the far-famed 
 plain of Milano. A little later, when I rode close to 
 that river, I was horrified at the turgid and filthy 
 stream; yellow, mud-filled, covered with rotting debris 
 brought down by a recent storm! Verily, one must 
 stand in heavenly places, upon Pisgah's peak, or the 
 Mount of Transfiguration, to see the beauties of the 
 Lord in all their holiness! And let no vain material- 
 ist with his moribund realism deny the right of man 
 to see that phase among all the infinite number of 
 possible phases of this world which really do exist! 
 Infinite is the world; numberless are its facets; irides- 
 cent are its phenomena ; God give us the will to choose, 
 the eye to see, and the ear to hear that side of it 
 which will be, forever, inspiring in its wholesomeness 
 and loveliness! 
 
 So far we have been dealing with the ordinary eye- 
 sight and hearing. We have found wonders, to be sure, 
 but they abound in God's world everywhere. We have 
 been shocked out of our usual modes of thinking, but 
 Jesus was shocking in that respect. We have met 
 paradoxes, but Jesus delighted in calling attention to 
 them in real life. We have found that we can train 
 ourselves to see what we want to see; that such seeing 
 does not give us a fool's paradise, but a real phase 
 of the real world, as the latest science points out. See- 
 ing is believing and believing is seeing. 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 167 
 
 Now we turn to the inner eye; to insight, under- 
 standing, to the meaning and significance of things we 
 see and hear. Here education plays a multiplied part. 
 Ignorance binds and distorts and nullifies so much of 
 the world of reality that always education has been 
 extolled for the freedom it gives by opening the inner 
 eyes of its followers and for introducing them into 
 totally new worlds from which the ignorant are for- 
 ever shut out. Poets and philosophers have vied with 
 one another in extolling this power of learning, and 
 it is, and always will be, the chief crown and glory of 
 the trained mind. 
 
 Illustrations of this power crowd in multi- 
 tudes upon the mind. For example, there is the 
 old story of the shepherd and his son being met 
 under an oak-tree by three similarly uniformed 
 soldiers. All three soldiers remarked the tree; 
 one noted its wood; another, its bark; another, its 
 shade. ^'A carpenter, a tanner and a farmer," said 
 the old shepherd, with elementary Sherlock Holmes in- 
 sight. Dr. Jenner heard from an unlettered girl that 
 a sore on a milkmaid's finger produced by an affection 
 on the cows' teats rendered the girl immune to small- 
 pox. In this casual and unconnected fact the learned 
 man saw a cure for that awful scourge of Europe 
 and the salvation of 100,000,000 lives in a century. 
 To-day, hardly any civilized community is disfigured 
 with people whose faces are pitted with that terrible 
 disease. With the round oaths of pioneers, the placer 
 miners in Nevada, about 1859, cursed the ''black sand" 
 which mingled with their gold and persisted in falling 
 to the bottom of their water sluices and mixing with 
 the yellow dust, which was rendered valueless 'on this 
 account. A couple of German students, armed with 
 
168 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 the keen insight of laboratory training, happening to 
 come that way, saw in the accursed thing of the 
 miners pure oxide of silver, and the assurance that 
 somewhere in the mountain-side, above the stream, was 
 a mother-lode of precious metals passing the avarice 
 of man. Inspired by them, prospectors set to work 
 and discovered the precious vein which was named the 
 Comstock Lode, from which an endless stream of 
 wealth, amounting in some years to ten millions of 
 dollars, has been taken ever since. Nearly like this is the 
 story told by Dr. Russell H. Conwell, the lecturer, 
 about oil in Pennsylvania. A man there sold his farm 
 for $850 — and no sense — and went "West to discover oil. 
 Men with insight discovered, above a bended board 
 bridging a stream on the place, a shining, iridescent 
 film. They knew it for oil, drilled on the farm, and 
 discovered the first well of oil in the pioneer oil-field 
 of America. Daguerre laid upon a plate, treated with 
 iodine, a silver spoon; a resulting image of the spoon 
 pre-portrayed the wonders of photography. A Nurem- 
 berg glass-cutter dropped aqua fortis upon his spec- 
 tacles, and glass-etching resulted. A lithograph ma- 
 chine failed to place a sheet properly; Ira W. Rubel 
 saw the result and offset printing came as a new proc- 
 ess of reproducing. Bequerel placed uranium in a 
 drawer with a photographic plate, an image formed 
 and man's eyes were opened to a new world of rays, 
 infinite in extent and manifold in variety, by which 
 we talk across continents and fling messages through 
 the ether clear round the world. Lastly and leastly, 
 too, Montgolfier, charged dutifully with airing his 
 wife's gowns, noticed how the skirts ballooned with 
 the heated air, and when the mistress came home she 
 found her husband busy sending up little paper bal- 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 169 
 
 loons. His actions were not silly; they were the first 
 efforts toward aerial navigation. 
 
 Literally, without end, these illustrations might be 
 multiplied, all pointing to one moral; namely, that 
 education gives insight and meaning to the otherwise 
 blinding and blind facts of experience presented to 
 the eye and ear of the ignorant and unlearned. To 
 the religiously uneducated they come; messages so 
 common, so every-day, that their inner and precious 
 value for the individual and the world are not under- 
 stood, and the words of God fall to the ground of 
 humbler lives and more discerning ears. Hence, the 
 world wonders at Bunyan, George Fox, John Woolman ; 
 at Billy Sunday, who, drunk on the curb, heard God's 
 voice in a Salvation Army song ; or at Sherwood Eddy, 
 called by the tennis courts of Northfield to the un- 
 ordained bishopric of Asia. 
 
 In the process of acquiring and using an education 
 which I have been emphasizing, Christian education 
 and secular education are identical. In wJiat is seen 
 they are different. Christian education enables, yea, 
 compels, the learned in Christ to see Him. Some see 
 Him in church only; some in the holy ordinances; 
 some in the Bible ; some in forms of worship ; all these 
 are in the primary grades of Christian education. 
 Some, more advanced, see Him in their homes; some, 
 still more advanced, see Him in the housework, the 
 shop, the office; some even see Him in their fellow- 
 men, as in a composite portrait, for 
 
 '*In every form of the human, 
 Some hint of the highest dwells; 
 And scanning each earthen vessel, 
 In the place where the veil is thin, 
 We catch, in beautiful glimpses, 
 Some form of the God within." 
 
170 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 And a few see Him everywhere, and these have gradu- 
 ated already into heaven. 
 
 A friend of mine told me how he first came to 
 think of a sermon which so set forth the Christ to his 
 congregation that twenty-seven people came forward 
 one Sunday morning and made the good confession. 
 The preacher had been at a lake, gazing with absorbed 
 soul upon the ravishing sunset piling the western dome 
 of heaven with such gold as only the Infinite can use 
 with indifference to cost. To the gazer's mind came, 
 first, the thought of that common, but miraculous, fact, 
 that all people love beauty; some one kind, some an- 
 other, according to education. Is there one kind of 
 beauty the humblest and most ignorant can love? Yes, 
 the beauty of service, a beauty that can be seen in the 
 lowliest and meanest and commonest tasks, even in 
 the sacrificial ashes of the tabernacle sacrifice, and in- 
 stantly his mind leaped to it, in the everlasting and 
 perfect service of the Son of God. His sermon on 
 '^ Sacrificial Ashes" set forth so clearly the lowly 
 Christ in the singular beauty of ministering service 
 that others saw and many were saved. 
 
 But a skeptical housekeeper may object to seeing 
 any beauty in monotonous home drudgery, or any 
 Chi'ist in washing and ironing. Well, for her benefit, 
 I '11 give another true illustration. My church in Phil- 
 adelphia was composed of working people. I used to 
 make pastoral calls in the kitchen as readily as in the 
 reception-room. One day I called on Mrs. Martz, when 
 she was working on a hot, murky, Philadelphia day, 
 unlike anything this side of Dante's second Inferno. 
 The good woman was ironing, working away at the mo- 
 notonous job of running an unpoetic flat-iron back- 
 ward and forward over clothes that would be soiled 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 171 
 
 again next week and endless weeks thereafter. But I 
 noticed on her face a look not in keeping ^vith the 
 task; a shining of the eye and a glory, that, per- 
 haps, Martha, or probably Mary, wore, in a bustling 
 household where housekeeping was far more tiresome 
 than in enamel-wared, running hot-and-eold-watered, 
 modern establishments. That look on this ordinary 
 woman's face was explained when I noticed the open 
 Book lying on her ironing-board, from which, to the 
 rhythm of her work, she had been committing to mem- 
 ory truths so full of eternal beauty and human depth 
 that they had transformed her little room to the 
 groined arches of the Eternal and her common task 
 to the ministrations of angels round the throne of 
 heaven. 
 
 Doing the Word. 
 
 At last we come to the doing of the Word. Herein 
 has lain an age-long difficulty; here has been centered 
 and focused the efforts of many religionists the world 
 over. Between the seeing and the understanding of 
 the right on the one hand, and the doing of it on the 
 other, has always lain that mysterious abyss which 
 separates man into his ideal and his actual selves, so 
 lamented by Paul. Herein, too, not always clearly 
 discerned, resides that antagonism between education 
 and religion latent in so many ministers who are not 
 able either to convince the man of intellectual power, 
 nor to persuade him to religious observances when his 
 mind is con^dnced. It has always been assumed that 
 the fault lies with the recalcitrant will. 
 
 This assumption is due to the teaching of the old 
 psychology. It taught that voluntary action stood at 
 the end of a psychic series beginning with an idea 
 followed by a feeling, followed by a separate and dis- 
 
172 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 tinct act of the ''will/' which launched a course of 
 action. Therefore, it followed that a man's intellect 
 might be filled full of invaluable precepts and his 
 emotions resolved to penitential tears by the sublim- 
 ity of ideals, and yet his stubborn or paralyzed will 
 would not act. Moral and religious teachers set the 
 essential mark of distinction between religious and pro- 
 fane education at this point and quite consistently 
 bombarded in theory, at least, the penitent's will. 
 
 This assumption of a real hiatus between thinking 
 and willing has led to more than one mischievous re- 
 sult both in and out of the church. For instance, it 
 has fostered the delusion that a man might keep his 
 conduct perfectly respectable while allowing his mind 
 to run riot with evil thoughts. The same fallacy lies at 
 the basis of creedism, which demands exact correctness 
 in a man's theological beliefs without necessary con- 
 formation of conduct to Jesus' example, and, in an op- 
 posite direction, leads to religious formalism, in the 
 vesting of the essentials of worship in a mechanical 
 observance of traditional rituals without thought or 
 feeling. Still worse, it lends support to the popular 
 and pernicious dictum, ''It doesn't matter what a per- 
 son believes in religion; let every one think as he 
 pleases.'^ In writhing agony the world learned, from 
 Germany's belief in a God without heart, that it does 
 matter what people believe in religion as elsewhere. 
 
 Is there a chasm between thought and action? Can 
 education be divorced from conduct? Is the point of 
 attack the human will? Let us answer these questions, 
 calling both upon Scripture and modern science, in 
 order to attempt what John Wesley engraved upon the 
 foundation stone of Kingswood School, "Let us unite 
 the two so long divided, knowledge and vital piety!'* 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 173 
 
 First, let us search the Scriptures, beginning with 
 the Master's learning process quoted above. He does 
 not indicate any necessary gap between understanding 
 and acting. The tenor of his teaching points to a 
 series — seeing, understanding and turning; or not see- 
 ing, not understanding, and not turning. The as- 
 sumption is that men would turn if they understood. 
 
 In other places the Scriptures are more explicit. 
 They emphasize over and over again, not only the abso- 
 lute necessity of an understanding heart, but the 
 direct and necessary connection between thinking and 
 acting. The outer and the inner go together. What 
 a man thinks, he will do; what a man thinks, he will 
 become; this in general terms is the twofold aspect 
 of the same law of thinking, taught both in the Bible 
 and in science. As a man thinketh in his heart so is 
 he; out of the heart are the issues of life; whatsoever 
 things are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, of good 
 report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, 
 think on these things; set your mind on things that 
 are above; be ye transformed by the renewing of your 
 mind; beholding His glory, we are changed into His 
 image from glory to glory — are some of the emphases 
 upon the power of thinking, not only to conform con- 
 duct, but also to transform character. To these might 
 be added the insistence of Jesus upon the inner life 
 as the real battle-ground, upon which moral and re- 
 ligious struggles are fought out, and man's eternal 
 destiny is determined. 
 
 Because of Jesus' equal emphasis upon conduct, 
 and the dwelling of all New Testament writers upon 
 the same point, these texts can not be interpreted as 
 teaching that if the heart is right, the outer act is 
 still in jeopardy. Rather, we must look for some plain 
 
174 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 and necessary connection between the two, which will 
 explain the demand for both as fulfilling the require- 
 ments of a religion based upon full possession of the 
 whole man and not merely a part of him; not alone 
 his intellect concerned with correct doctrine; not mere- 
 ly his heart filled wtih useless, go-and-be-warmed sym- 
 pathy; not merely his conduct, perfect though its 
 etiquette may be when paying addresses in the courts 
 of the Lord. Running through and connecting all 
 of these is a relation to each other, which insures the 
 transpiration of one another if the first is attained, a 
 relation which very properly places the springs of 
 the issues of life, not in mechanical inheritance, nor in 
 material environment, but in the human heart. 
 
 The new psychology agrees with Scripture, and in- 
 dicates precisely the mode of inciting voluntary action. 
 It insists that man is fundamentally built for action. 
 Every impression made upon him immediately pro- 
 duces an expression in the form of some muscular 
 activity. Sometimes the activity lies wholly within the 
 body and is therefore not noticeable by others. Some- 
 times it is external. But in all cases impression leads 
 to expression. This is the so-called ^^psychological 
 arc," the primary law of animal action. The law 
 manifests itself in a thousand ways, many of them 
 obvious when attention is called to them. If a win- 
 dow falls, or a shot rings out, or a sudden lightning 
 flash cuts the air, people perceiving it involuntarily 
 jump; if the odor of frying bacon wafts itself indo- 
 lently through the window upon the summer breeze, 
 each sensitive salivary gland responds to that impres- 
 sion with an appropriate watering of the mouth. A 
 baby's eyes follow a moving light, and hardly anybody 
 can keep his head from turning if he sees an unex- 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 175 
 
 pected movement from the corner of his eye. Some 
 instinctive actions are fatally performed whenever the 
 proper object is presented to them. Laughter, as we 
 learned at school, is sometimes impossible to suppress; 
 crying, likewise; few can stand tickling with perfect 
 immobility and a sneeze is irrepressible. All these 
 actions flow immediately upon the proper stimulations, 
 and do not wait for any act of the will. And what is 
 true with these actions is asserted to be true of all 
 kinds of human actions, including those commonly 
 called voluntary, or ideational, which are preceded in 
 consciousness by some idea of an end or a purpose 
 to be achieved by the action. These last deserve our 
 special consideration. 
 
 If it is true that ideas inspire and direct actions, 
 then at once it is seen how education which imparts 
 ideas and ideals likewise controls action. Can it be 
 done? Do ideas initiate action? ''We may lay it 
 down for certain,'' says Prof. William James, the 
 leading representative of the new psychology, ''that 
 every representation of a movement awakens in some 
 degree the actual movement which is its object and 
 awakens it in a maximum degree, whenever it is not 
 kept from doing it by some antagonistic representation 
 present simultaneously to the mind." Herein is laid 
 bare the doctrine of the immediate effect of ideas upon 
 action, and therefore upon education, and upon human 
 character. And herein is laid bare also the unlimited, 
 direct and immediate power of the preacher of the 
 gospel, whose function it is to instill into the minds 
 of people the ideals of a religious life. Note that 
 once an idea of an act or a course of action is by any 
 means lodged in any mind so that there is present no 
 antagonistic idea, then the resultant action flows out 
 
176 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 immediately and inevitably. The whole power of the 
 preacher, therefore, and of the religions educator, 
 shonld be focused upon that one specific and vital 
 task of fixing ideals of conduct in their hearers' 
 minds. All else is secondary to this central purpose 
 of that ' 'foolishness of preaching" by which pagan 
 Rome was brought to ruin and the whole world shown 
 the way of salvation. 
 
 Opposed to the purpose of the preacher is, of 
 course, the free will of the hearer, who may definitely, 
 and obstinately, refuse entrance to any religious ideas. 
 He may hear, he may understand; and then he may 
 definitely and finally, to the destruction of his life and 
 the perdition of his soul, reject. His past habits may 
 grip him too firmly; his inherited incubus of desire 
 may be too strong; his environment may drag him 
 down; all these may be too much for the preacher 
 to combat, but at least the point of the preacher's 
 attack is defined; the citadel to be stormed stands out 
 amid the outworks, moat, battlements and towers with 
 perfect definiteness; and it is a citadel that can be 
 stormed with the kind of offensive weapons in which 
 the preacher, of all men, is peculiarly trained. He con- 
 tends not with flesh and blood, but with principalities 
 and powers in high places; he is opposing spiritual 
 forces to spiritual forces. His whole mode of attack 
 is educational. 
 
 Again, we may turn to common experiences of life, 
 to scientific experiment and to psychological lore for 
 an abundance of illustrations for this power of ideas. 
 Common life exhibits it in a timid woman trying to 
 cross the street with a baby-carriage. She waits till 
 the idea of crossing seizes her mind; starts, sees dan- 
 gers, gives fleeting attention to the idea ''Go back!^* 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 177 
 
 then, ''Go on!" and flutters backward and forward in 
 front of vehicles to the instant danger of her own 
 life and the endangerment of the souls of every driver 
 in a hurry. Vacillating conduct of this sort is always 
 due to a play of serially conflicting ideas. Upon such 
 a play of ideas, many times, has hung the destiny of 
 nations, and the rise and fall of civilization. 
 
 Mind-reading, or muscle-reading, slate-writing, 
 finding water with forked sticks, the pranks of the 
 Ouija board, and the whole series of wonder-working 
 powers, can all be resolved into this simple law of the 
 impulsive force of ideas. Hypnotism, in all its phases, 
 relies wholly upon the same power, and illustrates in 
 a remarkable way the might of an unhindered idea to 
 have its way with the individual under its spell. 
 Persons, moved by a suggested idea, swim in imaginary 
 waters ; make out wills to strangers ; stiffen their bodies 
 so as to bear immense weights; dance when they never 
 danced before in their lives; see through solid, opaque 
 walls; hear at great distances; see letters of micro- 
 scopic size; are blinded utterly to the presence of some 
 objects and some persons; can not feel pain when told 
 not to. Dr. Esdraile, of Calcutta, performed hundreds 
 of operations upon patients without an anaesthetic. 
 These and thousands of other examples of the profound 
 and mysterious power somehow connected with ideas, 
 make the working of this law in our every-day lives in 
 each and every so-called voluntary act a matter past 
 doubt. The power may be escaped by rejecting the 
 idea; the power may be used for good or evil; the 
 power itself may be the manifestation of some person- 
 ality or personalities; of these items no man is sure. 
 But of the existence of the power and the opportunity 
 of using it beneficently for leading men and women 
 
 12 
 
178 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 and children, either by the long process of constant 
 suggestion, or by the more startling and sudden process 
 of conversion into lives devoted to Jesus Christ and 
 His kingdom, there can be no doubt. Ideas and 
 action, ideals and conduct, this relationship is fixed 
 and predetermined, and the one follows the other with 
 almost fatal invariability. 
 
 Surely it must be inspiring to the minister of God, 
 to the patient, and sometimes uncertain, Sunday-school 
 teacher, to know that he is a coworker with God, who 
 gives him access to a wondrous power. That power 
 is always there. Like the rays of the ether ready to 
 speak through the wireless transmitter; like the power 
 of electricity here from the beginning of time; like 
 the torrential falls of Niagara waiting only to be 
 harnessed, converted and directed — so this mighty 
 power lies ready to be used by the servants of God 
 who will harness it to dominating personalities, trans- 
 form it into precise and passionate pictures of the 
 Saviour, and connect it, by the confident testimony of 
 tongue and pen, with the lives of those ignorant of 
 the saving power of Christ. Sometimes the power 
 does not manifest itself immediately; the seed remains 
 long dormant. The son of a rich American father, a 
 waster and a wastrel, a derelict in an opium-den in 
 far-away China, one night heard again the words of 
 his long-dead Sunday-school teacher, her ideals for 
 him, her hopes for his life, her prayers for his sal- 
 vation, and they seized him in that moment with such 
 power that he gradually rebuilt himself v/ith the help 
 of God into a decent man and a Christian. Dr. Lyman 
 B. Sperry used to tell about an engineer on a passenger 
 train one day passing a long freight train on the op- 
 posite track. Just as the engines passed each other 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 179 
 
 a couple of empty box-ears on the freight train jumped 
 the track and toppled over in front of the speeding 
 express. Not a moment intervened; the engineer of 
 the express reached over, and, instead of shutting off 
 the steam, threw his throttle wide open, with the re- 
 sult that the already flying engine leaped forward 
 with a new spurt, cut through the freight cars and 
 the train came to a stop on the other side without 
 injury to any one. The passengers, unhurt, but shaken, 
 crowded out of the cars, took in the situation and then 
 a group crowded around the man at the throttle with 
 expressions of gratitude and thanks for their lives. 
 ''How did you think of that?'' one asked; ''you had 
 not a moment to act; how could you be so cool under 
 that excitement and do the right thing in an instant?'' 
 "I did not think of it in an instant," replied the engi- 
 neer, "for I have been thinking for the past three 
 years that if ever I was caught in a place like that, I 
 would not attempt to shut off steam, but I would pull 
 the throttle wide open and cut through. When I was 
 confronted with the situation, I did not think; it did 
 itself!" 
 
 Lastly, a man will be what he thinks. Quotations 
 we could give; illustrations from science could be 
 culled; history would yield its quantum, and daily life 
 would open its stores to the observing, and all would 
 testify to this law. Hypnotism might be invoked to 
 show how suggestion and auto-suggestion operate to 
 affect, not only the mind and morals, but the body it- 
 self. Water, declared to be wine, makes a hypnotized 
 drinker drunk; mustard plasters refuse to blister 
 when ordered not to do so; imaginary porous plas- 
 ters leave their marks upon the skin ; cold water scalds ; 
 cold pencils, imagined to be hot irons, raise blisters; 
 
180 SPECIAL SEEMONS 
 
 all these seeming impossibilities have been, and are 
 being, performed by scientists under laboratory con- 
 ditions of the most exacting kind. 
 
 All the above-mentioned events are expressions of 
 power — power somehow connected with ideas. These 
 ideas not only operate, but they operate injuriously 
 or beneficently as they convey good or bad meanings. 
 Ideas are lodged in the minds of persons so affected 
 by the ordinary means of communication; some peo- 
 ple can be affected far more mightily than others; 
 all can be affected to some degree. The effect depends 
 upon the presence or absence, dominance or weakness 
 of other ideas simultaneously in consciousness. Not 
 even the church-member who regularly takes his Sun- 
 day nap in his pew can escape altogether. Professor 
 Mosso, an Italian scientist, found a man who had 
 been wounded in such a manner that a hole was left 
 in his skull even after the edges of the wound entire- 
 ly healed. Through that artificial orifice. Dr. Mosso 
 attached an instrument resting upon the man's brain, 
 and connected the instrument with electric wires, so 
 that any brain change of the subject would be re- 
 corded upon a moving paper. When the man was 
 sound asleep and some one opened his door, though 
 he did not awaken, the indicator showed his brain 
 was slightly affected. If his name was whispered, a 
 greater impression was made; if his name was spoken 
 out loud, it made a relatively startling impression 
 though the man himself remained sound asleep. Be 
 not discouraged, preacher and teacher; there is a real 
 might in the ''foolishness of preaching," though your 
 auditors do not always seem to hear. 
 
 Some years ago an American stood with others in 
 the Louvre, in Paris, gazing at a wonderful painting 
 
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 181 
 
 of Christ. Something unique was there, something 
 seeming to surpass human technique, so that that pic- 
 ture was always surrounded by its little crowd of 
 worshipers. ''I'd like to see the man that could 
 paint like that/' sighed the American. An ever- 
 courteous Frenchman turned, and said, ''You can see 
 the artist any day; he is Herr Hoffman; his studio 
 is near here," and he added the directions. The next 
 morning the American called at the studio, found the 
 door open, saw that no one was within, and entered. 
 The walls all round were covered from floor to ceiling 
 with studies and sketches and finished paintings of 
 the Christ, which the visitor began to study. There 
 was Jesus, the babe in his mother's arms; the boy of 
 twelve in Jerusalem; the young man in the carpenter 
 shop ; Jesus baptized ; the Master stilling the waves on 
 Galilee; the loving Saviour raising the dead and open- 
 ing the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears 
 of the deaf; the lonely Jesus fighting out his battle 
 in Gethsemane ; and, finally, the Saviour of humanity 
 lifted up on dark Calvary for the sins of the world. 
 The American so lost himself in these works that he 
 did not notice he was near the door until he heard 
 a step; the door opened, and for a moment the 
 beholder thought he was confronted by the reincar- 
 nated Christ. It was an old man, it is true, with a 
 long, white beard and silvery hair, but with something 
 in his face that was in every one of those pictures. 
 It was Herr Hoffman himself; at one time in his life 
 a man who looked like other men, but who had caught 
 a vision of his Lord and had spent his life trans- 
 ferring that vision to canvas. And through the years, 
 as he had been pouring his soul into his task, the 
 master Artist of all the world had reached down from 
 
182 SPECIAL SEEMONS 
 
 heaven an invisible hand and had carved in the linea- 
 ments of the painter's face the vision hidden in his 
 heart. So we all, with unveiled faces beholding His 
 image as in a mirror, are changed into His image from 
 glory to glory. 
 
 This is the true Christian education, the content 
 of which is epitomized by Paul in his victory cry, 
 '^I know Him.'^ It will come by the law and the 
 grace of God to all those who will see and hear, under- 
 stand with their hearts, and allow the vision of the 
 perfect Man to work His will in their conduct and 
 their character. There need be no struggle, no 
 agonizing, no battle with tears and groans; nothing 
 but a complete following of the rules to hear and 
 see, to attend the house of God, the unceasing prayer, 
 the daily reading of the Word, the deep, quiet brood- 
 ing under the Spirit; in short, the following faithfully 
 of the blessed means to keep the image of Him, who 
 transforms us by the renewing of our thought of Him, 
 clear and clean before the inner eye. 
 
7) fl". WELSHIMEB was horn Apr. 6, 1873, at Yorlc, 0., and 
 Jl9 was educated in the public schools at West Mansfield, 0.; 
 Ohio Northern University at Ada, and Hiram College, Hiram, 0. 
 After graduating at Hiram, he was for five years minister of the 
 church of Christ at Miller sdurg, 0,, and for twenty years has been 
 in charge of the church at Canton, 0., where twice the growing 
 congregation hus necessitated the erection of a new buUdvng. 
 
 Mr. Welshimer has been president of the Ohio Christian Mis- 
 sionary Convention ; president of the Efficiency Congress, Daven- 
 port, la.; twice president of the Doctrinal Congress, Cincinnati 
 and St. Louis; is noiv a member of the Board of Trustees of 
 Bethany College; a member of the Board of Trustees of the Clarice 
 Fund, Cincinnati, and a director in the Ohio Christian Missionary 
 Society, 
 
 183 
 
Commencement Day Address 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introductian — Story of Aliab's Theft of Naboth's Vineyard. 
 I. There can "be success and happiness in life without great 
 
 n. Do you need another man's garden in order to have the 
 opportunity for doing the worth-while things of life? 
 
 m. One of the greatest needs of to-day is the need of men 
 who are giving themselves to the discovery of men. 
 
 184 
 
WORK YOUR OWN GARDEN 
 
 Commencement Day Address by P. H. Welshimer 
 
 Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of 
 herbs.— 1 Kings 21 : 2. 
 
 A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things 
 which he possesseth. — ^Luke 12: 15. 
 
 Godliness, with contentment, is great gain. — 1 Tim, 6: 6. 
 
 THIS is a fine time to take a serious look at life. 
 Men have long been discussing the questions, 
 '^Whence came I?" ''What am I?" and ''Whither 
 am I going?'' We shall now consider another ques- 
 tion, which deals with making life count. 
 
 We meet two classes of people: One class lives to 
 make a living; the other, to make a life. Our happi- 
 ness and success will depend largely upon the goal we 
 place before us. The roads we travel contain both 
 warnings of danger and evidences of safety ahead. 
 Signs along the way proclaim the failures of some 
 men who have preceded us and hold forth cheering 
 notices of the success of others. If we have eyes with 
 which to see and ears with which to hear, we can find 
 abundant help in carrying forward our purpose to 
 make life count. 
 
 The sketch of Ahab's life presented in First Kings 
 is worthy of study, not because of any success attend- 
 ing him, but rather because he was a monumental 
 fool — a man who did not know when he was well off. 
 Here was a man whose life was wrapped up in things, 
 
 185 
 
186 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 not thoughts. His happiness was dependent upon the 
 external, rather than the internal. There was not 
 enough in the man him-self to give him any degree of 
 comfort. He was a colossal example of covetonsness. 
 The happiness of his life consisted in the abundance 
 of the things which he possessed. He had neither god- 
 liness nor contentment, and so gained nothing worth 
 while. 
 
 And the man was rich. He was a king. He had 
 as mean a wife as ever walked beside a man, and she 
 was of his own choosing. Her name was Jezebel and 
 she ruled the household. He had a summer palace 
 down at Jezreel. A man named Naboth owned a vine- 
 yard which joined the palace grounds. As Ahab 
 strutted through the palace yards he decided to secure 
 from Naboth his beautiful vineyard, that it might be 
 used for his own vegetable garden. He offered Naboth 
 another vineyard and then proposed to purchase it 
 with gold, but the vineyard was a precious heritage 
 in the eyes of its owner. It had belonged to his 
 fathers and was an old homestead, and he would 
 neither trade nor sell. 
 
 There is something sacred about an old homestead, 
 the place where one's fathers lived, where he was born, 
 spent his childhood, was reared to manhood and where 
 he calmly waits the coming of age. What memories 
 cluster there! What magic in the words — 'Hhe old 
 home." Blessed is the man who can spend all the 
 years of his life at the old homestead, the man who 
 has never learned the art of wandering and roaming 
 afar. Naboth 's old home was sacred to him and he 
 would not sell. 
 
 Ahab, the rich king, was a spoiled child. Throw- 
 ing himself across the bed, he refused to eat because 
 
WORK YOUR OWN GARDEN 187 
 
 he could not have this vegetable garden. Thus the 
 desire for the spot where he had taken a notion to 
 raise potatoes, cabbage, garlic, onions and lettuce 
 spoiled the program of his life. But Ahab is not the 
 only man on the great stage of life who has quit be- 
 cause he could not have the things he most desired. 
 There have been others also who have not learned how 
 to rise above difficulties, to climb over obstacles. Herein 
 lies the pathway to success. 
 
 But the past master in all heinous, fiendish acts 
 soon appeared on the scene — Jezebel, with the bloody 
 hand. She wrote letters, sealing them with the king's 
 seal, commanding the elders of the city to proclaim 
 a great day and place neighbor Naboth on high, and 
 to secure two evil men who would bear false witness 
 against him. The day was set, people turned out en 
 masse, and Naboth was honored. But suddenly two 
 men arose and accused him of having blasphemed God 
 and having sworn against the king. He was immedi- 
 ately stoned to death, and Ahab took possession of the 
 garden. But later the dogs, that licked up the blood 
 of Naboth, likewise licked the blood that dripped from 
 the floor of the chariot in which Ahab died. 
 
 Prom an upper room in the palace, at the command 
 of Jehu, the eunuchs threw the screaming Jezebel to 
 the ground beneath, and while Jehu ate his feast with- 
 in those palace walls, the dogs tore the flesh from her 
 bones. The garden was given to Ahab, but what a 
 price he paid. And yet, as men to-day turn the pages 
 of history and see the bitter ending of these two lives, 
 do they profit by their example ? In fancy we see writ- 
 ten across the tombstones of Ahab and Jezebel the in- 
 scription, *'They have done whom they could; but 
 what's the use?'* 
 
188 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 What was the trouble with Ahab? Simply this — 
 his happiness was not complete without the acquisition 
 of this particular little, old vegetable garden upon 
 which he had set his heart. Here is a great under- 
 lying principle which we do well to consider. 
 
 I. There can be success and happiness in life 
 without great possessions. 
 
 Recently, at a banquet given in his honor in New 
 York City, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., said: '^I don't 
 envy my father his mother, for I have one just as 
 good. I don't envy my father his wife, although she 
 is a great woman; I have a wife just as good. I don't 
 envy my father his children, for I have the best chil- 
 dren in the world; but I do envy my father the op- 
 portunity and the necessity he had when a boy, of 
 earning a fortune and making good in life." Yet the 
 very thing that John D. Rockefeller, Jr., envied most 
 in his father is the thing which every youth has and 
 doesn't know it. John Halifax, gentleman, when ques- 
 tioned as to his purpose in life, said: ^*I hope to be 
 like my father, a scholar and a gentleman; and if I 
 get one foot on the ladder, I will climb." The pur- 
 pose of the lad was his fortune. His vision was his 
 life-preserver. 
 
 In a southern Ohio town there lives a man worth 
 a million dollars. He is the wealthy man of the coun- 
 ty. People passing his home admire his spacious lawns 
 and his magnificent gardens. The men v/ho dig in 
 his mines envy him the luxury which he enjoys. "When 
 strangers visit that town, the home of this rich man 
 becomes the point of interest. One day his seventeen- 
 year-old lad, while skating, fell, striking the back of 
 his head upon the ice, producing blindness. The rich 
 father traveled from city to city with his blind boy, 
 
WORK YOUR OWN GARDEN 189 
 
 endeavoring to find the skill which would bring the 
 light to those sightless orbs, but his search was in 
 vain. Looking upon his son one day, he said to a 
 friend standing near: '^If I could give sight back to 
 that boy, I would cheerfully surrender every dollar I 
 have in the world and to-morrow morning take my 
 place in the mines, and with these hands dig with the 
 men the remainder of my days. I would move from 
 yon mansion on the hill to a humble cottage, and go 
 forth in the morning with a dinner-pail on my arm, 
 returning at night the happiest man in all the world." 
 
 And yet there are hundreds of men in that county, 
 looking forth from their humble cottages, surrounded 
 by their children that know the joy of health, who 
 have never stopped to take an inventory of their riches, 
 but who think the man on the hill is the rich man of 
 the community. They are the rich ones and do not 
 know it. And many of us are rich, but our riches do 
 not consist in gardens stolen from our neighbors. 
 
 II. Do you need another man's garden in order 
 to have the opportunity for doing the worth-while 
 things of life? 
 
 Many a man thinks the other fellow's windows are 
 golden and that the sun never casts its warm reflection 
 upon his own, while the fellow who lives in the house 
 with the golden windows watches yours and envies 
 you their glory. The opportunity for making good is 
 where you live; it is in your own town; you but need 
 eyes with which to see it. ''Distance lends enchant- 
 ment.'' We are prone to think the big men all live 
 a thousand miles away. It is a long ways to the Klon- 
 dike, and the Klondike is wonderful. The place in 
 which we live is dull, and the people are commonplace. 
 Life here is humdrum. This is the way in which too 
 
190 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 many people look upon their surroundings. ''Lift up 
 your eyes and look upon the fields, they are white 
 unto the harvest/' If you will make good, begin right 
 here and now. 
 
 Some years ago three brothers at Strasburg, 0., 
 read of great stores in Philadelphia, New York City 
 and Chicago, and decided they could have a great 
 store in their little town of one thousand population. 
 They laid their foundations; they advertised, and to- 
 day Garver Brothers' store is known all over northern 
 Ohio. Their store covers a town block, and people 
 come for fifty miles by wagon, automobile and trolley 
 to patronize it. They carry a stock of goods that 
 would do credit to a city of a hundred thousand. It's 
 a great department store, organized as systematically 
 as Wanamaker 's or Field 's, all due to the genius of 
 three boys who believed they could make good in their 
 own garden, and they did. 
 
 A thousand cities to-day enjoy the blessings of a 
 public library, through the munificence of Andrew 
 Carnegie. Many a man says: ''Mr. Carnegie's gift 
 doesn't represent much. Had I his wealth, I too 
 could build libraries." But would you do it? Are 
 you as generous proportionately with what you have 
 as was Mr. Carnegie? You are not measured by what 
 you would do had you great possessions, but rather by 
 what you are doing with what you have. "When An- 
 drew Carnegie was a lad, carrying telegrams about the 
 city of Pittsburgh, he heard of an attorney in that 
 city who had a library of four hundred volumes. On 
 Saturday afternoons the attorney stayed at home, 
 where he received poor boys of the city, lending them 
 books and giving them good advice. One day little 
 Andy Carnegie, barefooted, climbed the steps that led 
 
WORK TOUR OWN GARDEN 191 
 
 to the good man's house, and, securing a book, began 
 laying the foundations of his education. When he be- 
 came a man of wealth, one of his first impulses was 
 to be as great a blessing to the boys of the world as 
 his benefactor, with four hundred volumes, had been 
 to him. And, consequently, his libraries throughout 
 the United States have been more numerous than the 
 altars of Abraham. If you can not build a library 
 for your city or community, perhaps you might at 
 least lend a few books and thus help some worthy fel- 
 low up the ladder of life. 
 
 Every man owes something to his city. Are you 
 helping to build yours? Are you looking toward its 
 to-morrow, and helping to lay foundations that will 
 endure? Milford, N. H., has an enterprising group 
 of men who believe in their home town, and who plan 
 and work for its upbuilding. They are not quitters, 
 withdrawing from hard tasks because their town is 
 not a metropolitan city with skyscrapers and great 
 boulevards, but they believe in Milford. Recently the 
 son of a physician in that town went to Dartmouth, 
 to take up forestry as his life-work. The Milford 
 group of enterprising men said: ^'The old doctor is 
 growing older every day; we shall soon need his suc- 
 cessor.'^ So they wrote the son, laying the case before 
 him, and urging him to prepare to assist the father in 
 his old age, and later succeed him in caring for the 
 health of their beloved town. The boy is to-day in 
 Harvard Medical School planning to follow the sug- 
 gestion of his fellow-townsmen. 
 
 In the same town is a little factory, upon which a 
 hundred families depend for their daily bread. The 
 owner and manager is growing old. To-morrow some 
 one must take his place or the factory will be closed. 
 
192 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 His son was in college, studying finance. The above- 
 mentioned forward-looking coterie of enterprising citi- 
 zens saw an opportunity to help their town, and be- 
 sought the boy to come back, become an understudy 
 of his father and later take charge of the factory. 
 The boy is now studying the factory business, and 
 when the hands of his father are palsied, the wheels 
 of the factory will continue to move and the business 
 will thrive. 
 
 All of this goes to demonstrate that the man with 
 eyes need not seek other gardens in which to succeed. 
 Let him dig in his own patch, and there he will find 
 prosperity, contentment and happiness. 
 
 Eighteen years ago there moved into Canton a 
 young man from a rural district, who had been a 
 teacher in the country schools. A young, but growing, 
 industry of the city gave him a position as timekeeper 
 over a group of foreigners. When the v/histle blew at 
 quitting-time, every foreigner threw down his shovel 
 and pick, and, like a child let loose from school, hied 
 away to his home. The young schoolteacher dis- 
 covered shortly that the company was losing much 
 through the theft of tools. He suggested the building 
 of a shed and the checking of all shovels and picks, so 
 that every man would be held responsible for the im- 
 plement he used. His company gave heed to his sug- 
 gestion, and told him to do the checking. He came 
 to work each morning an hour before the foreigners 
 appeared and stayed when they had gone. He worked 
 early and late without kicking about overtime. He 
 was a second-mile man. He did the work because it 
 needed to be done and because it would help his em- 
 ployer's business. He was neither a slacker nor a 
 knocker, but performed well the duty that lay nearest. 
 
WORK YOUR OWN GARDEN 193 
 
 His ears listened for orders and not for the whistle, 
 and his eye sought his work instead of the clock. He 
 worked and thought, and, as he thought, he climbed. 
 To-day our timekeeper, in his early forties, is vice- 
 president, general manager and treasurer of this in- 
 dustry, which employs eight thousand men. He was 
 quite content to work in his own yard, but he toiled 
 with a high motive and reached a high goal. 
 
 III. One of the greatest needs of to-day is the 
 need of men who are giving themselves to the djis- 
 covery of men. 
 
 Every community has its discouraged fellows. 
 Life's road is lined with juniper-trees and each one 
 has an Elijah beneath it. The fellow who most needs 
 your help passes your door every day. He works in 
 your field and your factory, attends the school in 
 your town, and you call him by name, for you know 
 him. A worth-while society wears the name, *^The 
 Boosters' Club," and it is an honor to be a member 
 of that organization. Few men ever discover them- 
 selves, they have to be discovered; and to discover 
 a man, a real man, means more to the world than 
 the discovery of the North Pole. 
 
 When Daniel Webster entered college, a big, awk- 
 ward country boy, and with fear and trembling and 
 a homesick feeling climbed the steps leading into the 
 college building, Rufus King met him, and, placing 
 his hand on his shoulder, said: '* Daniel, I know your 
 father. Study hard and you will succeed." Years 
 afterward, when Webster had risen to the zenith of 
 his power, he said: '*I can still feel the pressure of 
 the hand of Rufus King upon my shoulder; I can 
 still hear the words that fell from his lips." It was 
 but a slight touch and a brief sentence, but Rufus 
 
 13 
 
194 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 King helped to steady and to encourage the great 
 Webster. 
 
 David Grayson, in his wanderings through the 
 country studying the lives of the people, stopped one 
 afternoon in springtime before a dilapidated house, 
 on the porch of which sat a discouraged farmer. 
 About that dooryard there played some boys, who, 
 though young in years, were depressed with the gloom 
 that had settled down over their father's life. With- 
 in the door there worked a woman, the wife and 
 mother, who saw nothing before her but the clouds 
 of despair. Every note that was sounded about that 
 old, barren farm was a note of pessimism. David 
 Grayson stood in the yard and lifted his eyes to the 
 hills and to the arching skies that bent over all. He 
 heard the songbirds' chorus, and, drinking in the 
 beauty of the surrounding country, said, '^ Man, what 
 a fine place in which to live!" To which the man 
 replied, ^^Yes, a fine place in which to starve." Then 
 Grayson perceived that the trouble lay not in the 
 place, but in the man, for here was a discouraged 
 farmer, who thought that wealth, ease, happiness and 
 contentment lay beyond the hills in the noisy city. 
 But two days spent with David Grayson, as he led 
 that farmer and his boys through the orchard and 
 into the fields, showing them how to break up the 
 soil, to sow, to plant and to reap, were all that was 
 necessary to throw the golden sunshine upon their 
 windows and help them realize that they lived in one 
 of the garden spots of the world. When David Gray- 
 son left, the farmer was in his field at work, and as 
 he looked back from the distant hill, the little boys, 
 who had walked with him a distance down the road, 
 were waving their hands good-by, for into their lives 
 
WORK YOUR OWN GARDEN 195 
 
 and the life of their home had come a man who had 
 been willing to walk out of his way to show a dis- 
 couraged family how to make a success of life. The 
 world has no greater men than the men of the David 
 Grayson spirit. They are royal souls, who, in pass- 
 ing, bless us as their shadows fall upon us. And, to 
 a great degree, every man can be a David Grayson — 
 if he will. 
 
 One hundred years ago, on a barren island five 
 miles out in the sea from the Netherlands, there lived 
 a band of pirates. The Netherlands Government com- 
 missioned a young attorney, twenty-one years of age, 
 to become judge and mayor of the island, and to ex- 
 terminate the pirates, thus protecting the lives of men 
 who were cast ashore with the wreckage that came 
 in from the sea. He cleaned up the island, went back 
 over the channel and returned with his young wife, 
 and there began his life's work of making the island 
 a beautiful place in which to live. Year after year 
 he planted trees. The barren island became a garden 
 of beauty. Others of like tastes moved thither, and 
 built their homes. To-day the ornithologists of the 
 world go to that island to study the great variety of 
 beautiful birds, of rare plumage and charming song. 
 Into the home of that enterprising young man came 
 seven children in thirteen years. One evening the 
 mother gathered the children around the fireside, and 
 told them the story of their father's life, of his am- 
 bition, his purpose, and she said, '^Your father's en- 
 deavor is to make this island one of the best and most 
 beautiful places in the world in which to live." 
 
 The children, in later years, left the family fire- 
 side. One became a great lawyer in South Africa and 
 a leader in the Boer War; another became a law- 
 
196 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 yer in the Netherlands; one became a minister; an- 
 other, a minister's wife; one gave her life to the beau- 
 tiful, but arduous, task of caring for the blind. An- 
 other, with his wife and two little boys, came to Brook- 
 lyn, N. Y., where in early manhood he died. His wife 
 one day told the story of their grandfather's purpose 
 and achievements to her two little boys, one of whom 
 was Edward Bok — for thirty years editor of the Ladies' 
 Home Journaly and recognized as one of the most influ- 
 ential citizens of Philadelphia. 
 
 This lad knew the pangs of poverty, and early in 
 life learned the art of doing good. He sold ice-water 
 to the thirsty crowd on the street-cars in Brooklyn. 
 He washed windows and wrapped up meat in the 
 butcher shop for fifty cents a week. He picked up 
 coal from the gutters in the streets of Brooklyn and 
 carried it home for the mother to use in cooking their 
 daily meal. He has probably done as much as any 
 other man or group of men in beautifying America, 
 through the editorial pages of his magazine. Two 
 millions of homes have profited by his thoughtfulness 
 and concern for the people of America. He began 
 where he lived and set before him the ideal of his 
 grandfather to make the world a better and a more 
 beautiful place in which to live. 
 
 This Dutch boy from Holland had what Ahab had 
 not. He learned contentment in being godly. He 
 knew that thoughts were bigger than things, and that 
 the life that counts most counts not because it is tied 
 up to possessions, but because it spends itself in real 
 helpfulness to humanity. 
 
 You may make the mistake of your life if you 
 imagine that no one can become an eminent success ex- 
 cept that one upon whom accidental fortune smiles. A 
 
WORK YOUR OWN GARDEN 197 
 
 newsboy lived over a stable in London. He became ap- 
 prenticed to a book-binder for seven years and toiled 
 away at his monotonous task. He caught glimpses of 
 paragraphs in books and read as he had opportunity. 
 While binding the Encyclopedia Britannica, his eye fell 
 upon the article ^^Electricity." He became interested, 
 tried simple experiments, attracted attention by his 
 earnestness, and was pointed out to Sir Humphrey 
 Davy, who helped him to help himself. This boy, 
 Michael Faraday, pushed his way along until Tyndall 
 said of him: '*He is the greatest experimental philoso- 
 pher the world has ever seen." 
 
 You live in a great world. Bigger and better op- 
 portunities never were laid before young people. In 
 America you can be what you want to be if you 
 want to be hard enough. We bring to you the chal- 
 lenge: The ladder is placed by the side of the wall, 
 you have one foot upon it, it is up to you — will 
 yon climb? 
 
GEORGE HAMILTON COMBS was horn at Camplellsburg, 
 Ky.y July 27 J 1864, and mas educated at Fairmont College, 
 Ky.; Kentucky University , Lexington , Ky., and Wooster Uni- 
 versity, Wooster, 0., where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1889. 
 In 1900 y Brake University, Des Moines, la., conferred upon him 
 the degree of LL.D. He has held three pastorates. First, with 
 the church of Christ, Shelhyville, Ky., 1886-1891; second. Inde- 
 pendence Boulevard, Kansas City, Mo., 1892-1919; Country Club, 
 Kansas City, Mo., 1921 to the present time. 
 
 Mr. Comhs has served a^ university preacher and lecturer at 
 University of Chicago, Wesley an University, University of Texas, 
 Vanderhilt University, University of Kansas, Washington Uni- 
 versity and other educational institutions. He is the author of 
 a mmber of books, and is an editorial writer of note, 
 
 199 
 
Baccalaureate Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction — **Life Is an Arrow." 
 
 I. lilfe Must Have a Mark. 
 
 1. Object, expression, not repression. 
 
 2. Wise choices and tlie grace of exclusion. 
 
 3. Largest development of Mgbest self. 
 
 rC. liife Must Have a Way. 
 
 1. Is any life a predestined failure? 
 
 2. FataUsm in present^ay literature. 
 
 3. Life's way not blocked. 
 
 m. Life Must Have Aim and Power. 
 
 1. Great convictions. 
 
 2. Self-realization. 
 
 3. Duty. 
 
 d. Tlie durable satisfactions of life. 
 
 200 
 
w 
 
 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 
 
 Baccalaureate Sermon by George H. Combs 
 
 What is your life? — Jas. 4: 14. 
 
 HAT, indeed! There are many answers, ancient 
 and modern, and here's one: 
 
 '*Life is an arrow; therefore you must know 
 What mark to aim at, how to draw the bow, 
 Then draw it to its head and let it go.'' 
 
 Henry van Dyke, whose lines I have jnst quoted, 
 is the author of a book called *' Straight Sermons." 
 He is also a maker of straight verse — ^verse that ar- 
 row-like goes singing to the mark. Let ns accept his 
 simile then. Life is an arrow, and, like the arrow, 
 must have an aim, must have a way traversable, must 
 have DOwer to send it straisrht and on. 
 
 I. Life must have a mark. 
 
 A ship without a port, a traveler without a desti- 
 nation, a builder without a plan, a runner without a 
 goal, a marksman without a mark — that is tragedy. 
 
 What, then, is the aim of life? We are knocking 
 here at a big ^ate and yet need not knock with timid 
 hand. Life is no blind alley. It leads on by pre- 
 destined path to a great eroal, and that goal, casting 
 aside all negative definitions, is the fullest possible 
 realization of the highest self. The end of life is ex- 
 pression and not repression, self-realization and not 
 ?elf-denial. 
 
 201 
 
202 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Repressions, self-limitings, self-denials, are of value 
 only as they make for higher realization. The athlete 
 denies himself many bodily pleasures, but the merit 
 is not in the denial; the merit is in the higher realiza- 
 tions. The scholar denies himself ease and pleasure, 
 yet his reward is not in the sacrifice, but in the greater 
 garnered wisdom. God wants a full life, not an empty 
 life— a life whose lowest and whose topmost notes 
 are alike resonant and full. If the devil is not in 
 a vacuum, neither is God. 
 
 Here are we all at life's beginnings with definite 
 potentialities, and our supreme concern is their edu- 
 cation and development. To make the most of the 
 life stuff given us is life's true aim. To unfold our 
 native powers is our highest privilege. 
 
 This demands, at the very outset, the wisdom of 
 choice and the grace of exclusion. We can not de- 
 velop to their utmost stretch of possibilities all of 
 life's gifts. If a man makes of his arm, his leg, all 
 that can be made of the arm, the leg, he has time 
 left for little else. To bring every organ and capa- 
 bility of the body to full-orbed development were a 
 task too great for our short lives. To cultivate to its 
 last inch of yielding richness a single faculty of the 
 mind — ^memory, say — would eat up all the hours. 
 Unable to bring all, we are shut up to selection, and 
 choice must be of the best. 
 
 This, then, is the mark at which to aim life's ar- 
 rows ; the amplest, the largest development of the high- 
 est self — ^the sounding of the mountain notes with 
 trumpet force and volume — ^the living of a full life 
 whose fullness comes through Him who said, *'I have 
 come that ye might have life, and that ye might have 
 it more abundantly." 
 
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 203 
 
 II. Life, though it have a mark, must also have 
 a way. 
 
 A way hindered and barricaded, it may be, and yet 
 traversable. Here the arrow simile does not hold al- 
 together good. As the arrow speeds from the bow it 
 meets with no resistance save that of the soft air, but 
 life's arrows too often fall split and battered at the 
 foot of an unyielding wall. Is it indeed like that? 
 Is there ever an effectual hindering of a noble aim? 
 Is any life aim foredoomed to failure? Is the way 
 blocked? 
 
 If God has set before us all a single aim — the high- 
 est realization of the highest self — and then has thrust 
 us into a universe where the aim can not be realized 
 by all, then is he a partial God, and malignant too! 
 If any life is a predestined failure (and not to send 
 the arrow to the mark is a failure), then no sort of 
 casuistry, of suppleness of preacher explanations, can 
 justify the God of things as they are. To put into 
 the heart of a man an instinct, and then provide 
 no place in life for its realization, were unworthy 
 a God who creates the instinct of the birds to fly 
 and the fish to swim, and then provides the yield- 
 ing atmosphere and supporting sea. The good God 
 does not mock us so. Nor is there apology for a weak 
 yielding to the present-day dolorous gospel of man's 
 helplessness. The world grows aghast at the doctrines 
 of exclusion and life-limitation, but accepts with 
 apathetic complacency a darker gospel when whispered 
 by the sibyl Fate. 
 
 It is undeniable that the shadow of fatalism rests 
 on much of our present-day literature. The great Eus- 
 sian fiction, the Ibsen dramas, Thomas Hardy's novels 
 — in the heart of all this work and these workers is 
 
204 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 the sense of a pitiless, close-grappling, slowly choking 
 Fate. Men are mere puppets, and an unseen force 
 pulls the strings. The something that pulls the strings 
 is It. It is blind. It has a marble heart. It hears no 
 prayers. "We think ourselves free and bravely flaunt 
 the delusions of our liberty, but It chuckles in the dark- 
 ness, knowing we are but slaves. We sit down at life's 
 loom and with feverish fingers send the shuttle to 
 and fro. But in the morrow's light we discern that 
 It designed the pattern and shot it through and 
 through with a hateful black. We are helpless. We 
 are in the malignant grip of the past. The flower 
 and the weed are no more surely nourished, and their 
 beauty or ugliness predetermined by the soil in which 
 they grow, than is man determined by the ancestral 
 soil, mold of a thousand years, out of which he 
 springs. 
 
 We are gripped, they say, by the things without. 
 The towering brig is on ocean ways with all its can- 
 vas spread. Shall it droop its wings or shall it fly? 
 That is as the wind determines. So on life's sea our 
 boats lie idly rocking, or gloriously they sail on as the 
 council of the winds shall decree. 
 
 Our freedom, we are further told, is but as the 
 freedom of a drop of water in a glass tube. 
 
 False, false to the very core! Life's failures are 
 not from without, but from within. The failure of 
 Solomon was not in the past; the past was noble, 
 heroic, filled with shepherds' songs and psalmists' 
 prayers, trumpet-tongued in ethical appeal. The fail- 
 ure was within. 
 
 Life's way is not blocked. Tolstoi, in his ''War 
 and Peace," writing of Napoleon's disastrous Russian 
 
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 205 
 
 campaign, says that the whole campaign was against 
 Napoleon's will, that he wanted to invade England, 
 that only a higher will pushed him on toward IVIbs- 
 cow's flames. Was that higher will Kismet, Fate? 
 It is not thus. The power behind Napoleon was Na- 
 poleon. It was through the force of his own genius, 
 his own determination, that he climbed from the ob- 
 scurity of Corsica to the eminence of Versailles. It 
 was Napoleon, not Fate, that battered down Toulon, 
 climbed the Alps, fought the battle of the Pyramids, 
 and set high in the heavens his star of glory above 
 the field of Austerlitz. It was Napoleon, not Fate, 
 who, drunk with ambition, pitted his armies against 
 God's almighty snows, blundered in reckonings and 
 in orders on the field of Waterloo, and who at last 
 in storm-girt Helena, his glory gone, out of his own 
 baffled ambitions and keen remorses wove the winding- 
 sheet for his own body, and sank self-slaughtered 
 in a self-digged grave. 
 
 m. Life must have an aim, must have power 
 to send it on. 
 
 The great bow of Ulysses means nothing without 
 Ulysses to bend it and send the arrow to the mark. 
 The cleared course is mockery, the goal but tantaliz- 
 ing, without a force to send fast the feet straight on. 
 The world's supreme need is power. 
 
 And how comes power? When John Ruskin, the 
 great art critic and yet greater philosopher, looking 
 with almost adoration upon a great cathedral, was 
 asked by a friend why we do not build such great 
 cathedrals now, he answered, *'The men who built 
 these cathedrals were men of great convi<3tions. " Here 
 in a sentence is the philosophy of great living. All 
 true greatness is rooted in great convictions. Lack- 
 
206 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 ing such greatness, we build meanly, whether it be 
 cathedral or character. As great convictions wax, men 
 kindle into nobleness of thought and word and deed, 
 and as great convictions wane, men shrivel into lit- 
 tleness in all their words and ways. 
 
 "What, then, are the convictions that forward men 
 in high enterprise? To begin, the conviction of an 
 ageless, endless life. The characteristic of all Chinese 
 pictures is their flatness, shallowness, fatal lackings 
 of depth. The canvas is a mere surface thing with- 
 out a single depth for the anchorage of a recollection. 
 Now, human life, without those noble perspectives and 
 subtle blends of light and shadow given by the sense 
 of eternity, like the Chinese picture, lacks depth, in- 
 terest and meaning. There is no possible greatness 
 for evanescence. The thing that lives only for the 
 hour, though it may not be without the hint of charm, 
 can never powerfully stir the life. There can be no 
 greatness without great dimensions, and if the life 
 of the human stops at the yellow grave, in such mean- 
 ness of dimensions can be found nothing truly great. 
 Let the life of man be bounded by the threescore 
 years and ten, and nothing truly heroic will spring 
 from his hands or brain. The tombs of Egypt's kings 
 are noble because they were constructed to last 
 through the eternities and by those who dreamed that 
 they should never die. The picture that is painted 
 only for a day lives for but a day; the enduring 
 pictures are those whose colors were mixed with the 
 dream of eternity. The art that lasts was designed 
 to last, and the artist who has not wrought for pos- 
 terity will be forgotten by posterity. Only immortals 
 will build immortal temples. 
 
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 207 
 
 ^' Leave now to dags and apes; 
 Man has forever.'' 
 
 Only those who are rich with that consciousness 
 can be great. The man who has *' forever'' can do an 
 enduring work. 
 
 Again, self-realization is possible only to those to 
 whom self-realization is a high end and not merely 
 a procuring means. Virtue is its own reward. Work 
 is its own reward. We all need to know that the 
 good of work is not what it puts into our pockets, but 
 into our characters. The wage is of less concern than 
 the work. Life's tasks may or may not have money 
 reward, but they all have character reward. The 
 young man's chief concern should not be with what 
 the task may yield in gold, but what it may yield 
 in goodness. The toiler may be robbed of his money 
 wage, but if he has wrought sincerely he can not be 
 cheated out of his character reward. That which gets 
 into the blood is of greater value than that which gets 
 into the purse. Excellence needs no bonus of outside 
 commendation. Life's fields are not strewn with gold 
 nuggets to enrich outwardly, but with disciplines to 
 enrich inwardly. The summum bonum is not in get- 
 ting, but in being. 
 
 The highest reward of faith is faith; of truthful- 
 ness, truthfulness; of courage, courage. ''The king- 
 dom of heaven is within you." Heaven is no merely 
 extraneous and outside reward for right-doing, it is 
 the intrinsic and inside necessity and complement of 
 righteousness. Good thoughts, good words, good deeds 
 are the seeds from which spring the trees of life. Let 
 a man then come to the realization of his highest self, 
 not to say, ''Lord, now I am good; give me heaven as 
 a reward/' but rather to say, "For the heaven Thou 
 
208 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 hast permitted me to enter through my struggles, 
 Lord, I thank Thee." The tallest angel near the throne 
 receives no higher wage than the coin of righteous- 
 ness. Heaven's most bejeweled crown is the crown 
 of character. Goodness is God. 
 
 Yet, though this profound truth should have its 
 way with us, it by no means will crowd out that other 
 world-old incentive, the call of Duty. Herein is the 
 strength of a double call — the call of the work, the 
 call of God. *^Come up higher" is ever the call from 
 above to our too low lives. It is your duty to make 
 the most of yourself. You can not stop at mere sal- 
 vation. You are not merely to seek to save the soul 
 you have, but to save a soul that is worth the sav- 
 ing. What would you think of an athlete who cul- 
 tures his body merely for the sake of saving it! He 
 seeks not to conserve and save, but to enlarge and 
 develop. The scholar at his books with no higher 
 aim than the salvation of his mind from imbecility 
 were a sorry spectacle. Nor less abject and contempt- 
 ible the soul that seeks only the salvation of its little 
 self. ''Come up higher" is the insistent invitation. 
 Through struggles and disciplines, cross-bearings and 
 the bitterness of tears, strain towards a nobler, high- 
 er life. It is your duty. 
 
 This is a very antiquated gospel, I know. Duty, 
 we are told, is a quiet, old-fashioned divinity and soon 
 it shall be ejected from our modern Pantheons, that 
 the more comely divinity, Persuasion, may take its 
 place. *'No man," said an advanced preacher not long 
 ago, ''can now make much of austere duty. The 
 oughts and ought nots no longer speak convincingly. 
 Sinai is a long way off. We must persuade man." 
 Indeed! What a deliverance! Here impiety and im- 
 
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 209 
 
 becility seem mixed in equal proportions. Analyze 
 conscience as yon will, and give it whatever physical 
 origins you will in your flippant philosophies, the eter- 
 nal granite truth abides, writ large in the constitu- 
 tion of the human soul as if in fire letters across the 
 sky, that man, in this voice we call Duty, feels the 
 impact of heavenly forces upon his soul, and only as 
 he yields to the mighty urge comes the realization 
 of his highest self. 
 
 ThA mighty movements that have convulsed the 
 world have received their great inspiration from this 
 supreme imperative. Whenever men have gone for- 
 ward in any enterprise, moved by a great sense of 
 duty, they have gone resistlessly. Let the human soul 
 be mastered by the conviction that God wills that a 
 work be done, and that soul is almost godlike in its 
 strength. 
 
 ' ' God wills it, ' ' and before the gleaming crescent of 
 the Moslem the degenerate Christians give coward way. 
 
 *'God wills it,'' and the Crusade rolls its lava 
 flood against the walls of the Holy City. 
 
 ''God wills it,'' and the timid shepherd girl is 
 transformed into the warrior maid against whose val- 
 iant leadership the English fling their strength in 
 vain. 
 
 ''God wills it," and the obscure Cromwell is forged 
 into a live thunderbolt of heaven to strike down kings 
 and ancient wrongs. 
 
 Duty, an ineffectual voice? Beneath the sky of 
 God there is no other voice so sovereign — ^no voice 
 that speaks to our soul's soul. 
 
 **I slept and dreamed that life was beauty; 
 I woke and found that life was duty. ' ' 
 14 
 
210 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Both the dream and the waking were true. The 
 danger is in these days of smooth content that 
 we shall close our eyes to the morning truth and for- 
 get that life is duty. 
 
 Duty is ever heroic, but it demands no im- 
 possibilities. 
 
 *'So near is glory to our dust, 
 So close is Grod to maiij 
 When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' 
 The youth replies: *I can.' '' 
 
 You can, you can. Mark you, I did not say you 
 can do it easily, unstrivingly, but you can. It will 
 take striving, battling. God in heaven only knows 
 how fierce ofttimes, but you can do your duty. 
 
 ''Then, welcome each rebuff 
 That turns earth's smoothness rough. 
 Each sting that bids, nor sit, nor stand, but go. 
 
 Be our joys three parts pain! 
 
 Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 
 Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe.'' 
 
 One other great conviction I mention: through self- 
 realization are the durable satisfactions of life. This 
 phrase, ''the durable satisfactions of life," coined by 
 one of our college presidents, is well worth your re- 
 membering. Life, beyond question, has its pleasures 
 along low levels. There is pleasure in drunkenness, 
 else men would not get drunk; there is pleasure in 
 debauchery, else men would not be debauchees; there 
 is pleasure in money-getting, else men would not wear 
 out their lives to get it. Let us admit that there is 
 a pleasure to be found on the planes of mere animal- 
 ism and of sin. If the devil's bait were not good to 
 taste, no soul would grab at the hook. 
 
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 211 
 
 But while there are satisfactions here, they are not 
 durable satisfactions. After passion has spent its force, 
 after debauchery has had its fling, after animalism has 
 sated itself, happiness dwells afar. 
 
 Even on the higher levels where is no curse of 
 wrong, durable satisfactions are not found. The 
 pleasures men get in money-making, in professional 
 and business advancements, in ''getting on," as we 
 say, are not durable pleasures. Contemporary litera- 
 ture is choked with the sobs of disillusionment. But 
 there are satisfactions in Christ's service that are 
 durable. ''Happy in Him?^^ Yes, and that happi- 
 ness stays. 
 
r)OBEET E. ELMOBE was horn Jan. 9, 1878, at New Castle, 
 J\ Craig County, Va, He received his collegiate training at 
 Milligov; College, Milligan, Tenn, 
 
 He was minister of the church of Christ at Tazewell, Va,, five 
 years; at the First Church, Eoanolce, Va., seven years; Walnui 
 Hills Church, Cincinnati, 0., eight years, and Phwnix, Ariz., one 
 year. He is ju>st entering upon his ministry with the church at 
 Carlisle, Ky, 
 
 213 
 
Independence Day Address 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 I. Underlying the doctrine ef human liberty is tlie grand 
 oonoeption of Imman worth. 
 
 II. With profound insight the founders of the republic traced 
 the American ideal to divine revelation. 
 
 IIL Our national unity is maintained and promoted by 
 mutual service, which is the bond of perfectness. 
 
 IV. We miss the high summons if our hearts are set on 
 material things. 
 
 21/ 
 
THE AMERICAN IDEAL 
 
 Independence Day Address by R. E. Elmore 
 
 Honor all men. — 1 Pet. 2: 17. 
 
 WHEN John Brashear, roller-mill workman and 
 astronomer of Pittsburgh, affectionately known 
 to the people as ''Uncle John," was offered an hon- 
 orary degree by the University of Pennsylvania with 
 the request that he select the title, this plain philan- 
 thropist replied: ''I do not know whether yoia confer 
 such degree, but, if so, I would like the degree. Doc- 
 tor of Humanity." 
 
 On presenting to the Continental Congress a res- 
 olution directing that the sessions be opened with daily 
 prayers to almighty God, Benjamin Franklin said: 
 ''If a sparrow can not fall without His notice, is it 
 probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" 
 
 A tablet marking the ruins of Jamestown, the 
 cradle of the Republic, bears the inscription: "In 
 honor of Chanco, the Christian Indian boy, whose 
 warning saved the colony of Virginia from destruc- 
 tion in the massacre of 22nd Mch., 1622." 
 
 Lincoln at Gettysburg molded the sentiment in 
 immortal language: "Our fathers brought forth upon 
 this continent a nation, conceived in liberty and dedi- 
 cated to the proposition that all men are created 
 equal." 
 
 Emerging from the heroic Colonial background, 
 taking form in the covenant of constitutional govern- 
 
 215 
 
216 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 ment, developing in strength and beauty throngli 
 seven-score years of national history, the American 
 ideal — honor all men — rises like a tower of nniversal 
 hope, ''bathed all in light, with open gates of gold/' 
 
 I. 
 
 Underlying the doctrines of human liberty is the 
 grand conception of human worth. The Venus de 
 Milo, though broken, is still priceless and immortal. 
 
 But the eyes of the multitudes have been holden. 
 The veil of materialism covers the heart and obscures 
 the greatness of human nature. Time and circum- 
 stance, the accident of birth or station, and degraded 
 worldly standards, vitiate the popular judgment. ''The 
 greatest man I ever knew," remarked an eminent 
 journalist, "I indifferently passed, or feigned some 
 condescension, and hesitated to know socially.'' This 
 is the most pitiable aspect of our fallen race. Few 
 minds are willing to pay the price of investigation, of 
 going behind external trappings and defying the 
 social verdict in search of the invisible and timeless 
 beauties of the soul of the common man. Lord Mor- 
 ley's characterization of Voltaire describes the cult 
 of unbelief: "He has no ear for the finer vibrations 
 of the spiritual voice." Content with hearsay evi- 
 dences, we miss the essential glory of human life. 
 "And hast thou not known me?" is man's inarticu- 
 late cry to man. 
 
 Inhumanity is the rock on which mighty nations 
 have been broken and ground to powder. It is the 
 crude and hateful opinion of the materialist that 
 might makes right, that the strong should prevail over 
 the weak, that the fit must climb to dominion over the 
 bodies of the unfit — this falsehood of the so-called 
 
THE AMEEICAN IDEAL 217 
 
 scientist, this doctrine of tlie unlearned educator, this 
 philosophy of the cult of paganism — it is from this 
 polluted fountain that all oppression flows. Moved 
 by such spirit, a nation may rise to the peak of 
 worldly power by the spoils of tyranny, by inhuman- 
 ity to man;' but disaster will at last overtake that 
 people which sacrifices the human element and sub- 
 ordinates personality to property. Even Plato's ideal 
 state, conceived in the atmosphere of the most en- 
 lightened nation of antiquity in the height of its 
 splendor, proposed a government by elect souls who 
 do no work while depending on craftsmen and slaves 
 for all menial labor. 
 
 The progress of the race has waited upon those 
 shining souls who lift all men above the price-labels 
 of the marketplace; who value a man more than a 
 sheep; who despise the sophistry of the self-seeker, 
 be his brutality the soft voice of the conceited scholar 
 or the iron hand of the pillaging warrior; who know 
 that a human being is worth more than all the piled- 
 up material riches of an empire, and who are willing 
 to die for their faith. The thin, red line of liberty 
 comes up unbroken through the centuries, traced by 
 the sacrifice of the lonely martyrs, who chose death 
 rather than the dishonor of oppression. Christiana 
 and her children came to the scene of Christian's 
 combat with ApoUyon. *' There are footprints on the 
 path. Pilgrims have gone this way before us." 
 ''Look," said Greatheart, ''did not I tell you? Here 
 is some of your husband's blood upon these stones! 
 Verily Christian did here play the man." 
 
 Says Mommsen: "The grandest system of civili- 
 zation has its orbit and may complete its course; but 
 not so the human race, to which, just when it seems 
 
218 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 to have reached its goal, the old task is ever set anew 
 with a wider range and with a deeper meaning." 
 
 The old task took its wider range and deeper 
 meaning in the Declaration of Independence, whose 
 good tidings of human worth and freedom we honor 
 in onr hearts to-day. 
 
 The nation has upheld its faith unstained and at 
 utmost cost from Saratoga to Sedan. We hate war, 
 but we hate tyranny more; we love peace, but we 
 love righteousness more. Writing of the American 
 soldiers' part in the battles of the final campaign 
 against Kaiserism, a London editor said: ^' These 
 troops, but newly trained, inheriting no long military 
 tradition and molded by no iron-bound system, have 
 overcome the pick of the German legions." These 
 troops were sprung from a people trained in the school 
 of self-government, inheriting the holy tradition of 
 human rights, safeguarded under the majesty of 
 equitable law and molded by the system which honors 
 all men and which gives to the world its Washington 
 and Lincoln and Roosevelt. 
 
 The awe experienced by Bayard Taylor when first 
 looking up at the colossal arch of marble and gold of 
 St. Peter's must be felt by all true Americans when 
 walking amid the splendors of the invisible temple of 
 our national faith, whose foundation is the supreme 
 valuation of man made in the image of God, whose 
 corner-stone is freedom, and whose superstructure is 
 the fellowship of righteousness and the fraternity of 
 peace and good will. We feel exalted, ennobled. 
 ''Beings in the form we wear, planned the glorious 
 edifice, and it seems that in godlike power and per- 
 severance they were indeed but a little lower than the 
 angels." 
 
THE AMERICAN IDEAL 219 
 
 II. 
 
 "With profound insight the founders of the 
 Republic traced the American ideal to divine revela- 
 tion, and, with precision, embodied in the national 
 conscience their confession of faith in the Christian's 
 God. 
 
 The author of the Declaration bore witness that 
 ''the God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the 
 same time." Guarded with reverent care, sheltering 
 the national tradition, the tower of the old Christian 
 church at Jamestown is a perpetual monument of 
 our people's faith in Jesus Christ — ^America's first and 
 best statue of liberty. The compact framed by the 
 Pilgrims before leaving the ''Mayflower" declared that 
 the voyage had been undertaken "for the glory of 
 God and the advancement of the Christian faith." 
 According to the recital of the charter of William 
 and Mary College, founded in Virginia in 1692, the 
 institution was established "to the end that the 
 church of Virginia may be furnished with a semi- 
 nary of ministers of the gospel, and that the youth 
 may be piously educated in good letters and man- 
 ners, and that the Christian faith may be propa- 
 gated among the Western Indians to the glory of al- 
 mighty God." The Patrick Henry pew is marked 
 in St. John's Church, Richmond, and that of Betsy 
 Ross in old Christ Church, Philadelphia. Bancroft 
 asserts that "every great American enterprise began 
 from God." Washington prayed at Valley Forge. 
 Before assuming the duties of the Presidency, to his 
 friends at Springfield, Lincoln said: "Without the 
 assistance of that divine Being who ever attended him 
 (Washington), I can not succeed." Our Presidents 
 
220 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 take the oath of office with their lips pressed upon 
 the pages of the open Bible. To his fellow-citizens 
 at Marion, President-elect Harding thns pledged his 
 faith: ''I want you to know that there is an individ- 
 ual who believes in the reconseeration of a religious 
 republic. I have for my inheritance a Christian be- 
 lief, and I have in my veins the blood of Christian 
 parentage. '^ In his inaugural he made this avowal: 
 ''I accept my part with singleness of purpose and 
 humility of spirit, and implore the favor and guidance 
 of God." Andrew Jackson affirmed that ''the Bible 
 is the rock on which the Republic rests." Grant ex- 
 horted his countrymen to ''hold fast to the Bible as 
 the sheet-anchor of their liberties." 
 
 The Christian Scriptures are the spring and root 
 of human happiness and progress. It is here we find 
 the ennobling doctrines of man's high origin, his god- 
 like nature and his glorious destiny. "Honor all 
 men" is the enlightened word of a once exclusive Jew 
 now emancipated by Christian truth, truth incarnate 
 in Jesus, the Son of God, the author of the parables 
 of the prodigal son and the good Samaritan; whose 
 beautiful words were fulfilled in benevolent deeds ; who 
 honored the lame and blind and halt, the broken 
 and unfit and outcast; who stamped with divine worth 
 the common man— the Redeemer and Liberator and 
 Restorer of the fallen race. 
 
 The Pharisee forever hates the humanitarian. Cel- 
 sus, to the end of time, will ridicule the advocate 
 of spiritual values, who finds infinite possibilities and 
 awakens infinite hope in the hearts of the lowly and 
 obscure; but the Christ whom we adore keeps driving 
 home the gospel of the sanctity of human life, the 
 greatness of the soul. 
 
THE AMERICAN IDEAL 221 
 
 By the great mountains the acacia forever burns, 
 and from its inextinguishable flame God calls to him 
 who has ears to hear and a heart to understand: 
 *'I will send thee that thou mayest bring forth my 
 people/' This is the faith of our fathers; this is 
 America's holy faith. 
 
 III. 
 
 Our national unity rests upon the conception 
 of the worth of the common man,^ expresses itself in 
 freedom under the discipline of democratic rule and 
 is maintained and promoted by mutual service, which 
 is the bond of perfectness. 
 
 ''Honor all men" flowers in ministry to all men. 
 ''I am among you as one who serves" is the self- 
 revelation of Him whose humane teaching is woven 
 into the fabric of the American ideal. 
 
 An ancient seer thus describes the ideal state: 
 ''They help every one his neighbor, and every one 
 saith to his brother, Be of good courage. So the car- 
 penter encourageth the goldsmith, and he that smooth- 
 eth with the hammer him that smiteth the anvil, 
 saying of the soldering, It is good; and he fasteneth 
 it with nails, that it should not be moved." 
 
 The principle of equal rights has been variously 
 and happily applied, in the privilege of public trust, 
 in our jurisprudence, in professional and industrial 
 opportunity, and in religion, where freedom is granted 
 to every man to worship Grod in accord with his 
 conscience. Our duty is to carry the principle, as a 
 working reality, more and more into every department 
 of life. But parallel with equal rights must be ap- 
 plied the principle of co-operative service. The per- 
 fection and extension of this principle, in the experi- 
 
222 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 ence of the entire citizenship, must be the concern 
 of all. ''Come and comfort me'' was Burns' appeal 
 to Cunningham. It is the common heart-cry of man 
 to man. We must not, we can not, refuse to hear. 
 
 In an ancient Jewish city lived a man named 
 Joseph. He became famous for helping people. One 
 day some of his friends led this modest man to the 
 front in a public assembly and invested him with 
 knighthood. ''Let him no longer be called Joseph, but 
 Sir Barnabas," said they; "Barnabas the En- 
 courager. ' ' 
 
 Ruthless self-interest is the law of the jungle. 
 Competition, which sets at naught one's neighbor, is 
 on the same level. "We rise from the jungle life as 
 we abandon the jungle law. 
 
 All men who have attained true eminence trace 
 their success to the help which took its rise outside 
 of themselves. Plutarch, the mild and humane 
 philosopher, has left on record this testimony of all 
 great souls: "Though fortune has, on many occasions, 
 been favorable to me, yet I have no obligations to 
 her so great as the enjoyment of my brother Timon's 
 invariable friendship and kindness." "Greet Onesi- 
 phorus," said Paul, "for he oft refreshed me." 
 
 No dreamer can overcolor the prosperity and hap- 
 piness in store for a nation true to this sacred view 
 of life, a people who build each other up, who help 
 forward one another worthily of God. 
 
 In that noble parchment, the Roman letter, Saul 
 of Tarsus appropriately brings his stately argument 
 to its climax, in the closing chapter, by the exhibit 
 of a list of persons in whose hearts lived the great 
 doctrine and in whose acts the great doctrine found 
 avenues of practical expression — his friends, the 
 
THE AMERICAN IDEAL 223 
 
 princely line of fellow-helpers. The personal notes 
 conclude with a salutation from ''Quartus the 
 brother/' a biography in three words, than which 
 there is none nobler. A half-million words could not 
 honor him more or reveal more glory to the discern- 
 ing reader. 
 
 ''Walking through a country churchyard last 
 week/' wrote "Walter Bagehot, ''I saw the most de- 
 lightful epitaph I ever remember. It was simply 
 this: 'George Phillip Tyson died Oct. 7, 1871. He 
 was a helpful man.' This is the only epitaph I ever 
 envied." 
 
 IV. 
 
 The privilege and responsibility of citizenship in 
 a state which recognizes the principle — "honor all 
 men" — can not be overemphasized. "The land we 
 live in," said Grover Cleveland, "seems to be strong 
 and active. But how fares the land that lives in us?" 
 
 We miss the high summons if our hearts are set 
 mainly on material things. The inspiration of the 
 American ideal is in the ends at which we aim — the 
 larger inner life, the liberty of spirit, the happiness 
 of the soul. The test is spiritual. How fares the 
 land that lives in usi 
 
 "The first warning of Rome's ruin," said Gib- 
 bon, "was not in the hostile armies mobilizing against 
 her, but in the feasting and boasting and riotous 
 living in her vicious capital." America's worst foes 
 are they of her own household who find no place 
 for reverence, who hold the unspiritual estimate of 
 human life and who follow the low-set purpose of 
 self-seeking and personal profit to the disadvantage 
 of their fellow-citizens. 
 
224 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 ''Let not the wise man [or nation] glory in his 
 wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his 
 might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but 
 let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he nnder- 
 standeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord who 
 exerciseth mercy, judgment, and righteousness in the 
 earth, for in these things I delight." Worldly wis- 
 dom can not make a people great, nor might, nor 
 riches, nor scientific knowledge, nor progress in let- 
 ters and art, nor efficiency in politics and industry. 
 A nation's life consisteth not in an abundance of 
 things. Is the Government God-fearing, are its insti- 
 tutions humane, do our social and economic relations 
 proceed from a common conviction of human worth 
 and kinship, and operate in behalf of the public 
 weal? Browning profoundly observes that ''love with 
 defective knowledge is of more spiritual worth than 
 knowledge with defective love," which is another way 
 of saying that mutual esteem and affection and ser- 
 vice are worth more than all the accumulated knowl- 
 edge and fine-spun worldly wisdom of all the theorists. 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt said: "After a certain, not 
 very high, level of material well-being has been reached, 
 then the things that really count in life are the things 
 of the spirit. Factories and railways are good up 
 to a certain point; but courage and endurance, love 
 of wife and child, love of home and country, love of 
 lover for sweetheart, love of beauty in man's work 
 and in nature, love and emulation of daring and of 
 lofty endeavor, the homely workaday virtues and the 
 heroic virtues — ^these are better still, and if they are 
 lacking, no piled-up riches, no roaring, clanging in- 
 dustrialism, no feverish and many-sided activity, shall 
 avail either the individual or the nation. I do not 
 
THE AMERICAN IDEAL 225 
 
 undervalue these things of a nation's body; I only- 
 desire that they shall not make us forget that besides 
 the nation's body there is also the nation's soul." 
 
 Americanization is a favorite term these days, but 
 the trouble is the shallowness of its content to the 
 popular mind. Naturalization papers do not make 
 an American. The immigrant needs more than lan- 
 guage-study and parrot-like knowledge of the Con- 
 stitution. Free birth does not make an American. 
 The homeborn need more than the soft inheritance of 
 the rights of citizenship. To salute the flag, to buy 
 Liberty bonds, to lustily sing ''America" in the hour 
 of the nation's distress — this is not conclusive evi- 
 dence of patriotism. The deeper ''hyphenism" is a 
 thing of the soul, which not only expresses itself 
 in divided national allegiance, but which represents 
 itself in antagonism to the things for which the flag 
 stands, and holds contempt for ''the subtle thing 
 that's spirit." 
 
 We are blind to the plainest lesson of history if 
 we fail to see, in the rising tide of materialism, the 
 nation's gravest peril. If we save our soul, we must 
 fight, we must make war on the enemies within. The 
 , chief seat of danger, no doubt, is found in our schools 
 and colleges where eighteenth century pedagogues 
 plant the seeds of atheism, teach the jungle theory 
 of life, and subordinate character to success. If, as 
 Robert Louis Stevenson said, "mankind was never 
 so happily inspired as when it built a cathedral," 
 how degraded humanity must be when it damages 
 a cathedral. 
 
 To value every man, to walk humbly before God, to 
 live the life of service, to elevate the spiritual above the 
 material — this is the American ideal. 
 
 15 
 
226 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 It was the custom of a good man to daily enter 
 the family gallery and stand reverently before the 
 portraits of his forefathers. When his son attained 
 the age of twelve, the lad was permitted to accom- 
 pany his father into this holy place, and was advised 
 to make the custom his own. ** These are onr noble 
 ancestors,'* said he, **and their eyes watch over us. 
 We can hear their voices still whispering to us, *Keep 
 fresh the honor of the family name.' " 
 
 Each recurring anniversary of the nation's inde- 
 pendence should be the occasion of communion with 
 its illustrious founders, and reaffirmation of the 
 national principles and rededication of our lives to 
 their perpetuity. The eyes of our forefathers watch 
 over us. Their voices still whisper to us from the 
 grave, ''Keep fresh the honor of America's good 
 name. ' ' 
 
 ''Faith of our fathers, holy faith, 
 We will be true to thee till death.'' 
 
fjTACEAET TAYLOE SWEENEY was lorn Feh. 10, 1849, 
 JLJ at Liberty, Ky., and received his education at Scott sville 
 Seminary in Illinois, four years; Eurelca College, Ills., one year, 
 and Ashury University, two years. 
 
 For twenty-seven years he was minvHer of the Columbus (Ind.) 
 Church of Christ, and has been pastor emeritus twenty-three years, 
 
 Mr, Sweeney has held all the positions within the gift of his 
 people up to the presidency of the National Convention, Was 
 TJ. S, Consul-General at Constantinople for three years (1889- 
 1891), appointed by President Harrison, His position carried with 
 it that of judge of the TJ, S. District Court, 
 
 Was commissioner for the Ottoman Empire at the Columbian 
 Exposition, Chicago; member of the Victoria Institute, London, 
 and American Institute of Christian Philosophy, New YorTc, 
 
 For a long time lyceum lecturer in the Bidpath Bureau, and 
 contributor to popular magazines. 
 
 227 
 
Labor Day Address 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introductian— It is a great tiling to be a man. 
 
 1. Man is more valuable than anytbing he has ever acquired. 
 
 2. Man is more valuable than anything he has ever organized. 
 
 3. Man is more valuable than anything he has ever achieved. 
 
 4. Institutions are valuable in such ratio as they minister 
 to man. 
 
 Civil Grovemment — The school, the church, society, business, 
 labor, capital. 
 
 Patriotism — 'All are to be measured by the standard of ser- 
 vice. 
 
 228 
 
THE MAJESTY OF SERVICE 
 
 Labor Day Address by Z. T. Sweeney 
 
 Scripture Text.— Matt. 20 : 20-28. 
 
 THE golden age of the human race will be that 
 period of its existence when it renders the high- 
 est possible service to this world, and is best served 
 by the material and spiritual forces which surround 
 it. All philosophers and teachers unite in regarding 
 man as the great object of all teaching, and the end 
 of all endeavor. Even science accords with philosophy 
 and religion when, in the person of Humboldt, it says, 
 *'A11 the world is but a platform upon which to 
 erect manhood." As the century-plant toils patiently 
 for ninety-nine long years that on the hundredth it 
 may shoot up a spike of glory and burst into a spray 
 of beauty and splendor, so the long train of ancient 
 earth life dragged its way through the dust of ages 
 primeval to find its flower and fruit in man, the 
 youngest, but the noblest, of God's creative handiwork. 
 It is a great thing to be a man. I would rather 
 be a man than to be the Atlantic Ocean. Kepler tells 
 us that *'man is the only one of God's creatures who 
 can think His thoughts after Him." In the light 
 of this reflection it is evident that if we are to have 
 some conception of man before proceeding to his 
 golden age, we must obtain it in some other way than 
 to measure him by any material standard, or weigh 
 
 229 
 
230 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 him in any material balance. You can only measure 
 a man by himself. I institute a few comparisons for 
 this purpose. 
 
 First, man is more valuable than anything he has 
 ever acquired, and he is an acquisitive animal. He has 
 been piling up all the time. It is characteristic of 
 a rude and barbarous people that they measure a 
 man more by what he has around him than what he 
 has within him. A savage woman so fortunate as to 
 have a half-dozen wristlets or anklets of brass or bone, 
 puts on airs over her unfortunate sister that has 
 none. Her civilized sister that is so highly favored 
 as to have a sealskin and diamonds, puts on the same 
 sort of airs over her less-favored sisters. Now, I am 
 not criticizing sealskins and diamonds; they are all 
 right in their place. I am only criticizing the airs 
 of superiority affected by some weak-minded people 
 who happen to creep into those things. Such people 
 fail to realize that you can hang all that flummery 
 upon a post, as easily as upon a woman, and add 
 nothing whatever to the value of the post. 
 
 Edison tells us that he can make diamonds for five 
 dollars a pound, but is too busy to engage in it. 
 Some years ago I had a neighbor to die who, a half- 
 minute before his death, was worth a million dollars. 
 A half -minute after his death he was not worth ten 
 cents a dozen tied up in bundles. He left this world 
 a millionaire; he began eternity a tramp and a pau- 
 per. He could not take one of his ill-gotten dollars 
 along with him; I presum.e if he could they would 
 have all melted or burned up before they got very 
 far along in the journey. 
 
 You can not set the stamp of your physical man- 
 hood; you have nothing to say as to the color of 
 
THE MAJESTY OF SERVICE 231 
 
 your hair, your eyes or your complexion ; but you have 
 all to say as to whether you will be good or bad, true 
 or false, and that is the matter for you to consider. 
 
 Second, man is more valuable than anything he 
 has ever organized. Law, order, government, society 
 and business have all sprung from the giant intellect 
 and cunning fingers of this world's organizer, man. 
 In the sunny defiles of Greece, this world of ours 
 learned the lesson of human liberty; Rome, the great 
 civilizer of the world, gave us the idea of fraternity; 
 it was left to our own young Government to demon- 
 strate for all the coming ages the everlasting equality 
 of all men before the law. Not the equality of all 
 men, for all men are not equal. I do not think the 
 Creator designed all men to be equal. If he had, 
 he would have distributed brains and environment in 
 a far different ratio from what he has. But I do 
 believe, and our Government has demonstrated, that 
 every man should have the right to make himself the 
 equal of every other man if he can. 
 
 I ask no favors on God's green earth over any 
 man because of his race, religion or color. If a 
 Chinaman, or Hebrew, or a Booker Washington can 
 get ahead of me in the race of life, he is welcome to 
 it, and the man who wants a handicap put upon any 
 of his fellows is a coward and a weakling in life's 
 great battle. 
 
 Third, man is more valuable than anything he has 
 ever achieved. And here my brain begins to reel 
 and my mind to stagger when I try to. apprehend 
 the achievements of the world's great magician, man. 
 I am tired of the silly twaddle of some men and 
 books, who talk and write about a man being a slave 
 to blind forces. God never intended man to be a 
 
232 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 slave to anything, or anybody for that matter. The 
 first thing the Almighty ever said to a man was, 
 ''Have thou dominion," and that is not language to 
 a slave. Did you ever try to comprehend what 
 there is in that great commandment, ''Have dominion 
 over this earth''? 
 
 There is in it, first, this thought, "Pry into the 
 secrets of nature and expound them." As a result, 
 we have science. Second, "Lay hold of the forces of 
 nature and employ them;" as a result, we have art. 
 Third, "Take possession of the riches of nature and 
 enjoy them;" as a result, we have culture. Now sci- 
 ence, art and culture make up the unit of civiliza- 
 tion, and the difference between man in his most 
 deeply degraded and most highly civilized conditions 
 lies exactly in the ratio in which he carries out this 
 great primary command of his Creator. The charter 
 of civilization is found in that command. 
 
 The savage will wander under the great dome of 
 nature's mystery and majesty and never challenge 
 it with a question; the civilized man is an eternal 
 interrogation point. If the savage wants to cross a 
 continent, he will take his hands and feet, and walk 
 and swim and cross that continent in a twelvemonth; 
 his civilized brother will ravage the mine of its ore, 
 denude the forest of its oak, cage the water and the 
 fire, make nature push and pull, and cross that same 
 continent in four days. The savage woman will cover 
 herself with a straw mat and live on roots and raw 
 fish in the midst of nature's prodigality; her civilized 
 sister will dress from every quarter of the globe, and 
 "the world is compassed that a washerwoman may 
 have her tea." I was very much impressed with a 
 young lady, that I met some time ago, going down 
 
THE MAJESTY OP SERVICE 233 
 
 into my old native State of Kentucky. I was not so 
 much impressed with her beauty and culture (for she 
 was beautiful and doubtless cultured) as I was with her 
 toggery, her ''get-up.'' She had on a silk dress; I 
 imagined some worm over in China or Turkey dying 
 for that. She had on a sealskin coat; I thought some 
 seal up in the Pribolof Islands died for that. She 
 had plumes on her bonnet; I imagined some ostrich 
 hiding his head down in the sands of central Africa 
 for that. She had on diamonds, and I thought of 
 South Africa or Brazil furnishing them. She had a 
 bird on her bonnet. I am glad that birds on bonnets 
 are becoming rare to-day. I am glad the Legislatures 
 of our progressive States have made it a crime for a 
 woman to wear a bird on her bonnet. I hope that the 
 Legislatures of the world will fall into line and protect 
 our feathered songsters from such ruthless ravage. 
 
 This was not exactly a bird, either, but one of those 
 things milliners make up to look like a bird. It was 
 a lot of wings, claws, beaks and tails sewed together, 
 and looked very much as though a bird might have 
 lighted on her bonnet and exploded, and she had 
 gathered the fragments and patched them together. 
 This young lady was almost a walking menagerie, 
 for she dressed from the birds of the air, the beasts 
 of the field and the seals of the sea; and yet this is 
 civilization as compared to her sister that lives on roots 
 and raw fish, and covers herself with the straw mat. 
 
 I have piled up a few illustrations and compari- 
 sons in the threshold of this discourse, to impress upon 
 your minds this one vital, living and throbbing 
 thought, that man was not made for slavery, but 
 sovereignty; man was made to have imperial dominion 
 over every force, organization and institution on the 
 
234 SPECIAL SEEMONS 
 
 face of this earth. He will come into his golden age 
 only when every force, organization and institution 
 upon earth renders him the highest possible service, 
 and he returns to this world the highest service of 
 which he is capable. This is the fundamental thought 
 of my discourse. Out of it spring a few reflections 
 which I desire to present for your consideration. 
 
 I address myself primarily to the young people. 
 I love to talk to young people, to those who yet face 
 the sunrise with the shadows and sorrows of death be- 
 hind them. Let me say to you, young ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, as you stand before the parting ways in life, 
 seeking a work and a ministry in this world, enter no 
 profession, work at no trade, follow no calling which 
 does not in some way or other minister to and serve 
 the purposes of the great monarch, whom we call man. 
 You will throw your life away if you break its ala- 
 baster box upon less than the head of God's man. 
 
 Man can make life a hard, cold game of grab; he 
 can live to pile up dollars, acres, mortgages and bonds, 
 and become a millionaire pretty easily, but at the end 
 of that life if there has been no moral nor spiritual 
 significance to it, it is not one whit superior to the 
 life spent in piling up stone or lumber. If you will 
 pardon a historic illustration of the value of life in its 
 golden age, I will give you one with the latter part 
 of which, at least, I was familiar. About eighty years 
 ago a young man from Hagerstown, Md., made his 
 way over the Allegheny Mountains and settled in the 
 wild slashes of southeastern Indiana. He spent fifty 
 years of his life teaching school for about thirty dol- 
 lars a month and boarding around among the scholars, 
 after the fashion of the day. He called the young 
 boys around him, ragged, dirty, unkempt little fellows; 
 
THE MAJESTY OF SERVICE 235 
 
 little Tom and Ad, 01 and Lew. That man poured out 
 his life upon them. He instilled into them high ideals 
 and lofty purposes. He taught them to be upright, 
 honorable, manly and true. That old man died a few 
 years ago in the city of Indianapolis, with a mortgage 
 on his little home; he never accumulated three thou- 
 sand dollars in all his busy life. He died unhonored 
 and unsung by the great masses of the land, and there 
 are not a dozen people who read this article that re- 
 member his name, or will recall it when I pronounce 
 it, for I shall pronounce it with the reverence of a 
 pupil for his master, the honored name of Samuel K. 
 Hoshour. 
 
 But that old man lived long enough to see little 
 ''OV come out of his obscurity and rags, and stand 
 in the Senate chamber of the United States as Oliver 
 P. Morton, and make this great nation tremble with 
 his words for human liberty; he also saw little ''Tom'' 
 climb the dizzy ladder of fame, round by round, and 
 sit down in the second highest chair in this nation, 
 and the statue that adorns the forefront of Indiana's 
 capitol to-day is in memory of little ''Tom," Thomas 
 A. Hendricks, Vice-President of the United States. 
 If you want to follow the fortunes of little Lew, go 
 to the bookstore and buy that immortal book, "Ben 
 Hur," and Lew Wallace will join Addison C. Harris, 
 the great minister and author, Oliver P. Morton, 
 Thomas A. Hendricks and more than a hundred other 
 distinguished Hoosiers in declaring that the founda- 
 tions of their early manhood were laid by the little, 
 old Hoosier schoolmaster, who taught his life out for 
 thirty dollars a month and his board. 
 
 Young ladies and gentlemen, I would rather be a 
 Samuel K. Hoshour, or one of the humblest school- 
 
236 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 teachers in the State of Indiana, teaching young 
 Hoosiers to grow up into honorable manhood and 
 womanhood than to be a whole syndicate of pro- 
 moters, coal and food manipulators and mortgage 
 brokers. There is more glory in one life devoted to 
 the human race than in a thousand devoted to mere 
 personal ambition and the attainment of great wealth. 
 What is true of the individual life is equally true of 
 the organic life. When the Master said that 'Hhe 
 Sabbath was made for man," He uttered a universal 
 truth. Laws are for man, government, society, business, 
 home; the church of God itself is for man, and each 
 of these great institutions is valuable and only valu- 
 able in the ratio that it ministers to man here or 
 hereafter. In the light of this thought, let us try 
 some of the great institutions of civilization. 
 
 I call your attention in the first place to that insti- 
 tution known as civil government. Civil government 
 exists that it may minister to, and serve the purpose 
 of, the individual, and its value is determined by the 
 ratio in which it carries out that object. As Amer- 
 icans we are very proud of our Government, and justly 
 so, but sometimes, I think, a little boastfully so. 
 Often do we hear our orators and campaigners utter 
 the statement that **we are the greatest nation on 
 the face of this earth"; we listen to it and pat our- 
 selves upon the breast and our neighbor upon the back, 
 and thank God that we are not citizens of the ''effete 
 monarchies." Well, this statement is true; true in a 
 far higher sense than many of these orators ever 
 dream when uttering it, but it is not true as they utter 
 it. The man who thinks the United States Govern- 
 ment is the greatest and most powerful when measured 
 by the foreign standards by which civil government 
 
THE MAJESTY OF SERVICE 237 
 
 is gauged, is an ignoramus with regard to civil 
 government. 
 
 No man, who has not witnessed the clocklike pre- 
 cision with which the strong governments of Europe 
 regulate their internal affairs in times of peace, com- 
 mand united co-operation in times of war and reha- 
 bilitate themselves in days of reconstruction, is in 
 position to make invidious comparisons. It would do 
 us conceited Yankees a little good to get out and travel 
 around the world, that we may have some appreciation 
 of those civil governments that are backed by the power 
 and dignity of long centuries of experience. The first 
 standard by which governmental greatness has been 
 measured in Europe is military strength, the second 
 is that of naval power, and the third is religious ex- 
 pression. In both military and naval strength, the old 
 countries have always excelled us, and even now, in 
 spite of peace leagues and disarmament conferences, 
 the European armies and navies are slowly, grimly 
 and surely planning to come back. In religious ex- 
 pression the old countries have always surpassed us. 
 Where are our magnificent cathedrals with spires 
 pointing to the skies as in Europe? Where are 
 our immense picture galleries, and galleries of sculp- 
 ture teeming with the works of the old masters? And 
 where are our ancient museums — ^hives of art — into 
 which have been gathered the honey of the genius of 
 centuries ? 
 
 '^But," says one, *'we have our great domain and 
 our broad acres of territory." Yes, my friend, and 
 there are governments over there that control vast 
 stretches of earth by the side of which we are but a 
 patch. We may as well admit these things if we wish 
 to be fair to the facts of history. And yet, in 
 
238 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 spite of all that I have said, I do not hesitate to 
 proclaim the fact that our type of patriotism, our 
 intelligence and the thrift of our people form a wall 
 of strength about us that is greater than that which 
 the mere armies and navies of other nations can produce. 
 
 When Agesilaus was asked why Sparta had no 
 walls, he replied : ' ' She needs none ; the concord of her 
 citizens is her strength.'' It is related of Benjamin 
 Franklin that when he was United States Minister 
 at the Court of Versailles, he attended a great diplo- 
 matic banquet, at which the English Minister arose, 
 and, lifting his cup, said, *' Here's to England, the 
 sun that shines for all the world;" the French Minis- 
 ter, coming in a good second, said, ^'Here's to France, 
 the moon that shines wherever and whenever the sun 
 does not;" when it came the turn of our Minister, 
 Franklin arose and said with dignity, ** Here's to the 
 United States, the young Joshua who commands the 
 sun and the moon to stand still, and they obey him;" 
 and they do. 
 
 A few years ago when Grover Cleveland said to 
 John Bull, *'Go a little slowly down on the borders 
 of Venezuela," John Bull called a halt; a few years 
 later, when Theodore Roosevelt said to Germany, 
 France and Italy combined, ^'You would better arbi- 
 trate with that little South American sister of ours," 
 they arbitrated; when George Dewey said to Admiral 
 Deitrick, commander of the Imperial German squadron 
 in Manila Bay, *^If you don't quit running this 
 blockade and violating the laws of honorable warfare, I 
 will sink every ship you have in this harbor; move off 
 shore," down moved the Imperial squadron at the com- 
 mand of the little Yankee. "Whenever America lifts 
 her voice in command, the world '* walks Spanish." 
 
THE MAJESTY OF SERVICE 239 
 
 Now, why are we the greatest nation on the face 
 of the earth? It is not because of our army, our 
 navy, our territory, or our institutions of learning or 
 devotion. I will tell you why, and tell it in the echo 
 of the one thought of this address. The United States 
 is the greatest and most powerful nation of this earth 
 because everything in it is made to minister to and 
 serve the purpose of the individual citizen. The Czar 
 of Russia cared little how much vodka his subjects 
 drank so he had an army and navy. The Sultan of 
 Turkey recked little if his subjects lived on black 
 bread and goat's milk cheese all their lives, if he had 
 a full exchequer. In the United States we would not 
 give the snap of our finger for a government that 
 does not educate, elevate and expand the individual 
 citizen. In many of the Old World countries it is ^^the 
 people of the government, by the government and for 
 the government/' with us it is, as Theodore Parker, 
 of Boston, first uttered, Daniel Webster reiterated and 
 Abraham Lincoln incarnated, ^^We are a government of 
 the whole people, by the whole people and for the whole 
 people.'' Our government is fitted, framed and or- 
 ganized to minister to the people in the highest de- 
 gree. The makers of our government realized that 
 man is essentially and by nature a thinker, a talker 
 and an actor, and they framed this government to 
 develop man along these three sides of his nature, and 
 stimulate the highest possible freedom. They laid wide 
 and deep the foundations of the little red schoolhouse, 
 which became the greatest house on the American con- 
 tinent or any other. The playground of an American 
 school is the greatest democratic platform in the 
 world. Here little Patrick, whose father dug peat out 
 of the bogs of Ireland; little Sandy, whose father 
 
240 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 herded sheep upon the hills of Scotland; little Hans, 
 whose father wore wooden shoes in Germany, and little 
 Cuffy, whose father picked cotton bales in the fields 
 of South Carolina, meet upon a common level. Here 
 are taught the two most important lessons the human 
 being can learn: first, to take care of his own rights, 
 and, second, to respect the rights of others, and the boy 
 who does not know these lessons will have them 
 trounced into him on the playground of the American 
 school. 
 
 It is with no little sadness that we watch the board- 
 ing up of the little, old-fashioned country schoolhouse, 
 that is being displaced by the modem, centralized in- 
 stitution; but no one can ever board up the demo- 
 cratic spirit that has been fostered there and that will 
 continue to be fostered in its more pretentious 
 successors. 
 
 But man is also a talker, and, that he should have 
 the right to express his thoughts, this Government 
 is organized to insure the highest expression of them, 
 and, as a symbol, we have the great printing-press, 
 without censorship, without dictatorship, except the 
 censorship and dictatorship of an enlightened public 
 opinion. 
 
 As an expression of the right to act, we have a 
 little old box, abused, kicked about and neglected, but 
 representing the highest political freedom in the world 
 — the ballot-box of an American election. In spite of 
 all the abuses that have clustered around it, it is a 
 great thing for an American freeman to cast an Amer- 
 ican ballot. These little ballots on election day fall 
 over our land like snowflakes forming an avalanche of 
 public opinion, that will sweep away faults, right 
 wrongs and correct abuses. 
 
THE MAJESTY OF SERVICE 241 
 
 It is these things, rather than armies, navies and 
 picture galleries, that constitute our greatness, because 
 they minister to and serve the wants of the individual 
 man. As long as we are true to these great symbols 
 of our power, this Government will stand because it 
 ought to stand; but when we neglect these institu- 
 tions, prostitute them, this Government will die, and 
 it ought to die and be succeeded by a Government 
 that will be true to these emblems of service. 
 
 Are there no danger signals before the American 
 people? Are there no red lights to warn us of ap- 
 proaching evil? Here truth, honesty and patriotism 
 compel us to say ''Yes"; there are forces coiling them- 
 selves around these emblems of our greatness which, 
 if left undisturbed, will work our ruin. 
 
 Are you aware of the fact that a sentiment is 
 rapidly crystallizing in this country that, if it suc- 
 ceeds, will be the death-blow to all that the little red 
 schoolhouse ever stood for? If you don't know it, you 
 should know it. But I wish to speak guardedly here, 
 lest I be misunderstood. I am not laying this charge at 
 the feet of any great political party among us, neither 
 am I charging it against any great religious denom- 
 ination. I do not believe we have any religious de- 
 nomination, as such, that has any such treasonable 
 purpose in view. I desire to be fair with every man, 
 though he may differ with me in politics or in religion. 
 But there are vile men in all our parties, political or 
 religious, secular or sacred, who, to accomplish their 
 vile purposes, would put out the torch of enlightenment 
 in our public schools. 
 
 I only lay that charge at the door of those who 
 openly boast of their intention to destroy our schools. 
 Not long since a great leader of thought discussing, in 
 
 16 
 
242 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 one of the largest journals in the land, the destruction 
 of our school system, said, ''This is what we are com- 
 ing to, no matter what the Constitution of the United 
 States says about it/' Benedict Arnold nor Jefferson 
 Davis ever uttered more treasonable language against 
 his country than that leader of public opinion, and 
 he would not hesitate to fight against that liberty for 
 which stands the American schoolhouse with the 
 American flag waving over it. On this question all 
 political parties should stand together, and pledge 
 themselves to deliver the land thoroughly from men 
 who stand over the schools to cast them out, thus 
 showing sentiments at war with our Government and 
 with civilization. I can only say that if there lives 
 a man on the American continent whose sentiments 
 are at war with the American flag waving over the 
 American school, he had better readjust his sentiments 
 so they will come into line with these institutions or 
 take his sentiments back to the land from which he 
 brought them; for the man or set of men who will 
 lay leprous hands upon the American school will go 
 down in the conflict they incite. 
 
 Let every American patriot, Republican or Demo- 
 crat, Protestant or Catholic, line up and touch elbows 
 in the determination to save the American public 
 school, the hope of eighteen millions of our boys and 
 girls, and the protecting angel of American freedom 
 and patriotism. 
 
 Are you aware of the fact that there is a senti- 
 ment arising in this country that will ultimately de- 
 stroy the second emblem of our power, the printing- 
 press? As I said in the beginning, I believe that we 
 have the best press on the face of this earth; I believe 
 that most of the editors who sit in the sanctum are 
 
THE MAJESTY OF SERVICE 243 
 
 as patriotic as the men upon onr platforms, or in our 
 pulpits for that matter; but it is a notable fact that 
 we have men in the editorial chair who do not hesi- 
 tate to prostitute the high function of journalism on 
 the altar of party spirit; men who do not hesitate 
 to dip their pens into wormwod and gall, and write 
 slime and slander over the name of many a good man 
 for no other reason than that he is a candidate on the 
 other side of the political fence, and they will ruin 
 him if they can. Such men ought to be dressed up 
 a la zebra and sent to their State penal institution for 
 a term, to learn that the reputation of their political 
 opponents is sacred from libel. 
 
 Are you aware that a sentiment is rapidly organ- 
 izing in this country having for its object the death- 
 blow to the third emblem of our power, the ballot- 
 box? While you are reading this discourse, there are 
 men all over this land who are plotting treason 
 against the American ballot and the American voter; 
 men who call themselves ''practical politicians," who 
 think that the revenues of a great city, State or 
 country are the legitimate plunder of men who are 
 smart enough to organize and loot them. There is hard- 
 ly a State in the Union that has not been disgraced 
 with a political gang having for its object graft upon 
 the revenues of the State or municipality. Such men 
 do not like to see the average citizen in politics; the 
 fewer men in politics, the better for them. 
 
 The average American citizen is so intent upon 
 looking after his own business, profession or calling 
 that he turns over the political machinery of the coun- 
 try to ^Hhe gang," ''the bosses" and "the boys." I 
 am a minister of the gospel and one that has politics. 
 I do not ventilate my politics in print, but any man 
 
244 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 can get my politics for the asking. I have not the 
 least respect in the world for a preacher who gets so 
 goody-goody that he hasn't any politics; such men 
 are fit to be put in alcohol (or rather, I would say, 
 some soft drink), and laid away in a museum. I do 
 not believe that a preacher ever set a better example 
 to his flock than by attending the primaries and help- 
 ing to select delegates and to formulate platforms. 
 President Harrison said, on one occasion, that '^God 
 Almighty never endowed any man or set of men with 
 wisdom enough to frame laws that everybody could 
 go off and leave/' and this is what we have been do- 
 ing for generations. 
 
 The patriotism of peace is no less valuable than 
 the patriotism of war. There is as much patriotism 
 in balloting and selecting good men and measures to 
 rule in our land as there is in springing to the rescue 
 of our flag in time of invasion or insurrection. The 
 golden age of our Government will never come until 
 the average American citizen realizes the importance 
 and value of these great emblems of our power — a 
 glorious heritage bequeathed to us by the men who 
 reaped them on fields of suffering and bloodshed — and 
 shall rise in his might to rescue these emblems from 
 the greed of the spoiler and the trickster, and purify 
 them for power and for service to the oncoming 
 citizens of our Eepublic. 
 
 Again, I direct your attention to that institution 
 known as business. Business is a great organization 
 having for its object the service of all who engage in 
 it, and its value as an organization may be gauged 
 by the ratio in which it performs that service. Do 
 the men in the business world realize that we are on 
 the heels of a great business revolution? Forces that 
 
THE MAJESTY OF SERVICE 245 
 
 should be pulling together like Siamese twins are 
 pulling apart, turning their guns upon each other, 
 and, unless prudent counsel and wise caution prevail, 
 this country may be rent asunder by dissensions in 
 the business world. 
 
 At one extreme we have the professional striker 
 and labor agitator, paid to embroil capital and labor, 
 if possible. He is a dangerous element in the business 
 world and I have no excuse for him. At the other 
 extreme is a no less dangerous character, the purse- 
 proud millionaire aristocrat, who has accumulated 
 great wealth through no particular merit of his own, 
 but through business conditions which sTiould not 
 exist, and has forgotten that he is a brother to the 
 rest of the human race. He attempts to use men as 
 he would machines, until they begin to *^ rattle a lit- 
 tle," and then throws them on the scrap-pile and se- 
 cures others. Not long since a great manufacturer in 
 this country said, speaking to his fellow-manufac- 
 turers: ''The time has come when we must get the 
 strongest men we can, work them as hard as we can 
 and pay them as little as we can." Such a man is 
 as great a menace to the business world as the vilest 
 professional labor agitator could possibly be. 
 
 Between these two extremes lies the great body 
 of honest employers who are willing to pay an honest 
 wage for an honest day's work to an honest laborer 
 willing to work an honest day for an honest wage. 
 These honest classes are all endangered by the ex- 
 tremes of which I have spoken. What is the trouble 
 with business? Instead of being a medium by which 
 men serve and help one another, it has become a me- 
 dium by which men prey upon one another. Victor 
 Hugo would have settled this question for us a half- 
 
246 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 century ago if we had heeded his advice. He tells 
 US, '^ There are two problems connected with business; 
 first, the problem of acquiring wealth; and, second, the 
 problem of rightly distributing wealth. '^ We have 
 concentrated our energies so much upon the first prob- 
 lem that we have neglected the second problem en- 
 tirely, but it is up to us for settlement to-day. 
 
 Strikes, lockouts and walkouts will never settle the 
 question. They may clarify the atmosphere and define 
 the right. I do not wish to be a pessimist upon this 
 subject. I believe that the business troubles will be 
 settled speedily and rightly; already I see the gleam 
 of a coming day. This great country, which has grap- 
 pled with and settled so many questions, will settle 
 the* question of capital and labor. My heart was 
 greatly cheered sometime ago as I read a statement 
 in a newspaper from the secretary of the Chicago City 
 Street Railway Company, in which he. said: **This 
 company is beginning to learn that a large part of its 
 capital stock lies in the welfare and contentment and 
 prosperity of its employees." "When these great cor- 
 porations speak in that manner, it is the harbinger of 
 peace. Honor to the great railway companies of the 
 United States, many of which are now inaugurating 
 pension systems by which the employee who has faith- 
 fully served the company for years may retire with 
 an income sufiicient to keep the wolf from the door 
 the rest of his life. 
 
 I know a great corporation that employs six 
 thousand operatives, and the business is built upon the 
 principle of human brotherhood from the lowest mud- 
 sill to the highest official. They have a great table 
 around which thirty or forty men take lunch every 
 day; half of these men represent the capital of the 
 
THE MAJESTY OF SERVICE 247 
 
 company, the other half represent its labor, and no 
 question is acted upon until both capital and labor 
 have been heard from. For their employees they have 
 all kinds of conveniences and accommodations, that 
 show a keen interest in their welfare. They have 
 boxes all around the factory over which are inscribed 
 the words: ^'If our employees see how we may improve 
 our methods, let them make suggestions and drop them 
 into this box. Each suggestion that is adopted will 
 be paid for.'' A young man having charge of their 
 shipping department, sending out twenty-six thousand 
 packages every month, wrote on a slip of paper: ^'You 
 can make a better handle and save twelve inches of 
 rope upon each package." The board of governors 
 found that he was correct. They discovered that his 
 suggestion would save them two thousand dollars in a 
 year, and wrote a check to the young man for one 
 thousand dollars, almost enough to buy him a little 
 'home, and they did not give him a red copper too 
 much. 
 
 There are many such factories in the United States 
 to-day, and they are doubling and trebling annually. 
 Honor to the great Pennsylvania Scotchman, Andrew 
 Carnegie! I am glad he went on giving away library 
 buildings and church organs until he died a compara- 
 tively poor man, as he proclaimed it his intention to 
 do. But when I go to western Pennsylvania, and see 
 the great fires from the vast furnaces where Mr. Car- 
 negie's employees earned their hundreds of millions; 
 when I walk through those manufacturing towns and 
 see the ill-paved streets, neglected fore yards and rear 
 yards, the unsanitary conditions and the old red paint 
 on each building where women are dying at thirty 
 years of age and men are not living out half their 
 
248 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 natural time because they are burning their lives out 
 in front of those hot fires; when I see their children 
 who look like half -starved little beggars in the streets — 
 I could wish that Mr. Carnegie had given a few mil- 
 lions of dollars less for library buildings and church 
 organs, and a few millions more to educating, refining 
 and making comfortable the people who were turning 
 his pig iron into gold for him. 
 
 I was at Vandergriff, Pa., sometime ago in the 
 great sheet-steel works, where the company had done 
 much for its employees in the way of building casinos, 
 organizing libraries and reading-rooms to insure recre- 
 ation as well as giving good wages. Shortly after my 
 visit, there was a depression in the sheet-steel trade, 
 and the company called the foremen together and said : 
 ''We can not continue running this factory at present 
 prices;'' the foremen called the operatives into a 
 meeting and acquainted them with the situation; they 
 immediately appointed a committee to draft a paper, 
 making a voluntary reduction of 20 per cent, of their 
 wages, and further said: ''If this is not enough, there 
 is a rubber on the end of the pencil accompanying 
 this paper; rub out the reduction and make it more 
 if necessary.'* That is the reply of honest labor to 
 honest capital. 
 
 The settlement of the labor question will come 
 when the employer realizes that under God he is the 
 true servant of every man in his employ, that it is 
 his privilege to make money through them and for 
 them as well. The golden age of business will come 
 when it becomes the great medium by which men 
 through love serve one another. 
 
 In conclusion, fearing that I have missed some one, 
 I wish to say that in the golden age of eternity, to 
 
THE MAJESTY OF SERVICE 249 
 
 which home, church, society and State are bearing ns, 
 we will not be graded according to our wealth, our 
 literary prestige, or our political pull; there it will 
 be what we have done as the servants of God and his 
 man that decides our eternal destiny. Eighteousness 
 will not be crowded into us by any sort of dynamics; 
 glory shall not be draped upon us from without like a 
 garment; they must spring up from within and grow 
 through a life of service. Beautifully has the poetess 
 taught this in her ode to the water-lily. Walking the 
 river brink, and seeing a little lily burst from the 
 waters and throw up its white petals to the sunshine, 
 she lifted her thoughts in poetic fervor and said: 
 
 '*0 star on the breast of the river, 
 
 marvel of bloom and of grace, 
 Did you fall right down from heaven, 
 
 Out of the sweetest place? 
 
 ''You are as pure as the thoughts of an angel, 
 Your heart is steeped in the sun. 
 Did 70U grow in the Radiant City, 
 My pure and holy onef 
 
 ''Nay, nay," said the' lily; *^I fell not from heaven. 
 None gave me my saintly white; 
 I slowly grew in the darkness, 
 Down in the dreary night. 
 
 "From the ooze and slime of the river 
 
 1 won my glory and grace. 
 White souls fall not^ O my poet; 
 
 They rise to the highest place/' 
 
JTTAIjLACE THAEP was horn in Middletovm, Ky., Sept, 22, 
 yy 1858, He graduated from Forest Home Academy, An- 
 chorage, Ky., and did postgraduate work in Transylvania College 
 and the College of the Bible, Lexington, Ky, His first pastorate 
 was with the Church of Christ, Glasgow, Ky,, for four years, 
 followed by five years with the church at Versailles, Ky,; two 
 years at Carlisle, Ky.; five years at Augusta, Ga.; five years at 
 Crawfordsville, Ind., and nineteen years at North Side, Pittsburgh, 
 Fa., where his ministry still continues, 
 
 Mr. Tharp has traveled in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, 
 making special studies of Egypt and Palestine, In 1909 he con- 
 ducted the largest comrminion service ever held. It was at the 
 Centennial Convention of the Disciples of Christ held in Pitts- 
 burgh, 
 
 He has delivered mnny special addresses and lectures, and held 
 a large number of evangelistic meetings. 
 
 251 
 
Church Dedication Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introductory Note — Texts. 
 
 I. Human Needs and the Measure of God's Supply. 
 
 1. Man has a gripping sense of poverty. Met by 
 
 adoption into Crod's family. 
 
 2. Man has a hitter sense of bereavement. Met by 
 
 the comforting assurance of immortality. 
 
 3. Man has a humiliating sense of his ignorance and 
 
 limitations. Met by the promise that we shall 
 know as we are known. 
 
 4. Man has a sad and suffOTing sense of sin. Met by 
 
 opportunity for salvation. 
 
 5. Man has a depressing sense of smallness and un- 
 
 productiveness of his service. Met by assurance 
 that our good deeds are greater than they appeax. 
 
 II. The Meaning of This House Is What It Shall Declare. 
 
 1. God should be worshiped by every responsible being 
 
 in this community. 
 
 2. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. 
 
 3. This is simply and only a church of Christ. 
 
 4. Where the Scriptures speak, this church will speak. 
 
 5. The whole world shall know the truth. 
 
 Dedicatory Responsive Service. 
 
 252 
 
SUPERABUNDANT BENEFACTIONS 
 AND SIGNIFICANT MONUMENTS 
 
 Church Dedication Sermon by Wallace Tharp 
 
 Bring ye tlie whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may 
 be food in my house^ and prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah 
 of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour 
 you out a blessing, that there Shall not be room enough to receive 
 it.— Mai. 3 : 10. 
 
 What mean ye by these stones? — Josh. 4: 6. 
 
 NOTE : Upon the occasion of the dedication of a 
 church building, two objectives are usually in 
 the program. The first of these is the ^'setting 
 apart,'' in a holy or consecrated sense, of a building 
 that is to be devoted to the worship of almighty God 
 after the manner discovered in the New Testament. 
 
 The second one is the raising of money to satisfy 
 all debts that may have accrued in the construction of 
 the building. 
 
 The following sermon is designed to prepare the 
 minds and hearts of the people to satisfy both these 
 objectives; consequently, two texts, wholly unrelated 
 to each other, have been chosen, and practically two 
 themes are treated in the address. 
 
 The first part of the sermon that follows, that on 
 ''Superabundant Benefactions,'' should prepare us for 
 generous giving; and the second part, that on ''Sig- 
 nificant Monuments," should supply the reasons for 
 the existence of the building that is being dedicated. 
 
 253 
 
254 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Fellow Citizens of the Kingdom of God, Men and 
 Brethren : 
 
 You have eminent examples and compelling reasons 
 for making this a great and solemn and beautiful 
 occasion. You are engaged in a tremendous and sig- 
 nificant business. "What you are doing to-day is for an 
 *'age on ages telling"; it is joining hands with God in 
 bringing about His will on earth as it is done in 
 heaven. Your minds and hearts should be very reverent 
 and ready now to receive any word that God would 
 speak to you. And He has spoken! The wonderful 
 echoes of that voice will reach you in this hour; and 
 what He says you should receive obediently, lovingly, 
 and without questioning. Hear Him, as through the 
 lips of Malachi, His prophet, He speaks to you to-day: 
 ''Bring ye the whole tithe into the storehouse, that 
 there may be food in my house, and prove me now 
 herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open you 
 the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, 
 that there shall not be room enough to receive it.'' 
 
 Our gracious Benefactor never equates His giving 
 with our capacity for receiving. Abundant is God's 
 own word. How He loves to use it! ''I will abun- 
 dantly pardon;" ''abundantly able to save;" "I will 
 administer unto you an abundant entrance" into His 
 everlasting kingdom; and again, in this text, He dis- 
 covers His overgenerous hand: "Bring ye the whole 
 tithe into the storehouse, and prove me now herewith, 
 said Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open you the win- 
 dows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there 
 shall not be room enough to receive it." 
 
 The proof of the truth of the challenge found in 
 this text may be witnessed on every hand. All the 
 
SIGNIFICANT MONUMENTS 255 
 
 eyes of earth and heaven can not take in all the light 
 that God has given; all the lungs of all the breath- 
 ing creatures of God can not take in all the ozone and 
 atmosphere with which God floods this universe; all 
 the mouths of all the living creatures of this earth 
 can not drink all the sparkling water that He pours forth 
 from the fertile paps of earth's fountains. Despite the 
 fact that man's heart, in its desires and longings, is 
 one great void whose cavernous echo is ever *^More,'' 
 ''More,'' whose sense of want is enormous and never 
 satisfied, still our generous Father issues the chal- 
 lenge, ''Prove me now, and see if I will not open you 
 the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, 
 that there will not be room enough to receive it." 
 
 Let us note some of the common feelings of Jiu- 
 man needs and the measure of God^s supply. 
 
 First, we observe that man has a keen and grip- 
 ping sense of Poverty. 
 
 The vast majority of the people of this world are 
 poor, very poor; and they feel it keenly too. Jesus 
 Himself said, "The poor ye have always with you." 
 Now, what "windows of heaven" has God opened for 
 the poor of this earth? Opened, and out of it poured 
 a blessing so great that poverty is transformed into 
 treasure and into wealth, so abundant that hearts 
 can not contain it? Please understand, brethren, that 
 God does not propose to meet this sense of want by 
 pouring gold dollars or coin current of any kind into 
 your hand. He has opened a finer and broader and 
 more beautiful window than that. Through His grace, 
 on the terms and conditions of the gospel of His dear 
 Son, He has provided for each of us that we may be 
 adopted into the family of the King of kings, and 
 thus become an heir of God and a joint-heir with 
 
256 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Jesus Christ; an heir hereditary to all the hold- 
 ings, the boundless and beautiful holdings, of the 
 King. 
 
 ''My Father is rich in houses and lands; 
 He holdeth the wealth of the world in His hands; 
 Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold, 
 His coffers are full — He has riches untold." 
 
 As a son or daughter of God you are an inheritor 
 of all this. Ah! what heart can contain it? What 
 mind grasp it? How much better it is than to give 
 us titles to houses and lands and earthly goods! With 
 these come sorrows, cares and litigations and, often, 
 dissensions; with the other come joys unspeakable and 
 full of glory. '^I stood upon the banks of the river 
 Po, and looked upon an Italian sky. I'd rather leave 
 my boy ten thousand acres of sky and not one inch 
 of land, than to leave him ten thousand acres of land 
 and none of sky." 
 
 Again, man has a keen and bitter sense of 
 Bereaveynent, 
 
 Where is the heart that has not felt its sting? 
 Death does sad things with us and ours, my friends. 
 
 ''Death rides in every passing breeze. 
 
 And lurks in every flower; 
 Each season has its own disease, 
 
 Its peril every hour. 
 Leaves have their time to fall, 
 
 And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, 
 And stars to set^ — ^but all — 
 
 Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death i ' ' 
 
 When the season of sadness settles upon you because 
 of the death of one you loved; when the emptiness of 
 the home haunts you like a hideous dream when you 
 have returned home from the burying-place ; when the 
 
SIGNIFICANT MONUMENTS 257 
 
 pain of the last good-by grip^ your heart until it 
 aches and you cry aloud — ^under what '* window of 
 heaven'' can you go and be flooded with a blessing 
 that will soothe your sorrow and give you surcease 
 from pain? There is such a window, and God opened 
 it. When Whittier lost by death his favorite sister, he 
 thought his heart would break. But sitting one day 
 where he could see a portrait of his sister, he took up 
 a pencil and wrote: 
 
 '^And yet, dear heart, remeinbering thee, 
 -Am I not richer than of old; 
 Safe in thine immortality, 
 
 What change can reach the wealth I hold?'' 
 
 Over against death, God has written the word '* im- 
 mortality. ' ' And through this beautiful window flood 
 the light and glory of all the hopes that fill and 
 sweeten the human heart. Gazing through this win- 
 dow, with the eye of faith we can see the home of 
 God, and in that home we see again the ones we lived 
 with and lost, ransomed and redeemed, made happy 
 in love and light and confronted with nothing that 
 makes sighing, crying or dying — and all this for- 
 evermore. 
 
 Again, man has a keen and humiliating sense of his 
 Ignorance and Limitations. 
 
 This is particularly true of those who are wisest 
 and know the most. We have accomplished much, very 
 much, in the continent of knowledge. We have cata- 
 logued and scientifically arranged much that is to be 
 known about our world, our race, and its experiences; 
 the water, air and sky. But our volume of knowledge, 
 compared with the vast libraries of things to be known, 
 leaves us with a bitter sense of ignorance and of the 
 limitations that are necessarily ours. 
 
 17 
 
258 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 What ^'window of heaven" has God opened to meet 
 man's longing here? I do not mean to have you hope 
 that God will, in some mysterious way, lead yon along 
 the path of definitions or of answers to all the specula- 
 tions and anxious questions that have tested and tan- 
 talized you in your struggle for knowledge. He has 
 done something finer and more glorious still. To me, 
 there is no sweeter promise in all the gospel of our Lord 
 than this: ''We shall know even as we are known." 
 With what wild welcome, too, I read that we shall 
 ''learn lessons that pass knowledge" and learn them 
 from Him of whom Paul spoke when he said: "0 the 
 depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge 
 of God." How my heart has longed for answers to 
 some questions that have confronted me as I have 
 lived and moved among men; and how it thrills me 
 when the hope fills my heart that 
 
 ''The answers are somewliere. 
 Safe and fair, 
 
 Beyond the stars and the starlit air, 
 For men and women and Eobin Adair. ' ' 
 
 What heart of man can contain the fullness of the 
 blessing that pours through the window God has 
 opened here! 
 
 Furthermore, man has a sad and suffering sense 
 of Sin. 
 
 Not only of his personal sin, but of the sins of a 
 whole world. Even a casual glance at the men and 
 women of to-day will discover a piteous spectacle of 
 sin. And just at this time the world seems to have 
 gone on a mad, wild, riotous debauch. At no time 
 could the question be asked with a more sure and posi- 
 tive answer — "Does sin abound?" And when we re- 
 member that 
 
SIGNIFICANT MONUMENTS 259 
 
 ' ' Sorrow follows wrong, 
 As echo follows soDg, 
 On, on, on, on/' 
 
 we are led up to the reason for man's sad and suf- 
 fering sense of sin. Nothing in all this world is so 
 hateful to God as sin; and nothing has so cursed this 
 earth and saddened man. It brought death into this 
 world ^'with all our woe and loss of Eden." It sowed 
 the prolific seeds of sorrow and suffering in the hearts 
 of men. It placed thorns amid our flowers, and weeds 
 and briars and thistles in our earth. It bars the 
 doors of heaven and happiness against those who are 
 exercised therein, and it set on fire the fuel of hell. 
 And when it had made wreck and ruin of men and 
 of man's earth, it reached its potential hand up to 
 the right hand of God and made it necessary to send 
 down to this sin-cursed earth His eternal companion, 
 and incarnate Him in the weak and suffering flesh 
 of man and subject Him to all of man's temptations. 
 Indeed, the sweep, grip and consequences of sin 
 are immeasurable, indescribable, unpicturable and ap- 
 palling, and its power, deceitfulness and damning 
 cunning are riotously active to-day. 
 
 What ^^ window of heaven" has God thrown open 
 that can measure to and overcome so fearful and 
 terrible a condition as this? Let Him answer: ''Does 
 sin abound? grace doth much more abound." Over 
 against man's measureless sin God places His im- 
 measurable love and His willingness to forgive. 
 ''Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as 
 white as snow." "I will remember them against you 
 no more for ever." A fountain has been opened in 
 Israel for the cleansing of the nations. 
 
260 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 "There is a fountain filled with blood 
 Drawn from Inunanners veins ^ 
 And sinners plunged beneath that flood 
 Lose all their guilty stains. '^ 
 
 When I think of the great Jehovah forming the worlds, 
 setting on fire the suns, writing the silent and po- 
 tential and unerring laws which the material universe 
 obeys, marking out the pathways of the planets and 
 writing the mnsic they sing as they march on their 
 way, I am filled with amazement, admiration and 
 wonder; but, when I think of Him laying under 
 tribute the boundless resources of His love, wisdom 
 and power to develop into glorious perfection a plan 
 by which His poor, deluded, miserable, fallen and 
 sinful children might be forgiven, cleansed, redeemed 
 and beatified, I am filled with hope, joy, gratitude 
 and love, and have no room to hold all the fullness of 
 such blessing. No wonder Paul speaks of Jesus as 
 G-od's ^^unspeakable gift.'^ "What tongue could tell, 
 what feeble words express, the beauty, glory, joy, hope 
 and sweetness of the salvation from the guilt and con- 
 sequences of sin, brought to us through Him! 
 
 "'^ Could we with ink the ocean fill, 
 
 And were the skj a parchment made; 
 Were every stalk on earth a quill, 
 
 And every man a scribe by trade — 
 Ta write the love of God for man 
 
 Would drain that ocean dry; 
 Nor would that scroll contain the whole, 
 
 Though stretched from sky to sky. ^' 
 
 Love so unmerited, unsolicited and eternal as God's 
 love for us surely obligates us to Him in a measure 
 we can never fill. But we should do our best to love 
 Him with all there is within us. 
 
SIGNIFICANT MONUMENTS 261 
 
 "Were tlie whole realm of nature mine, 
 That were a present far too small; 
 Love so amazing, so divine, 
 
 Demands my life, my soul^ my all.'' 
 
 In dedicating this house of worship to-day, with what 
 joy and generosity should you give of yourselves, 
 your service, and your substance! 
 
 Once again, and finally, on this part of my theme: 
 Man has a depressing sense of the smallness and uTt- 
 productiveness of Jiis service, even when it is rendered 
 with the most sincere and earnest diligence. 
 
 The task God has set for us is so great! Some- 
 times we feel like pigmies, with tiny pickaxes, dig- 
 ging at Himalayan or Rocky Mountain ranges. The 
 recent *^ World Survey" discovered to us the immen- 
 sity of the task we have yet to perform, to even begin 
 the fulfilling of the will of God on earth as it is done 
 in heaven. Sixteen hundred millions of human beings 
 on this earth, only one-third of whom have ever heard 
 of heaven, much less of the ^^ windows'' God has 
 '^opened'' in heaven! And when you know of the 
 paganism, idolatry, false religions and unspeakable 
 sins that enslave and doom them, to say nothing of 
 the miserable half-heartedness, hypocrisy, sectarianism 
 and unfaithfulness of those who do profess to know 
 and love God, the task bulks so large and dreadful 
 that the value of only one man's work seems so small 
 and insignificant that the thought settles upon him 
 with desperate discouragement. 
 
 What *' window of heaven" has God opened here 
 that will fill us with a blessing so great that we shall 
 have no room to contain it? 
 
 Permit me to assure you that God has provided for 
 this very thing most abundantly. He has so arranged 
 
262 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 it in His wonderful economy that our deeds are often 
 infinitely greater than they appear upon the face of 
 them. "Witness the ''widow's mite." Apparently so 
 small a deed, but in reality that act has inspired more 
 gifts for the treasury of our Lord than the gifts of 
 Eockefeller, Peabody, Frick and Carnegie combined. 
 ''A cup of cold water given in my name shall not lose 
 its reward." One kind act of a Christian girl changed 
 the whole course of the life of Jerry McAuley from a 
 drunken sot to a potential witness for Jesus. His 
 missions go round the world to-day like a golden girdle. 
 ''A kindly word, fitly spoken, is like an apple of gold 
 in a basket of silver. ' ' No labor is vain or unproductive 
 if it be done ''in the Lord." To the puny action of 
 our weak arm, God joins His omnipotence, and the act 
 that we sometimes judge to be so small and unrespon- 
 sive moves mountains. "I can do all things through 
 Christ who strengtheneth me, ' ' says Paul. And besides 
 all this, we have God's own declaration. "I will over- 
 turn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more, 
 until he come whose right it is, and I will give it him. ' ' 
 
 I confidently anticipate a complete victory over 
 this world. A glad and glorious time when God's 
 kingdom shall cover this earth as the waters cover the 
 beds of the seas. A time when He shall "have the 
 heathen for his inheritance" from the "rivers to the 
 ends of the earth." When the "Holy City" shall be 
 upon this earth and there shall be "a new heaven and 
 a new earth," and God's will shall be done on earth 
 as it is done in heaven. 
 
 Through the "open windows" of heaven pour, with 
 superabundant fullness, all these blessings, and so 
 much more that we have not room enough to receive 
 them. Long ago would this golden age of glory and vie- 
 
SIGNIFICANT MONUMENTS 263 
 
 tory have been accomplished, if only we had, in good 
 faith, accepted His challenge and put Him to the test. 
 Be it spoken to our shame, we, only, have failed! 
 Shall we continue to hinder the full coming of His 
 kingdom? Or shall we solemnly vow to-day that we 
 will meet the conditions He has laid down for us to 
 observe, and address ourselves to the task with re- 
 newed diligence, stouter hearts and brighter hopes? 
 ''Men of action, clear the way!" 
 
 Brethren, you have builded a house of worship, 
 and are ''setting it apart" unto God, in a holy 
 way, to-day. "What mean ye by these stones?" 
 What does this monument — ^this church building — 
 signify ? 
 
 The twelve stones taken from the midst of the 
 Jordan were builded by Joshua into a rough and 
 sturdy monument, greater by far than the mighty 
 Egyptian Pyramids and infinitely more significant to 
 the children of Israel. That monument of stones be- 
 came one ceaseless, impassioned, eloquent oration, re- 
 citing to them and their children, and to their chil- 
 dren's children, the history of Israel's delivery from 
 bondage, their toilsome and wonderful journey in the 
 wilderness, their possession of the promised land and 
 the presence and help of Jehovah's great and gracious 
 hand in it all. So, too, should this building — this 
 "monument" you have erected — ^be an eloquent orator, 
 declaring in no uncertain terms what was in your minds 
 and hearts when you builded it. 
 
 "What mean ye by these stones?" 
 
 If you were intelligent in your purpose, and were 
 advised by the word of God, you mean by "these 
 stones" to declare your faith in some of the most 
 wonderful and beautiful and enduring facts and 
 
264 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 truths that were ever presented to human intelligence 
 and human love — facts and truths that demand our 
 faith in them and our practical regard. And, if you 
 were thus intelligent and were thus advised, this build- 
 ing will be eloquent in its proclamation of those facts 
 and truths, and of your loyalty and devotion to them. 
 
 Let us note some of the things this building should 
 declare : 
 
 First of all, it will say, in clear, solemn and un- 
 mistakable terms, ''God should be worshiped by every 
 responsible being in this community.'' 
 
 And it should say this because God has said it. 
 Upon a slab of rock sliced from the basaltic side of 
 Sinai, God wrote, ''Thou shalt worship the Lord thy 
 God, and him only shalt thou serve." And by that 
 same hand, in His own wonderful way. He has en- 
 graven that same sentence upon the tablets of the 
 hearts of some of us. The world is holding too lightly 
 that solemn command. Even those who profess to be- 
 lieve and accept it are not held in the grip of the awful- 
 ness, solemnity and splendor of it, as they should be. 
 
 This building will ever be saying, "Forsake not the 
 assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of 
 some is.'' If you wiU pause here as you pass by, 
 unless your ears are dulled by doubt or disloyalty, 
 you will hear a voice saying unto you, "Come hither, 
 and do your devotions after the manner prescribed for 
 you in the New Testament of my dear Son, your 
 Saviour." And ceaselessly and lovingly will this voice 
 call until you come, or until you can not hear. 
 
 Continuing, this "building" will say, "I am stand- 
 ing here simply and only as a church of Christ!" 
 
 And this, because Jesus said, "On this rock I will 
 build my church, and the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 
SIGNIFICANT MONUMENTS 265 
 
 vail against it.'' Jesus builded no other chnrcli. Into 
 the great spiritual superstructure builded on the foun- 
 dation of the confessed truth that ''Jesus is the Christ, 
 the Son of the living God," He fits the ''living stones" 
 that are prepared by His workmen; and this building 
 declares that it will be the altar and worship ing-place 
 of all such of these "living stones" as dwell in this 
 community. 
 
 Furthermore, this "monument" you have builded 
 will proceed to declare, "Where the Scriptures speak, 
 I will speak; and where the Scriptures are silent, I 
 will be silent." And it will be very earnest and elo- 
 quent when it makes this declaration, because these 
 who builded this "monument" believe that we have 
 God's v/ord in the sacred Scriptures — the blessed 
 Bible. Indeed, if we have not His word here, then 
 we have no "sure word." And, who besides God can 
 speak authoritatively concerning salvation? He saves, 
 and He only can declare the character and conditions 
 of salvation. He is the One to be worshiped, and who 
 but Him can declare the manner, method and charac- 
 ter of that worship? "What must I do to be saved?" 
 Let Him answer, and let no one else dare to answer. 
 
 Furthermore, this "monument" will declare, "The 
 whole world should know the truth, because it will 
 make men free; and it is the duty of all Christians 
 to go into all the world and preach the truth so that 
 men may be made free." Jesus said: "Go ye, there- 
 fore, and teach all nations, baptizing them into the 
 name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; teaching 
 them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
 manded you. And lo, I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the age." 
 
266 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 You mean, therefore, ^'by these stones," by this 
 building, that you who worship here will do your best 
 to see the terms of Jesus' commission carried out to 
 its last demand. Nor will you be satisfied until Jesus 
 be preached to the last man in the last land. 
 
 Furthermore, and finally, this '^building" will be 
 ever saying, ^'AU of God's people should be one." 
 Three times did Jesus pray, ^'That they may be one. 
 Father." 
 
 The saddest and most tragic spectacle on this 
 earth, and the very greatest sin on earth, is the 
 divided condition of the church of the living God. 
 I maintain that any one who purposefully creates and 
 perpetuates divisions in the body of Christ is a greater 
 sinner in the sight of God than the man who thrust 
 the spear into the side of the crucified Lord. 
 
 So, then, this *' monument" will ever plead with 
 all those who love the Lord, urging them to be one. 
 Not one upon any common denominator that may be 
 wrought out for fractional Christianity, by the genius 
 of man ; but one on the plan laid down by our Saviour 
 in the new testament of His blood. Being what He 
 tells us to be; believing what He tells us to believe; 
 doing what He tells us to do — these only, and the one- 
 ness for which He prayed will come. 
 
 With right good grace can you give such a building 
 to God to-day; and with full confidence in His will- 
 ingness to receive it and use it to His own glory, you 
 may surrender it to Him. 
 
 Accept it. Father, and dwell in it, and cause it 
 to be so precious to the hearts of those who worship 
 here, that in their lives they shall bear the evidences 
 of having been often with Thee here. In Jesus' name 
 and for His sake, we pray. Amen ! 
 
SIGNIFICANT MONUMENTS 267 
 
 DEDICATORY RESPONSIVE SERVICE. 
 (Adapted from Isaac Errett.) 
 
 The people will stand and join in the responses: 
 
 Minister — ^We set apart this house to the worship 
 of the living and true God, and to the service of Jesus 
 Christ, our Lord. 
 
 Congregation — ^We devote it to the preaching of the 
 gospel of the grace of God for the conversion of sinners, 
 and to the education of Christians in a knowledge of 
 spiritual truth, in all the activities of Christian life. 
 
 Minister — Here shall the incense of prayer and 
 praise ascend to God. Here shall the ordinances of 
 the Lord's house be sacredly observed. 
 
 Congregation — Here shall the word of God, which 
 liveth and abideth forever, be sounded out for the sal- 
 vation of the perishing, and shine as a perpetual 
 light to guide God's pilgrims through the night of 
 time to the land of everlasting light. 
 
 Minister — Here may children of sin and sorrow 
 find a refuge from despair and ruin, and Christians 
 a harbor to which they can resort when the tempest 
 is high, and be safe. 
 
 Congregation — May no discordant note of strife 
 ever be heard within these walls, no unholy spirit of 
 pride or worldliness find entrance here. 
 
 Minister — ^And may God graciously accept this 
 offering of a house in his name — an offering made by 
 grateful hearts and willing hands — and bless every 
 heart that shares in this gift. 
 
 Congregation — ^May multitudes here be born to God, 
 so that when all these here to-day shall have gone to 
 their eternal home, others will take up the service 
 until Jesus comes, and all His are gathered home. 
 
268 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 Minister — To the glory of God, our Father, by 
 v/hose favor we have builded; to the honor of Jesus, 
 the Christ, the Son of the living God and our Saviour; 
 to the praise of the Holy Spirit, source of life and 
 light— 
 
 Congregation — ^We dedicate this house. 
 
 Minister — For worship in prayer and song; for the 
 ministry of the "Word; for the observance of the holy 
 ordinances — 
 
 Congregation — ^We dedicate this house. 
 
 Minister — To the sanctification of the family; to 
 the training and nurture of childhood; to the inspira- 
 tion of youth and the salvation of all — 
 
 Congregation — ^We dedicate this house. 
 
 Minister — To the help of the needy; to the pro- 
 motion of brotherhood ; to the extension of the king- 
 dom through the whole wide world — 
 
 Congregation — ^We dedicate this house. 
 
 All Together — And now ^^ establish thou the work 
 of our hands upon us. Yea, the work of our hands, 
 establish thou it. And to thy blessed name, God, 
 whose we are, and whom we serve, be honor and glory 
 everlasting, through Jesus Christ our Lord.'' 
 
TTTJGB McLELLAN was horn m Glasgow, Sootland, and 
 jH received his grammar-school education in Melbcmrne, 
 Australia. Later he attended Transylvaniu College, where he 
 received the B.A, and M.A. degrees. He has held three pas- 
 torates — six years with the church of Christ, Shelbyville, Ky.; 
 ten years with the church at RicJimond, Ky., and eleven years 
 with the church at San Antonio, Tex., where Ms ministry con- 
 timies nt this writing. 
 
 Mr. McLellan is on the editorial staff of the San Antonio 
 '^Express.'' He preached the convention sermon at the Louisville 
 National Convention, and has a sermon in the ''Living Pulpit," 
 
 269 
 
Church Anniversary Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction. — Story of Jacob's flight and return. 
 I. Wliat Has tlie Pa^t Year Meant to Ourselves? 
 
 1. Financially. 
 
 2. In numbers. 
 
 3. In grace. 
 
 IL What Has Our Past Year Meant to Others? 
 1. A real church is a missionary in'stitutioin. 
 
 (1) In foreign lands. 
 
 (2) In home lands. 
 
 m. A Time for Beconsecration. 
 
 1. How can we succeed without Grod? 
 
 2. Sincere consecration wiU solve our problems. 
 
 Conclusion. — [Remembrance of those who have passed beyond. 
 
 270 
 
THEN AND NOW 
 
 Church Anniversary Sermon by Hugh McLellan 
 
 For with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am 
 become two companies. — Gen. 32: 10. 
 
 WHEN Jacob fled from his home, spurred on in 
 haste by the anger of a deceived father and a 
 robbed brother, he passed in his flight one of the fords 
 of Jordan. As he said, he passed it with his staff. All 
 he had was the stick within his hand. The past was 
 full of terror and the future full of uncertainty. 
 Still he was rich, for he carried in his heart the mem- 
 ory of the bestowed blessing, and through the birth- 
 right he had become the priest and mediator between 
 God and his people. Also he had the memory of a 
 vision, the sweetest dream of all the ages, and he could 
 construct again in thought the golden ladder, and 
 again summon the troops of angels. His material as- 
 sets consisted of a w^ooden stick, but his spiritual as- 
 sets were a blessing, an office and an experience. 
 
 When he returned to the Jordan after his years 
 with Laban, he was in a different case. God had 
 blessed him abundantly and his family was a tribe. 
 His flocks and herds moved in vast numbers over the 
 desert; his servants were numerous as the servants 
 of a king. The blessing had worked. It was without 
 boast and with profound reverence to God that, stand- 
 ing again at the ford of other days, he said, ''I passed 
 
 271 
 
272 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 over this Jordan with my staff; and now I am become 
 two companies/' 
 
 It was a time for retrospection, for meditation, and 
 for resolve. The return to the Jordan marked the 
 moment for a review of the past and a resolve for the 
 future. Indeed, it was on the foundations of the past 
 that he built his plans for the future. The crossing 
 of the river again was the suggestive occasion for 
 memories and resolves. And this is true with all of 
 us. The anniversaries of critical experiences create in 
 us exalted moods — ^moods of great gratitude and moods 
 of high purpose. He is a dull man who can return 
 in place or time to a life crisis and not rise in grati- 
 tude or resolve nearer to God. In such a moment we 
 stand on a ridge in the way of life. The past stretches 
 back, seen from this height in true perspective; the 
 future is hidden around the mountains, but as good- 
 ness and mercy followed us in the way we have come, 
 so shall they ^ ^follow us all the days of our life." 
 
 Such a moment is this to which we have returned — 
 a moment full of meaning to this congregation. This 
 is our anniversary; it is a Jordan of time rather than 
 of place. Once more we stand at the moment of our 
 small beginnings, the days of our staff; and, like Jacob, 
 we have become two bands. It is a time for retro- 
 spection, for introspection and for purpose. It is not 
 a time for idle boasting or hypocritical self-commenda- 
 tion, all of which would but weaken our hands for 
 future tasks and cloud the path for our feet. 
 
 That we should rejoice in past success in God's 
 work is natural and proper, but the glory is His, 
 whose we are, whom we serve. That this band of dis- 
 ciples surrounds this altar, our Ebenezer, is but proof 
 that ''hitherto the Lord hath helped us/' and that we 
 
THEN AND NOW 273 
 
 have been ''kept by the power of God." An anniver- 
 sary which leaves God out is but a ''tinkling brass 
 and clanging cymbal." Adjusting our hearts thus to 
 a proper recognition of God, we can now take up some 
 questions which naturally arise at every church an- 
 niversary. 
 
 I. What has the past year meant to ourselves? 
 
 To Jacob the return to the Jordan meant the dif- 
 ference between a staff and two bands. We, too, can 
 rejoice that the past year has not been unfruitful. 
 Knowing well that it is not the mission of any con- 
 gregation to make itself materially important, it is 
 still a matter for congratulation and gratitude that 
 we are stronger as a group than we were a year ago. 
 And this is seen in three ways. 
 
 1. Financially. We all remember the struggles of 
 the past when we were a feeble folk. When those, 
 who passed, mocked like Sanballat, and wondered what 
 this feeble group would do. There were days when 
 the only way in which the Lord 's work was kept mov- 
 ing was by the sacrifices of a faithful few. Debt hung 
 like a millstone around our neck, and expenses 
 loomed like high mountains in our path. We thank 
 God that to-day we can look the world in the face, 
 and point to an honorable discharge of our obliga- 
 tions. And it must not be forgotten that a congre- 
 gation, like an individual, has a name to keep. The 
 world is closely scrutinizing us, and, in the funda- 
 mentals of honesty and integrity, we are judged of 
 all men. 
 
 So it is with a reasonable pride that we point to 
 a year's record in which this church has stood up to 
 all its obligations and has earned the respect of right- 
 thinking people. In this experience we have learned 
 
 18 
 
274 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 again the great truth that he who sows sparingly 
 shall reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully 
 shall reap bountifully. The greatest reaping of joy 
 and satisfaction comes to those in this congregation 
 who in the darker days sacrificed. Theirs now is the 
 joy and victory, and God pours into their bosoms an 
 overflowing blessing. 
 
 2. In numbers. Numerically we are a stronger 
 congregation than we were a year ago. This build- 
 ing is rich in the traditions of souls born into the 
 kingdom. The church has seen the power of the sim- 
 ple gospel working the great change in the lives of 
 men and women. Our ears have heard men confess 
 with the mouth the Sonship of Christ, and our eyes 
 have seen them buried with their Lord in the waters 
 of baptism. And this to the Christian is his richest 
 experience. He lives over again his own conversion 
 in the conversion of others. 
 
 Indeed, the high moments, after all, in the last year 
 were not those of paid debts or big offerings, but of 
 the great congregation in gospel revival, the fervid 
 appeal, the welling song of invitation, and the walk- 
 ing to the front of those who came to Christ. These 
 were the scenes that stirred our hearts and these 
 give us joy to-day. And would not this anniversary 
 be meaningless were it otherwise? The living church 
 is always an evangelical church, always a gospel 
 church, always a witness for Christ and His truth. 
 Back of the living church is the undying commission 
 of the Master, and He is ''with us'' only as we carry 
 out its terms. The church may have many functions, 
 but one is chief. It is the herald of the kingdom. It 
 is the voice in the wilderness. It is the moving lip 
 
THEN AND NOW 275 
 
 through which the Spirit calls to sinners. If it is 
 not this, it is nothing. 
 
 3. In grace. Well might we ask ourselves in this 
 anniversary if we have ''grown in grace.'' A year 
 older should see us a year better. Have we moved 
 up from the milk of the Word to the strong meat? 
 These questions reveal a profound necessity which is 
 laid on the church that it grow in grace. To be 
 older and not nearer to God is like walking in a 
 circle; it is motion without progress. The great func- 
 tion of teaching is laid on the church with the same 
 imperative as that of preaching. The truth within 
 this Bible on the desk is still chained and powerless 
 unless it has entered our lives. 
 
 As we look back over the year we rejoice in the 
 growth of the Bible school. Here the church may 
 function as the teacher of the Word upon minds 
 ready to receive. It is regrettable that not all the 
 members of the church are engaged in this service. 
 To know Christ ought to mean that we teach Him. 
 Never before has the way been so open for this ser- 
 vice. The work is organized, the literature is abun- 
 dant and available, schools of methods instruct us in 
 the art, and millions of young people wait on our 
 words. A church which is not definitely and serious- 
 ly engaged in teaching the will of God has little to 
 celebrate in any anniversary. We put the emphasis 
 on this teaching function because it is the secret of 
 growth. A Christian can no more grow without the 
 Word than a man can grow without food. It wiU be 
 found that the weak and sickly are those who have 
 substituted the husks of man's wisdom for the bread 
 of life. This growth in grace is seen in the maturing 
 holiness and the strengthening faith of the congrega- 
 
276 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 tion. We rejoice in our strength, and in our numbers, 
 but we rejoice rather in the fact that we live closer 
 to God than we did one year ago. 
 
 II. What has our past year meant to others? 
 
 Apart from the financial, numerical and spiritual 
 growth of the congregation itself there is the broad- 
 ening work to be considered on the outside. A con- 
 gregation may become big in size and small in spirit. 
 A true congregation of Christ is always awake to its 
 duties to the whole world. Its horizon is not limited 
 to its own church walls. 
 
 In a word, a real church is a missionary institu- 
 tion, full of the missionary spirit, and glowing with 
 missionary zeal. The church at Antioch, where the 
 disciples first received the divine name, still stands 
 as an example to all Christian churches in its action 
 in choosing out Paul and Barnabas with John Mark, 
 and later Silas, and laying hands on them and send- 
 ing them out to preach the gospel in heathen lands. 
 There is nothing more apostolic than the missionary 
 enterprise. An unmissionary church is neither Scrip- 
 tural nor humane. It has no favor with God or man. 
 It is an anomaly in the world. 
 
 In any anniversary of a church one of the highest 
 experiences should be the report of the work of the 
 church among the heathen. If the church is repre- 
 sented by an actual missionary, his presence at the 
 anniversary would mean more than anything else. If 
 that may not be, then his report should be read. In 
 this anniversary it is a matter of congratulation that 
 we hold hands with a missionary across the seas, and 
 that through him we are preaching the gospel to those 
 who sit in darkness. The question that should arise 
 in our hearts to-day is, ''Are we fully represented 
 
THEN AND NOW 277 
 
 there?'' Does one missionary on the foreign field 
 measure our spirit and ability, or are we keeping 
 back ''part of the price''? Let us hope that when 
 the next anniversary arrives we shall be able to re- 
 port another field occupied in the name of Christ and 
 of this congregation. 
 
 In addition, it is a matter for congratulation that 
 our missionary zeal recognizes the importance of 
 preaching the truth in the homeland. A Christian 
 America is itself a missionary influence in the world, 
 and it should be our aim to save our own land for 
 Christ that through it the world may see what God 
 hath wrought. In addressing ourselves to this work, 
 we should remember that America needs the simple 
 gospel. Like the Laodiceans, the people of the United 
 States are rich and increased in goods, and think they 
 have need of nothing, but, like the Laodiceans, in the 
 true riches they are naked and blind. Our country 
 needs the unadulterated gospel of Christ to save its 
 soul. Being saved, it becomes a base of operations for 
 the salvation of the whole world. This saving work 
 is in circles. First the individual, then the family, 
 then the city or community, then our own land, then 
 the whole world. The ever-widening waves of gospel 
 truth should not rest until they wash up against the 
 shores of the farthest land. 
 
 III. A time for reconsecration. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, when speaking before the Con- 
 stitutional Convention, urging that the convention ask 
 divine guidance in its deliberations, said: ''If it be 
 true that a sparrow can not fall without His notice, 
 how can it be that an empire shall rise without His 
 aid?" It was a word fitly spoken. We would do 
 weU to ponder it, and in this anniversary ask, "How 
 
278 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 can we succeed without God?" We have indicated 
 that this anniversary is a season for recapitulation; 
 it is more a season of reconsecration. "We set the 
 watch in vain if we watch without Him; we build 
 the walls in vain if we lay a stone without Him. On 
 this occasion this church should open its soul to God. 
 If He enters our lives, we must succeed. We shall be 
 the speaking mouth, but He shall be the voice; we 
 shall be the moving hand, but He shall be the strength ; 
 we shall be the visible body, but He shall be the life. 
 
 The apostolic power shall be ours only as the 
 apostolic indwelling of the Spirit is ours. We ought 
 to be able to give the apostolic secret of the victorious 
 life, ''I live, yet not I, for Christ liveth in me.'' It 
 was said of Stephen's persecutors that '^they were 
 not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit with which 
 he spake." And this wisdom and this spirit were of 
 God. Our own wisdom and our own spirit are easily re- 
 sisted, but the Spirit of God in us is mighty and will 
 prevail. So let us open our hearts to the Spirit of 
 God, that as we move forward from this anniversary 
 day we may do so in His wisdom and power. 
 
 This kind of consecration will solve all the difficul- 
 ties and problems confronting us in the year ahead. 
 If we are consecrated, so are our money, our time, 
 our energy, our talents and our wills. There are no 
 financial or missionary problems unsolved by a con- 
 secrated congregation. In giving itself it gives all. 
 If the subjective problem is solved, the objective prob- 
 lem ceases to exist. The giants which the spies saw 
 in Canaan were mere men distorted by cowardice. 
 There were no giants to Joshua and Caleb. Canaan 
 lies before us, and we are weU able to go up and 
 possess the land. 
 
THEN AND NOW 279 
 
 Conclusion. It would be a sad mistake if in this 
 anniversary we failed to remember those who were 
 with us one year ago, but are not here to-day. Some 
 of those who worked with us, and bore the heat and 
 burden of the day, have entered into rest. So is this 
 congregation represented in heaven. And this teaches 
 us that with each anniversary we, too, are nearing the 
 temple which is eternal in the heavens. The church 
 which we now see is a meeting-place and a parting- 
 place. The tides flow in, then flow out. It is like the 
 story told of the old Arab who, one day at evening, 
 after traveling across the desert, came to a pretentious 
 building on the edge of an oasis. He tethered his 
 camel at the gate and went into the hall, and, spread- 
 ing his carpet, lay down to rest. Soon a noble-looking 
 Arab entered and demanded of the traveler what he 
 was doing in the king's palace. The Arab replied that 
 he took the building for a caravansary. *'No,'' said 
 the other, ''it is the king's palace, and I am the king.'' 
 The traveler then asked the king how long he had 
 lived there; and he told him. He then asked who 
 lived in it before he did. He answered, ''My father." 
 "And who before him?" "His father," and so on 
 back through many generations. "Then," asked the 
 traveler, "who shall live here after you?" "My 
 son," he answered. "And after him?" "His son, 
 and so on down to the end of time." "Well," said 
 the traveler, "any house which receives and sends out 
 such a continuous succession of guests is not a palace, 
 but a caravansary." Such in one aspect is the church 
 with its passing congregations. We come into this 
 sweet fellowship only to pass out sooner or later into 
 the fellowship on high. These anniversaries reveal the 
 silent movement of these tides of life, and the names 
 
280 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 of those who have rolled up the carpet and moved 
 away beyond the horizon are in our hearts. If it 
 be that people come and go through this church, we 
 should see to it that while they rest thus in the earth- 
 ly caravansary, they are touched with grace to fit them 
 for the eternal home. 
 
TTZILMEE B. WALKER was horn at BrooTcs, la., July 5, 
 rr 1869 y and received Ms education at Ada, 0.; Angola, Ind.; 
 Eiram, 0., and Columbia, New York. 
 
 For two years he was minister of the church of Christ at Char- 
 don, 0.; three years at Martinshurg, 0.; twelve years at KillhiLcJc, 
 0., and since 1920 has b.een with the Indianolu Church at Cohmn- 
 tus, 0. 
 
 Mr. Walker was delegate from Holmes County to the fourth 
 Constitutional Convention of the State of Ohio in 1912. 
 
 From_ 1913 to 1916 he was a teacher in the Phillips Bible 
 Institute, Canton, 0., and from 1916 to 1919 a teacher of the 
 New Testament in Bethany College, Bethany, W. Va, 
 
 281 
 
Ministers^ Ordination Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 I. Preach the Word. 
 
 1. It needs no recasting. 
 
 2. Avoid undigested theories. 
 
 II. Preach So as to Bring Repentance. 
 
 1. Preach sin's punishment as eternal. 
 
 2. Tell despairing souls of God's love. 
 
 III. Preach Positively and Constructively. 
 
 1. To do this you must live what you preach. 
 
 2. You must preach to save the world. 
 
 3. You must preach the straight gospel, 
 
 IV. Piorget Not Your Sftudy Hahits. 
 
 1. Study nature. 
 
 2. Study men. 
 
 8. Study the times. 
 
 4. Study God's word. 
 
 6. Be teachers as well as students. 
 
 V. Remember the Rewa^rd of the Faithful Minister. 
 
 1. The nature of your work is a reward. 
 
 2. You will he spared the temptations of the rich. 
 
 3. Your social life will be a joy. 
 
 4. The knowledge that you are helping is compensation. 
 
 2S2 
 
PREACH THE WORD 
 
 Ministers' Ordination Sermon by W. R. Walker"^ 
 
 'Scripture— 1 Tim. 4: 6-16; 2 Tim. 4:1-5; Tit. 2:7, 8. 
 
 MY Brethren : I am to speak to you of the solemn, 
 but blessed, responsibilities and opportunities of- 
 fered in the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 My inability to speak with the wisdom befitting the 
 occasion is perhaps more than compensated by the in- 
 terest manifested by this large congregation assem- 
 bled at this early hour to participate in these holy 
 moments of consecrated dedication. 
 
 Sufficient justification for the program of the morn- 
 ing may be found, should Scriptural precedent for it 
 be questioned. Special, solemn, prayerful services 
 grace and dignify the important moment when young 
 men are formally sent forth as ambassadors for Christ 
 by a church great in its historic traditions, devotion 
 and loyalty to the revealed will of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Bethany Memorial Church has consented to lay its 
 hands of blessing and approval upon you because it 
 has confidence that you will honor your holy calling. 
 Proof of your ministry has already been produced. 
 You have brought some wave sheaves as an evidence 
 of your skill in harvesting souls for the kingdom. 
 
 Delivered, Bethany, W. Va., June 1, 1917, at 6 a. m. 
 
 283 
 
284 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 This has been required that we might not violate 
 the Pauline injunction to ''lay hands suddenly upon 
 no man." 
 
 The lofty sentiment of your motto, ''Not to be 
 ministered unto, but to minister,'' is suggestive of 
 high ideals and Christlike spirit. The prayers and 
 heartfelt benedictions of the congregation thus honor- 
 ing you will ever be an unfailing source of help and 
 encouragement when passing through the trials and 
 discouragements incident to a life of ministering. 
 
 Let me first direct your attention to the message 
 we entrust to you. You are to preach tJie Word, 
 
 This means that you are limited to the same Word 
 which Jesus and his apostles preached, the Word able 
 to make men wise unto salvation, the Holy Bible, the 
 only infallible teaching God has given to men. The 
 spiritual epochs of the church have always been those 
 in which the gospel has been preached in fidelity, and 
 with convincing power. The message for a lost world 
 remains the same through all generations. That which 
 condemns men to-day condemned the first pair in 
 Eden. The sinners, priests and rulers in Jerusalem 
 sinned just as men sin now. Human passions, hopes, 
 fears, joys, sorrows and needs have not changed 
 through the centuries, but are the same as those 
 that ruled in the hearts of Jesus' auditors nineteen 
 hundred years ago. That which meets the deepest 
 needs of life in one age is certain to meet them in 
 every age. 
 
 Therefore, your message requires no recasting. It 
 is not new, but we hope it will be delivered with a 
 new power. Proclaim it as if anointed with an unc- 
 tion from on high. Preach Christ as living and reg- 
 nant. Make him a personality throbbing with life, felt 
 
PREACH THE WORD 285 
 
 in the hearts of those to whom you minister. John 
 Brown, of Haddington, once preached before the skep- 
 tical scientist, David Hume. Hume went away saying, 
 ''That is the man for me; he means what he says; he 
 speaks as if Jesus were at his elbow.'' I tell you, 
 brethren, Jesus is at the elbow of every one worthy of 
 Him, whose supreme desire is to proclaim His gospel 
 in its purity and simplicity. 
 
 Preach Him as the world's only Saviour, the only 
 one with authority to forgive sin. ''And in none other 
 is there salvation: for neither is there any other name 
 under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we 
 must be saved." The salvation taught in the New Tes- 
 tament as coming through Jesus Christ is the forgive- 
 ness of sin. It is not a field for philosophic specula- 
 tion, nor is it entirely a matter of character. It is a 
 simple doctrine if taught as inspired men presented it; 
 preach it with full assurance that you have the author- 
 ity of Jesus Himself for your message. 
 
 You have here avowed your faith in the Bible as 
 God's inspired word. In your student life you have 
 examined the evidences on which this faith is based, 
 and found them convincing beyond doubt. Now, 
 preach the Bible as if you believe it. Most of the in- 
 difference so noticeable to-day in many quarters is due 
 to a lack of faith in the old Book. Much present-day 
 preaching, even, has lost its note of assurance. The 
 questioning attitude of the university which boasts 
 that its chief function is to raise doubts is being intro- 
 duced into the pulpit with a resultant loss of faith in 
 the eternal verities. A certain brand of criticism is 
 offering us stones of humanitarian philosophy and 
 "evoluted" eclecticism in religion, but we are hunger- 
 ing for the bread of revelation from God. Do not 
 
286 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 imagine that your people either desire or need philo- 
 sophic vagaries. They need the word of life. 
 
 Trouble not the people with undigested theories, 
 nor predigested tabloids of scientific, speculative dog- 
 matism. There is so much golden truth, tested in the 
 crucible of experience, tried in the fire of application, 
 that there is no occasion for proclaiming untried and 
 unproven theories which may contain much dross of 
 error. "With the stone of fact hurled from the sling 
 of confident faith, you can smite unbelief as it hides 
 behind the shield of science, falsely so called. 
 
 Your own studies, leading you into many fields and 
 familiarizing you with substitute religions, may tempt 
 you to offer some of your discoveries instead of the 
 plain gospel story. Yield not to such temptation. 
 No one will be fed with that kind of ministering, and 
 the only thing satisfied by it will be your own vanity. 
 
 Preach so as to weaken no one's faith. Even an 
 imperfect faith is superior to doubt. Doubts are fiends 
 ruled by the same law as other demons, thriving on 
 attention, starving if not fed and fondly coddled. The 
 normal state of every heart is one of belief rather 
 than doubt. Make it clear in your preaching that 
 the presumption is always against doubt. It is scarcity 
 of argument or questionable testimony that makes a 
 position doubtful. Otherwise it would be in the posi- 
 tion occupied by faith. When compelled to go into the 
 miasmatic lowlands of doubt, dread, despair, where 
 duty may occasionally call you, tarry no longer than 
 necessary to drain the infected region. Return speedily 
 to the healthful highlands of faith and trust. It is 
 courageous to enter plague-smitten districts to carry 
 help, but foolhardy to abide there. 
 
PREACH THE WORD 287 
 
 Preach so as to bring men to repentance. Repent- 
 ance is what men most need to-day. A new crusade 
 in the spirit of John the Baptist is necessary to save 
 the age. Men laugh at sin instead of fearing it. They 
 toy with it instead of hating it. They view it through 
 reversed telescope, then deny both its magnitude and 
 hideousness. They are so blinded by the smoke of 
 their sacrifices, offered upon altars of materialism and 
 commercialism, that they can not see that what God 
 requires is justice, mercy and a contrite spirit. Self, 
 not Jehovah, is their god, and success rather than 
 service their pole-star. 
 
 Hesitate not to preach sin's punishment as eter- 
 nal. Even if some have eliminated hell from their 
 scheme of things, it has not been eliminated from 
 God's word. Destructive critics may expurgate it 
 from their eclectic bible, but that can not change the 
 Bible whose truth shall never become falsehood. The 
 certainty of future retribution must be proclaimed to 
 touch certain natures. 
 
 Perhaps the goodness of God may move more peo- 
 ple, so neglect not that, but rather magnify it as your 
 ability permits. There are always prodigals whose 
 hearts will be melted by a portrayal of potential for- 
 giveness in the Father's heart. Let despairing souls 
 hear of God's love and self-righteous ones of his jus- 
 tice and mercy. 
 
 Preach positively and constructively. Guard 
 against becoming mere rebukers and critics. Your ex- 
 perience with frail humanity will tempt you to de- 
 pend too much, perhaps, upon the plucking-up process. 
 Jesus' teaching is that evil is to be remedied not so 
 much by denunciation as by the growth of a new 
 spirit. ''You must be bom again" is still the law of 
 
288 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 regeneration and admission to Christ's kingdom. A 
 heart with new ideals implanted is safer than one 
 with old ideals uprooted. Your work is a hundred 
 times more positive than negative. That is what makes 
 it difficult. Little talent and weak energy are suf- 
 ficient to pull down; the gravity of inertia performs 
 most of such labor. But to construct, re-create, re- 
 quires ability, skill, hard work and perseverance. 
 
 A most vital truth is now suggested. Your word 
 of teaching must be energized by incarnation. It was 
 so with Jesus. He began '^both to do and to teach.'' 
 The latter without the former would not have saved 
 a single soul, even Jesus being powerless to work a 
 miracle of that sort. How imperative, then, that his 
 present-day representatives should live the life they 
 expect of others. A chief reason why the spoken mes- 
 sage produces so much more fruit than the written 
 one is that it is illustrated in the person of the 
 preacher. If the minister does not live his own teach- 
 ing, he is sounding brass and clanging cymbal. 
 
 You are to be living epistles. Right or wrong, the 
 world will look to you for leadership in living, and 
 will study more closely what you do than what you 
 say. The flock of God has been ravaged by wolves in 
 sheep's clothing often enough to be wary. Live much 
 with God in prayer and meditation on His word that 
 the peculiar temptations of the preacher may be 
 overcome. 
 
 The very intimacy of your association with the 
 people will necessitate constant watchfulness and 
 guarding, that it lead you not into temptation's 
 power. 
 
 A word on the urgency of your ministry. You 
 are to preach to save the world. This has been af- 
 
PREACH THE WORD 289 
 
 firmed before, but its importance requires special 
 emphasis. 
 
 A gospel of salvation necessarily implies a lost 
 state. If there is no hell, there is most certainly no 
 heaven; the one necessitates the other. The gospel 
 of Christ, which we to-day send you forth to preach 
 with our sanction, will accomplish in the fullest sense 
 the salvation of all who accept it. What an honor to 
 be assigned a part with God in the remaking of 
 marred images of his likeness. 
 
 It is soul-thrilling to come to the kingdom for such 
 a time as this. It requires no magic vision to see 
 that we are in a period when a new age is being born, 
 nor oracular powers to forecast the next decade or 
 two as startlingly eventful. Another millennium is roll- 
 ing round. The cloud of augury heralding its charac- 
 ter has both a dark and bright side. The dark reveals 
 that we have been walking on a very thin crust of 
 civilization over a molten sea of barbarism. The politi- 
 cal and industrial eruptions have become almost a con- 
 stant roar. Smoke of threat and lava of destruction 
 are belching out of furnaces of malice and hate in un- 
 regenerate hearts. The red glare of materialistic com- 
 mercialism makes lurid the plain of human activity. 
 Priests of Mammon are parading their heartless god 
 with brazen and thunderous acclaim. Why all this, 
 when leaders in this unholy riot are flattering Jesus by 
 prating the Sermon on the Mount? They are publicly 
 lauding Him and His teachings to blind us to the fact 
 that they are privately trampling them underfoot. Th(> 
 German philosophy of the power of might (the legiti- 
 mate child of modern evolutionary teaching) has sup- 
 planted the New Testament doctrine that greatness con- 
 sists in humility, purity, righteousness, service. It is 
 
 19 
 
290 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 time that men be made to understand that it is impos- 
 sible to sow a theory of God's being chained, rendered 
 helpless by his own laws through the operation of which 
 the ^'fittest" survive, without reaping the harvest of 
 ruthlessness, lust, contempt for contract, and all that 
 has gone with German culture. 
 
 That which illumines the bright side of the cloud 
 is the fact that multitudes are being filled with hor- 
 ror at the effects of the cold-blooded commercialism 
 of the age, and are beginning to see the cause of the 
 world's bitterness, hate and infidelity. They are try- 
 ing the quack remedies of communism because its title 
 spells brotherhood, and acclaiming every theory that 
 promises peace. What a day for the preacher of the 
 gospel of peace on earth, good will among men ! What 
 an opportunity to show the inefficiency of the plans of 
 selfish men, and the effectiveness of Jesus' plan on un- 
 selfish service. What a time for men who, like Jonah, 
 hesitate not to declare the fall of a nation that will not 
 repent, and bring sinners to their knees in penitential 
 confession. The real saviors of the times are the 
 preachers courageous enough to rebuke sin wherever 
 found. Men that fearlessly rebuke the rich who oppress 
 and the poor who defraud. Who show that life con- 
 sists in what it is, not in what it has. You must pull 
 the bit on those who would recklessly rush to the 
 charge, and use the spur on those who lag or are in- 
 different to the battle raging about them. Show that 
 the only way to pluck the world out of the abyss is to 
 put Grod on the throne. 
 
 Never have such burdens been laid on men's shoul- 
 ders, but never have backs been so able to bear them. 
 Not only does God temper the wind to the shorn 
 lamb, He also suits the burden to the back that is to 
 
PREACH THE WOED 291 
 
 bear it. The intricate and complicated life of what 
 has been called Christian civilization appalls us, and, 
 were it not for onr faith in God, would dishearten. 
 But everywhere men are turning to the Bible with 
 new interest and hope that it may furnish solution 
 to our problems. The inevitable result of honest 
 study of this sort is to deepen their faith in the 
 program of Jesus as all-sufficient to meet every need 
 of men. 
 
 Forget not your study habits. Linger frequently 
 in any field of study where Christ Himself tarried. 
 Nature, God's unwritten Bible, will wonderfully en- 
 rich your illustrative possessions. Fields and flowers, 
 birds and bees, may provide more helpful sermonic 
 material than the philosophic wisdom of Plato. Facts 
 of science (not often, its theoretic speculation) will 
 also serve you well in bringing lessons to the people 
 to whom you minister. The God who inspired the 
 Book established every law of nature, and they will 
 always harmonize, and, at times, illumine each other. 
 
 Be students of men. It is axiomatic that a knowl- 
 edge of those whom you would serve is imperative 
 if you would minister efficiently. The depths of your 
 own soul will be the best text-book in the study of 
 man, for the motives and thought methods of the race 
 are one. 
 
 You will need to keep in touch with the currents 
 of social and religious thought also. Some new phases 
 of life and duty will be presented for your considera- 
 tion. Most of that which will pose as new, upon ex- 
 amination will be found to be old philosophy or theory 
 relabeled. You must be able to read discerningly in 
 order to winnow the wheat of fact from the chaff of 
 assumption. 
 
292 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 First, last, always, study the Bible. Paul exhorts 
 Timothy *^to give heed to reading, to exhortation, to 
 teaching.'' Again he is urged, ''Give diligence to pre- 
 sent thyself approved nnto God, a workman that need- 
 eth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of 
 truth/' Our New Testament provides you a larger 
 library than Timothy had. Its fathomless wisdom, its 
 correct appraisal of the human heart, its admonitions, 
 its instruction in righteousness, its satisfying promises, 
 its simple profundity, will constantly astonish and de- 
 light you, bringing new assurance that it is in a most 
 unique and peculiar sense God's word. 
 
 How marvelous its completeness in moral content. 
 It contains less than half the material of a metropoli- 
 tan Sunday paper, yet in nineteen centuries no new 
 moral truth has been discovered. 
 
 You are to be teachers as well as students. This is 
 a reason for being a growing student. There is little 
 crowding in the ranks of real teachers of the holy Book. 
 
 Here is a field worthy of your best endeavor, and 
 fruitful beyond your highest hopes. This Word will 
 never return void. Somewhere it will enrich and save 
 the life of one lost. 
 
 I have a conviction that we are entering a period 
 in which the work of teaching will be restored to its 
 New Testament prominence. As ministers, you will need 
 to lead in this. There is a false liberalism abroad of 
 which you must beware. It asks the surrender of vital 
 New Testament teaching to what it is pleased to call ex- 
 pedient practice of Christian union. On the plea of 
 charity, it would alter the divine terms of membership 
 in Christ's church. The true minister will be neither 
 less nor more charitable than the New Testament 
 warrants. 
 
PREACH THE WORD 293 
 
 The Christian world is groping for a platform for 
 Christian union, and many are the bases suggested. 
 Few who are doing what they think to be pioneer 
 work in this matter appreciate the fact that the New 
 Testament itself provides the only basis on which per- 
 manent union can be consummated. You will have a 
 coveted opportunity to present that basis when periods 
 of discussion on this subject occur. You can, and you 
 should, conscientiously agree to stand with every fol- 
 lower of Christ on that platform. In the meantime, 
 you should desire and cultivate the largest possible 
 fellowship with all believers in Christ, consistent with 
 absolute loyalty to Him. 
 
 Your success will depend much upon the faithful- 
 ness with which you discharge your pastoral duties. 
 The good Shepherd gave his life for the sheep. So 
 must you. Unless that is literally true, yours will not 
 be a ministry. Faithful serving will be fully compen- 
 sated in that day when the Lord knights you as a 
 member of the Order of Basin and Towel. 
 
 In closing, I direct your attention to the reward 
 of the faithful minister. Your labor itself will be its 
 own best remuneration. No wage is so satisfying as 
 the peace and joy growing out of a consciousness that 
 you are laboring together with God, in a partnership 
 where both profits and losses will be mutually shared. 
 When humiliated by apparent failure, the Lord will 
 halve your burden by helping bear your disappoint- 
 ment. When elated with success, he will double your 
 joy by sharing it. 
 
 There should be some relief in the knowledge that 
 you will be spared the temptations of the rich. Your 
 salary will be much less than you might have by em- 
 ploying your talent otherwise, and it is well that it is 
 
294 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 so. The church can never afford to offer inducements 
 to men who are worldly-minded, ambitious or greedy, 
 no matter what their intellectual equipment. To do 
 so would invite spiritual stagnation or death. The 
 scanty monetary reward automatically sifts out such 
 as are not consecrated, and no better plan can be de- 
 vised. You will not measure your life by the stan- 
 dards others use. It will not be rich in earthly pos- 
 sessions, but rich in things moth and rust can not cor- 
 rupt nor thieves steal; namely, gratitude, respect, love 
 from those you serve. You will be admitted to the 
 inner life of people where few are permitted to enter. 
 You will be with them in their joys. At the banquet, 
 family reunion, social circle, you will be an honored 
 guest. 
 
 In many homes where the intimacy of the family 
 group is broken to admit just one outsider, the 
 preacher is the one for whom the door swings wide. 
 At the wedding, where united hearts are sealed, you 
 will be invited to throw the mantle of religious ap- 
 proval over the founding of a new home. 
 
 Yours will be the privilege of sharing the deepest 
 sorrows with those to whom you minister. This ex- 
 perience may sadden, but it can wonderfully bless. 
 You will learn the hidden meaning of the proverb 
 that it is better to go to the house of mourning than 
 to the house of feasting. 
 
 When erring, careless members of the family are 
 to be won back to Christ, when financial disaster 
 drives its shaft of gloom and despondency, when the 
 pall of death settles slowly or the sudden storm of 
 tragedy breaks, yours will be the supreme joy of 
 drawing forth, from the fountains of revealed truth, 
 things new and old, that will heal hearts, quiet fears, 
 
PREACH THE WORD 295 
 
 renew courage, strengthen faith, rekindle hope. What 
 a wonderful, blessed, rich life you may have! 
 
 My prayer for you is that you may so labor that 
 when nature's warning voices announce the approach 
 of the life that is life indeed, you shall be able to find 
 a true minister's joy in saying with Paul: ''I am al- 
 ready being offered, and the time of my departure is 
 at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished 
 the course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is 
 laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the 
 Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give to me at that 
 day, and not to me only, but also to all them that 
 have loved his appearing/' 
 
Ti^AEK COLLIS was horn Sept. 21, 1851, in London, England, 
 J.wJ, and received his later education at Transylvania College 
 and the College of the Bihle, Lexington, Ky, 
 
 He was minister of the church of Christ at Midway, Ky., four 
 years; professor of English in Transylvania six years, and has 
 been minister of the Broadway Church, Lexington, Ky., thirty 
 years, 
 
 Mr. CoUis served as trustee of the College of the Bible at 
 Lexington thirty years, and was chairman of the board twenty- 
 five years. He was curator in Transylvanva College twenty-five 
 years, and a trustee of Hamilton College for thirty years. 
 
 For thirty 'five years he has been a trustee of the Kentuchy 
 Female Orphan School at Midway, xind president of the board for 
 twenty-five years. 
 
 297 
 
Thanksgiving Day Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 IntroductioiL 
 
 I. If Unthankfulness to Man Is Despicable, What Sliall We 
 
 Say of Untliankfuliiess to Crod? 
 
 1. This is the greatest sin of the heathen world. 
 
 2. Prom the heathen world God took out a people for 
 
 Himself. 
 
 II. If Men Were Called upon to Thank Crod in Former Dis- 
 
 pensations, How Much More Should They Do So Now? 
 
 1. Think of the country God prepared for us. 
 
 2, Think of the people He prepared to compose this 
 
 nation. 
 
 3. Think of the principless set forth by our great first 
 
 Congress. 
 
 4, Think of our religious liberty and our blessings from 
 
 God's word. 
 
 m. How Shall We Kightly Give Thanks and Show Our 
 
 Gratitude? 
 
 1. In our worship. 
 
 2. By a thank-offering. 
 
 3. By helping the needy. 
 
 17. What Does the Bight Giving of Thanks Do for the 
 Giver? 
 
 1. Gratitude expands the soul. 
 
 2. Ingratitude shrivels and debases. 
 
 V. What Is the Outcome of the Grateful Life? 
 Victory and glory forever. 
 
 298 
 
IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS 
 
 Thanksgiving Day Sermon by Mark Collis 
 
 In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in 
 Christ Jesus to you-ward. — 1 Thess. 5: 18. 
 
 w 
 
 HAT trait of character is more beautiful than 
 gratitude? "What baser than ingratitude? 
 
 **Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 
 Thou art not so unkind 
 As man's ingratitude; 
 Thy tooth is not so keen, 
 Because thou art not seen, 
 Although thy breath be made." 
 
 Ingratitude means unthankfulness. 
 I. If unthankfulness to man is so despicable, what 
 shall we say of unthankfulness to God? 
 
 1. This, Paul says (Eom. 1:21), is the greatest sin 
 of the heathen world. He tells how God revealed 
 Himself to the heathen, even His everlasting power 
 and divinity, so that they are without excuse, because 
 that knowing God they glorified Him not as God, 
 neither gave thanks. The climax of this wickedness 
 was unthankfulness. Ingratitude is heathenish. 
 
 2. From the heathen world God took out a people 
 for his own possession. He revealed Himself to them 
 as He had not done to other peoples. With a mighty 
 hand He delivered them from their oppressors. For 
 forty years He manifested Himself to them in the 
 pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, 
 
 299 
 
300 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 while He fed them with angels' food. He led them on 
 with increasing blessings. Recounting those blessings 
 in his farewell address, Moses said: 
 
 ^ * The Lord alone did lead them, 
 And there "was no strange God wi*th them. 
 He made them to ride on the high places of the earth 
 And they did eat the increase of the field: 
 He made them to suck honey out of the rock 
 And oil out of the flinty rock: 
 Butter of kine and milk of sheep. 
 With fat of lambs^ 
 
 And rams of the breed of Bashan and goats, 
 With the fat of kidneys of wheat; 
 And of the blood of the grape did they drink wine." 
 
 Now they are about to enter the land promised to their 
 fathers, ''a good land, a land of brooks of water, of 
 fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and 
 hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig- 
 trees, and pomegranates ; a land of oil olive, and honey ; 
 a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarce- 
 ness, and thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land 
 whose stones were iron, and out of whose hills thou 
 may est dig brass. '^ Having enjoyed such wonderful 
 blessing in the past, and now about to enter into the 
 enjoyment of blessings still more wonderful, one would 
 think the hearts of those people would have overflowed 
 with gratitude, but as Moses looked upon them, he said : 
 
 '^Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. 
 They waxed fat, they grew thick, they became sleek, 
 They forsook God who made them. 
 And lightly esteemed the Eoek of their salvation." 
 
 As I read those words I imagine I can hear the 
 old man who for forty years had patiently borne with 
 the unbelief and the ingratitude of the people whom 
 
IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS 301 
 
 he addressed. He compared them to fat bulls that bad 
 been pampered and had grown sleek, and never thought 
 of the hand that fed them and groomed them and 
 gave them a place where they could lie down in safe- 
 ty. "What scorn there must have been in his voice as 
 he uttered those words! Who was it that had thus 
 grown fat and sleek? Jeshurun. Who was Jeshurun? 
 Jeshurun means righteous. They were not a heathen 
 people, but a people who professed to know God, and 
 to worship and to serve him. But they were un- 
 grateful. 
 
 Still God led these people, who did not thank Him, 
 into the land of Canaan. He kept His covenant with 
 them. There they inhabited cities that they builded 
 not, dwelt in houses filled with all good things that 
 they filled not, drank of cisterns which they digged 
 not, ate of trees and vineyards which they planted 
 not — ^yet they forgot God. And he said through Isaiah, 
 ''The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's 
 crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not 
 consider.'' And through Hosea He said, ''She did 
 not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and 
 multiplied her silver and her gold, which she pre- 
 pared for Baal." The blessings that God bestowed, de- 
 voted to that beastly heathen god! What a prostitu- 
 tion of noble gifts! Is it not repeated in Christian 
 lands? 
 
 But all did not bow the knee to Baal. In contrast 
 with the words of condemnation uttered through 
 prophetic lips, the Psalmist exultingly sings: "0 give 
 thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name; make 
 known his deeds among the people. Eemember his 
 marvellous works that he hath done; his wonders, and 
 the judgments of his mouth." 
 
302 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 II. If men were called upon to thank God for His 
 gifts in former dispensations, how much more should 
 we call upon our souls and all that is within us to bless 
 and magnify His holy name in these times and in 
 this land where God is pouring out upon us blessings 
 in such rich profusion! "We sing -^^ Count your bless- 
 ings, name them one by one," but that is impossible. 
 They are innumerable. Some of them are so rare 
 and wonderful, and we are so dull and stupid, that 
 we can not recognize them. But let us think of those 
 that we can number. Truly God has not dealt with 
 any people as he has with us. 
 
 Think of this good land which He prepared for us. 
 In the ages past, He lifted up a great chain of moun- 
 tains as a backbone for our continent from which 
 slopes half the arable land of the world, then He traced 
 mighty river systems and scooped out broad lakes till 
 He had made a way for five-sixths of the fresh water 
 of the globe, then He laid away under this soil un- 
 parallelled wealth of oil and gas and coal and iron 
 and precious metals. Through uncounted millenniums 
 the great Architect toiled to prepare a fit place for 
 our nation. 
 
 Then He prepared a people to compose this nation. 
 Who were they? The men and women from whom 
 sprang those who were worthy to lift the torch of 
 liberty to enlighten the world. They came from 
 among men and women who had felt the thrill of 
 that new life which was born from the revival of 
 learning and the Protestant Reformation. From these 
 people God picked the sturdy Pilgrim Fathers to 
 found the New England colonies. From brave, liberty- 
 loving Holland He brought men that were needed to 
 found New Amsterdam; Quakers and the choicest 
 
IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS 303 
 
 souls of Germany He brought to cultivate the fertile 
 fields of Pennsylvania; high-born Loyalists with their 
 chivalry and culture He brought to be the great 
 planters of Virginia; the noblest hearts of France, 
 longing for religious toleration and the right to think 
 for themselves and to act as their consciences dictated, 
 He brought to people the Carolinas. From the off- 
 spring of these varied types assembled the first Con- 
 gress to decide the great principles for which this 
 nation was to stand. Some one has said, '^That Con- 
 gress was composed of the finest body of men ever 
 gathered in the history of the world." 
 
 From the day on which that Congress adjourned, 
 the mighty hand of infinite wisdom and goodness has 
 been over this nation in divine benediction. Our land 
 has had its days of adversity; at times it seemed as if 
 the nation would be torn asunder because of policies 
 that seemed irreconcilable. But out of these conflicts 
 God led us into times of peace and prosperity. 
 
 To-day safe investments are available; conscien- 
 tious labor is rewarded; luxuries are possible to the 
 many, while few are without the necessities of life; 
 the unfortunates are provided for in wisely managed 
 institutions sustained by the generosity of a philan- 
 thropic people; education from the common schools to 
 the university is accessible to all. More is being done 
 to-day in this land of ours for the physical, intellec- 
 tual and moral good of the people than ever before. 
 We have driven out the diabolical liquor traffic, never 
 to return; by the enfranchisement of woman, we have 
 put the ballot into the hand of the most moral, the 
 most independent, and, some would say, the most intel- 
 ligent element of our nation. Truly we can say, 
 ''God has not dealt so with any other people.'' 
 
304 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 But there are blessings as far transcending those 
 which we have enumerated as the heavens transcend 
 the earth. We live in a land where the influence of 
 the Bible is shed on every side; every individual feels 
 it; every institution is affected by it; it is the chief 
 cause of our prosperity and happiness, the bulwark 
 of our liberty, the guaranty of our future national 
 welfare, the foundation of our progress, the anchorage 
 of our destiny. 
 
 It is the Bible that makes God known to us as 
 our Creator, Preserver and bountiful Benefactor; who 
 watches over us as individuals so that not a hair of 
 our head can fall to the ground without His knowl- 
 edge; who has appointed the bounds of our nation, 
 and who, if we permit Him, will preside over its 
 councils so that we may know the meaning of that 
 Old Testament beatitude, *' Happy is that people whose 
 God is Jehovah.'^ 
 
 Still more wonderfully does the Bible reveal God 
 to us in Christ Jesus, our Saviour and our Lord, 
 through whom so many enjoy the blessings of pardon 
 and of adoption into the family of God, becoming 
 heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ to an in- 
 heritance that is incorruptible, undefiled and that f adeth 
 not away. In anticipation of this inheritance, the Holy 
 Spirit is bestowed upon us; He is called in the Scrip- 
 ture the earnest of our future possession; He takes 
 our inarticulate groanings and presents them as inter- 
 cessions at the throne of grace; He witnesses with our 
 spirits that we are the children of God, and through 
 Him we are able to bring forth those beautiful fruits 
 of righteousness that adorn the Christian life. Lan- 
 guage can not express the value of these spiritual bless- 
 ings which God has bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus. 
 
IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS 305 
 
 These blessings are general so far as God's children 
 are concerned. They are enjoyed by all who have 
 named the name of Christ. But every one has 
 his own peculiar blessing, some special joy or de- 
 liverance. Perhaps chief of all we should think of 
 that help that came to us in time of trouble, or the 
 good that we were conscious of receiving from what 
 we thought at the time would break our hearts. Did 
 it not prove to be one of the greatest blessings of our 
 lives, when the thorn tormented us, to hear God's 
 voice saying, ''My grace is sufficient for you, my 
 strength is made perfect in your weakness''? And we 
 learned how to cast our care upon God, knowing that 
 He careth for us, and we came to know that all things 
 work together for our good because we love Him, and 
 are called according to His purpose. 
 
 So among our blessings we give a prominent place 
 to our afflictions because they wean our affections from 
 the things that are seen to the things that are not 
 seen, give us a fineness of character that can come 
 in no other way, and lead us to that happy place 
 where we shall hunger no more, neither thirst any 
 more; where the sun shall not smite us, but where 
 the Lamb shaU lead us to living fountains of water, 
 and God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes. 
 
 I have mentioned but a few of the blessings which 
 the Father of lights has bestowed upon us, but sure- 
 ly they are sufficient to cause us to acknowledge that 
 it is ''a good thing to give thanks to Jehovah." 
 
 III. How shall we give thanks to Jehovah? How 
 shall we bless His name? 
 
 1. In our worship. The Psalms that David wrote 
 to be sung in the temple services were full of thanks- 
 giving. How the hearts of the worshipers must have 
 
 20 
 
306 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 thrilled as they heard the full chorus singing with 
 jubilant strains, ''Bless the Lord, my soul; and all 
 that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the 
 Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits/' 
 Still more should our hearts be thrilled as we think 
 of the blessings which God has bestowed upon us, 
 far surpassing those enjoyed by Israel of old, and as 
 we sing such songs as 
 
 ''When aU Thy mercies, O my God, 
 My rising soul surveys, 
 Transported with the view I'm lost 
 In wonder, love and praise." 
 
 Our prayers should be made up largely of thanks- 
 giving. The apostle says: ''In everything by prayer 
 and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests 
 be made known unto God." ''Continue in prayer, 
 and watch in the same with thanksgiving.'' "In 
 everything give thanks; for this is the will of God 
 in Christ Jesus concerning you." Let us cry like 
 suppliants at the throne of grace, but let us not fail 
 to bring the sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of 
 our lips, giving thanks to Him who is the giver of 
 every good and every perfect gift. 
 
 2. The Jews expressed their gratitude to God by 
 a thank-offering. "We must do the same. The thank- 
 offering of the Jew was a lamb slain and laid upon 
 the altar. The thank-offering which we bring is far 
 more precious than that of the Jew. The apostle says, 
 "I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God" 
 (then it is a thank-offering) "that you present your 
 bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, 
 which is your reasonable service." This means that 
 the whole body is to be devoted to God — the head to 
 devise plans for His honor, the heart to be aflame 
 
IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS 307 
 
 with holy passion, the hands to do His will, the feet 
 to run cheerfully in the way of obedience, so that, no 
 matter what we do, it shall be for the glory of God! 
 This is thanksliving, and what is thanksliving but 
 practical thanksgiving? 
 
 3. Again it is said, ''To do good and to communi- 
 cate forget not, for with such sacrifice God is well 
 pleased.'' So when v/e minister to the needy, when 
 we visit the widow and the orphan in their affliction, 
 we are presenting an acceptable sacrifice to the giver 
 of every blessing, not a sin-offering, but a thank- 
 offering, than which no offering is more acceptable. 
 
 IV. What does this do for the individual who thus 
 expresses his gratitude to God? 
 
 1. It brings a blessing that can come in no other 
 way. It means enlargement of soul. An ingrate can 
 not be happy. Ten lepers came to Christ. They were 
 all healed on their way to the priest. Only one re- 
 turned to give glory to God; to give thanks to Him 
 that had cleansed him of his loathsome disease. In 
 his grateful heart he received a blessing greater than 
 his cleansing. So it is with us when we thank God 
 for the blessings that we receive. 
 
 ^'Ten thousand thousand precious gifts 
 My daily thanks employ; 
 Nor is the least a cheerful heart 
 That takes those gifts with joy.'' 
 
 2. But ingratitude! How it debases! Read 
 Romans 1 and learn the awful degradations into which 
 men fell because of their ingratitude. They became 
 vain in their reasonings. Professing themselves to be 
 wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the 
 incorruptible God for the likeness of corruptible man, 
 and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and creeping 
 
308 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 things. For which cause God gave them up in the lusts 
 of their hearts to uncleanness, unto vile passions, so 
 that they received in their hearts that recompense 
 that was their due. 
 
 We have an example of the fruits of ingratitude in 
 Nebuchadnezzar. God gave him greatness and glory 
 and majesty, but he was unthankful. Then he was 
 driven from the sons of men; his heart was made like 
 the beasts, his dwelling was with the wild asses, he was 
 fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with 
 the dew of heaven. What a picture! Just as graphic 
 would be the picture of any man to-day who de- 
 scends to the low and animal plane of ingratitude. 
 
 What is hell? The abode of ungrateful souls. 
 Paul's picture of those who did not give God thanks 
 is of men going down, down, down, till they get lower 
 than the beasts in their vile passions. You find what 
 he says in Romans 1. In this sermon I have not 
 quoted the worst. Read it for yourself. How awful 
 is the revelation which the apostle makes! It teaches 
 us that ungrateful souls slip down little by little till 
 they find themselves in utter darkness, where there 
 are weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Oh, 
 friends, if we have been unthankful, let us repent, let 
 us cry unto God for forgiveness, and let us resolve 
 that we shall, as long as we live, continue to bring 
 forth fruits meet for repentance. 
 
 V. But what is the outcome of a grateful life? 
 Listen! John says: '*I saw, and behold, a great multi- 
 tude, which no man could number, out of every nation 
 and of all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing be- 
 fore the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white 
 robes, and palms in their hands; and they cry with a 
 great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God who sitteth on 
 
IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS 309 
 
 the throne, and nnto the Lamb. And all the angels were 
 standing round about the throne, and about the elders 
 and the four living creatures; and they fell before 
 the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, say- 
 ing, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and 
 thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, he 
 unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. And the 
 four and twenty elders, who sit before God on their 
 thrones, fell upon their faces and worshipped God, 
 saying. We give thee thanks, Lord God, the Al- 
 mighty, who art and who wast; because thou hast 
 taken thy great power, and didst reign." So heaven 
 is a place of thanksgiving. There the redeemed, 
 whose robes are washed white in the blood of the 
 Lamb, who have come up out of great tribulation, who 
 have laid aside the sword of conflict and have taken 
 up the palm of victory, form an innumerable com- 
 pany; each one of them has seized a harp of thanks- 
 giving and they are all engaged in a sublime anthem 
 of praise; while the angels, folding their wings in 
 silence, listen to such a song as they have never learned 
 to sing. The spirit of heaven is the spirit of thanks- 
 giving, and he who has most thanksgiving in his heart 
 has most of heaven in his life. 
 
ZN. D. WELLS was horn June 14, 1876, in Brooke County, 
 • W. Va., and ivas educated at the College of Disciples, 
 St. Thomas, Ont., and Bethany College, TV. Va. 
 
 At Bethany he received doth the A.B. and A.M. degrees. He 
 was minister of the church of Christ at New Ciimiberland, TV. Va., 
 1900-1902; TVillcinshurg, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1902-1906; East Orange, 
 N. J., 1906-1912; High Street Church, Akron, 0., 1912 to present 
 timrC. 
 
 Mr. TV ells was a member of the Board of the Foreign Chris- 
 tian Missionary Society for five years; a member of the Board 
 of the Ohio Christian Missionary Society, 1920 and 1921, and a 
 member of the first Executive Committee of the Umted Christian 
 Missionary Society. 
 
 311 
 
Wedding Anniversary Sermon 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 Introduction. — Tlie fundamental institution of our civiliza- 
 tion is tlie home, and marriage is its basis. 
 
 I. Marriage Is a Partnership. 
 
 1. The man is the maker of the living. 
 
 2. The woman is the maker of the home. 
 
 n. Some Don'ts for Husbands. 
 
 1. Don't treat your partner as though she were your 
 
 slave. 
 
 2. Don't assume the right of being treasurer in the new 
 
 partnership. 
 
 3. Don't fail to deliver the goods according to the 
 
 sample. 
 
 m. Some Don'ts for "Wives. 
 
 1. Don't neglect your home. 
 
 2. Don't be extravagant. 
 
 3. Don't live with relatives if you can avoid it. 
 
 312 
 
THE HOME PARTNERSHIP 
 
 Wedding Anniversary Sermon by Z. A^. D. Wells 
 
 Husbands, love your wives. . . . Wives, reverence your hus- 
 bands.— Eph. 5 : 22, 25. 
 
 HUSBANDS, love your wives.'' ''Wives, rever- 
 ence your husbands." Such is the substance of 
 Paul's teaching in Eph. 5:22-33. In order that this 
 double injunction may be carried out, wives must be 
 lovable and husbands must be worthy of reverence. 
 The fundamental institution of our civilization is 
 the home. None other has such influence. No other 
 institution means so much for the weal or woe of the 
 human race. There is a well-nigh universal desire, 
 both on the part of the man and the woman, for their 
 own home. If one is not happy in his home, he can not 
 find happiness anywhere. 
 
 '*Home is not merely four square walls, 
 Though hung with pictures finely gilded; 
 Home is where affection dwells. 
 
 Filled with shrines the heart hath builded. ' ' 
 
 There is only one foundation upon which a happy 
 home can rest — and that foundation is love. There 
 are marriages for convenience, for position, for wealth 
 and for social advantage. When such a marriage is 
 contemplated, our caution would be ''Don't!'' Love 
 — and love alone — can create the atmosphere of that 
 sanctuary which we call home. 
 
 313 
 
314 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 The ladies* aid society asked an old bachelor to 
 speak at their social function, on the subject ** Woman! 
 Without her, man would be a savage/' When the 
 hour arrived he arose, and said: '^The ladies have fur- 
 nished my theme for this evening. The wording of it 
 runs, 'Woman without her man, would be a savage.' " 
 He wondered why they smiled. It is true he had al- 
 tered the meaning by his change of punctuation, but 
 I am sure there is much truth in both of the state- 
 ments. God felt that Adam was not complete without 
 his helpmate — and God ought to know. 
 
 * ^ As unto the bow the cord is^ 
 So unto man is woman; 
 While she bends him she obeys him, 
 While she leads him yet she follows; 
 Useless each without the other.'* 
 
 I. Marriage Is a Partnership. 
 
 I wish, in this sermon, to emphasize the fact that 
 marriage is a partnership. I shall then define the 
 duties and add some don'ts. 
 
 '^I take thee to be my wedded wife, to have and 
 to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, 
 for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to 
 love and to cherish till death us do part, according to 
 God's holy ordinance, and thereto I pledge thee my 
 troth." 
 
 No more sacred pledge has ever passed the lips 
 of any man in the sealing of an earthly contract. If 
 marriage is not a partnership, then there are no part- 
 nerships in life. In this sacred partnership there is 
 
 1. Tlie man, fhe maker of the living. It is his part 
 to support the home, to maintain his wife and babies, 
 to plan, to work, to toil for others, to spend his life 
 in service for her whom he has selected from all the 
 
THE HOME PARTNERSHIP 315 
 
 noble women of the world, to be her constant com- 
 panion in joy or sorrow, to be snch a father to her 
 children as the children can honor, and to be the stay 
 and support of her life. This, my friends, is not an 
 effort at romantic idealism; it is a plain statement of 
 plain truth. If it is a dream, then as a dream it has 
 been the inspiration for life's most heroic service. 
 Ponder well your promises, and, above all things else 
 in life, keep faith with her. 
 
 The husband is the house-band. He must keep the 
 home together, provide the family shelter, food, cloth- 
 ing, and keep in comfort the sacred place where the 
 physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual culture of 
 the next generation must be provided. Surely such a 
 task is worthy of man's best effort. This is a busy 
 world. Competition is tremendously keen. Our mod- 
 ern life is complex and strenuous, and, in order to 
 accomplish the tasks incident to the maintenance of 
 a home, a man needs a clear brain and a strong body. 
 As nearly as possible, he should be free from petty 
 annoyances and always able to approach his daily 
 tasks with full mental vigor. This can only be done 
 when things are right at home. 
 
 2. TJie woman, fhe maker of tJie home. The wife 
 must be a helpmeet. Not merely a housekeeper, but 
 a home-maker, and there is every difference in the 
 world between these two. The most important thing 
 about a home is not the house, nor is it the furnish- 
 ing; it is not gilded pictures and upholstered divans, 
 nor velvet carpets and magnificent draperies. The 
 vital thing is an atmosphere. Yes, I like to think that 
 the woman's sphere is in the creation of an atmos- 
 phere. In this atmosphere the husband finds his re- 
 laxation and his joy; his daily recreation for the 
 
316 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 tasks and toil of another day amidst the busy whirl 
 of this commercial age. In this atmosphere the chil- 
 dren love to play, and in it their characters are 
 molded for useful citizenship in years to be. The wife 
 must be the inspiration for her husband. He must 
 achieve for her. Her faith in him must be the well- 
 spring of his effort, and, because of her, he must not 
 fail. 
 
 There are many things that are vital, things with- 
 out which this atmosphere can not be maintained. 
 The house must be orderly and clean. It should be 
 light and cheerful. Much fresh air must be supplied, 
 and every appointment should speak real comfort. 
 This does not necessarily mean extravagance. The 
 wife must learn to make a real home on whatever in- 
 come her husband can provide, and with that income 
 she must be content. 
 
 I have little patience with those who speak of the 
 limited sphere of woman. Her sphere is well-nigh 
 limitless. God places in her arms an infant race. It 
 is hers to form and fashion, to mold and model the 
 generation of the days to come. She has just been 
 given the ballot, but long ago God gave to her the 
 boy; momentous compliment — ^the greatest in the his- 
 tory of men. 
 
 II. Same Don'ts for Husbands. 
 
 1. Don't treat your partner as tJiougJi site were 
 your slave. Remember that in the formation of that 
 sacred partnership she placed her all. She sacrificed 
 a home filled with the material comforts in which she 
 had been cradled and cultured and nurtured, in 
 which she had been loved and shielded and protected. 
 She sacrificed a rich reality for that which she hoped 
 you could provide. I believe that it is not exaggera- 
 
THE HOME PARTNERSHIP 317 
 
 tion to say that 90 per cent, of the women who marry, 
 step out of father's home into a less comfortable and 
 convenient house. I have united in marriage more 
 than two thousand couples in the last nine years, 
 and by far the larger number of them have taken 
 but temporary quarters in a few rooms. Remember, 
 she sacrificed because she loved and trusted you. You 
 are less than a real man if you forget that love or 
 betray that trust. She is your partner — ^not your 
 slave. 
 
 2. Don't assume tJie right of being treasurer in 
 tlie new partnership. She has an equal right in the 
 funds of this new firm. Imagine, if you can, a busi- 
 ness partnership in which two parties place their 
 available capital. The business prospers, but, without 
 agreement, one assumes the responsibility for hand- 
 ling all the funds. He banks the money and checks 
 it out without conference or consultation. For the 
 barest necessities of life, the other partner must come 
 to him and ask for funds. In feeling at least, reduced 
 to beggary, humiliated beyond measure, always un- 
 certain as to whether or not his frugal request will 
 be granted. I ask you, as a man, how long would 
 such a partnership be tolerated? My friends, this il- 
 lustration is not an overdraft. Millions of partners in 
 that most sacred of partnerships — ^noble women, wives 
 and mothers — submit to such an enforced arrange- 
 ment without complaint. I know no greater tribute 
 to the power of true love than this submission, but 
 it is not right. Give to her an allowance that is en- 
 tirely adequate for her many needs, or, better still, 
 bank the income in a joint account, and, if she is a 
 worthy woman, she will suffer want rather than betray 
 your confidence and trust. If the funds are too mea- 
 
318 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 ger for a bank account, share the meagerness equally, 
 and plan for better days ahead. 
 
 3. Don't fail to deliver the goods according to the 
 sample. Some time ago I purchased a suit of clothes 
 from a traveling salesman. He displayed a splendid 
 line of samples. I selected a very beautiful piece, and 
 ordered the suit, which was to be made to my measure, 
 and delivered within three weeks. What was my sur- 
 prise, about a month later, to receive a suit of inferior 
 workmanship, poorer and lighter quality, and of an 
 entirely different shade! Upon comparing the material 
 with the sample, which I had kept, my ''righteous in- 
 dignation'' was aroused and forthwith the suit went 
 back. Suppose you were to purchase an Oriental rug 
 of beautiful design, and find, upon delivery, that they 
 had sent to you the cheapest imitation. Recently I 
 heard a woman tell her husband that he was not even 
 distantly related to the man she thought she married. 
 How courteous and thoughtful he once was! How 
 graceful and how kind! How considerate of her com- 
 fort and her pleasure! Her slightest wish was his 
 supreme law. Think of the flowers and the candy and 
 the love tokens! Ah, yes! But you must remember 
 that these were in the courtship days. My brother! 
 why not deliver the goods according to the sample? 
 These things, and a million other little courtesies, must 
 not be forgotten. If you forget them, you have been 
 deceiving her. 
 
 III. Some Don'ts for Wives. 
 
 1. Don't neglect your home. The home is woman's 
 throne. Here she reigns as queen, and here she must 
 be queenly. No social success imaginable is sufficient 
 recompense for the neglect of the home. The card- 
 case and the automobile must not displace the needle 
 
THE HOME PARTNEESHIP 319 
 
 and the baby-carriage. Women, happy in and en- 
 tirely dedicated to the domestic art, are the crying 
 need of our generation. Nothing can do more to 
 check moral decline and social degeneracy than for 
 our wives and mothers to dedicate themselves to the 
 creation of a right home atmosphere and fully appre- 
 ciate the exalted privilege, the high responsibility, and 
 the incalculable influence of true motherhood. 
 
 2. Don't be extravagant. Whatever happens, live 
 within your means. Every young couple should make 
 it the unalterable rule to save some money from each 
 pay. Eemember that expenses will increase with the grow- 
 ing family, and that it is easier to save your means 
 with a family of two than it will be with three or 
 five. Then, too, if we do not form the thrift habit 
 in our early married life, it is probable that later it 
 will be necessary for the children to sacrifice their 
 higher education and miss the largest usefulness in 
 life. Again, there is, perhaps, no more prolific source 
 of domestic infelicity than the consciousness that one 
 can not get ahead. A growing bank account is the 
 best insurance policy for domestic happiness. 
 
 3. Don't live with relatives, if you can avoid it. 
 How many are the homes that have come to ruin be- 
 cause of the sympathetic comfort and ill-advised ad- 
 vice of relatives or friends! For instance, there is 
 a difference of opinion between the newly-weds, per- 
 haps a discussion, maybe an unkind word with rufiled 
 feelings and copious tears. She may refuse the good- 
 by kiss. With heavy heart he leaves the home mental- 
 ly incapacitated for his best work that day. Then the 
 inevitable happens. She confides in mother, the mother 
 love responds with sympathy and comfort, and in the 
 light of this she feels that she really has been wronged. 
 
820 SPECIAL SEEMONS 
 
 The breach is widened, and when he returns they quar- 
 rel, and thus they leave the peaceful harbor and 
 launch upon a troubled sea. No, my friends, as man 
 and wife sail out together they do not need anything 
 so much as they need an open sea. If given plenty of 
 sea room, the chances are that they will unitedly 
 weather the severest storm. Above all things, when 
 difficulties come, brook no interference from relatives 
 or friends. 
 
 And, finally, let me say to both, be cheerful, be 
 happy, count your blessings, and thank God, remem- 
 bering that nothing ever yet brought larger returns 
 than kindness, consideration and love. 
 
 *'If with pleasure you are viewing any work your wife is doing; 
 
 If you like her or you love her, tell her now; 
 DonH withhold your approbation till the parson makes oration, 
 
 And she lies with snowy lilies o'er her brow; 
 For no matter how you shout it, she won't really care about it; 
 
 'She won't know how many teardrops you have shed. 
 If you think some praise is due her, now's the time to tell it 
 to her, 
 
 For she can not read her tombstone when she's dead. 
 
 ''More than fame and more than money is the comment kind and 
 sunny. 
 
 And the hearty, warm approval of a friend; 
 For it gives to life a savor, and it makes you stronger, braver, 
 
 And it gives you heart and spirit to the end. 
 If she earns your praise, bestow it ; if you love her, let her know it ; 
 
 Let the words of true encouragement be said. 
 Bo not wait till life is over and she's underneath the clover, 
 
 For she can not read her tombstone when she's dead." 
 
T^DWIN W. THOBNTON wns lorn on a farm near West Mid- 
 I2j dleburg, Logan County, 0., Aug, SO, 1863, and was educated 
 in the common schools of Zanesfield, 0.; Prof, J, W, Carter's 
 school at Waverly, Mo.; the Missouri State University at Colum- 
 hia, Mo., and the Bible College of the Kentucky University, Lex- 
 ington, Ky, 
 
 Mr, Thornton preached his first sermon in the church of Christ 
 at Enohnoster, Mo,; served the church at Holden, Mo,, for a 
 short time 05 supply, and then accepted his first pastorate v)ith 
 the church at Paola, Kan, Afterward he preached in Lathrop 
 and Carrollton, Mo,; Fort Smith, Ark,; Kansas City, Mo.; May- 
 field, Ky,; Pittsburgh and Wayneshurg, Pa,, and Long Beach nnd 
 Los Angeles, Calif. Since 1910 he has been editor-in-chief of the 
 lesson literature published by The Standard Publishing Company, 
 Cincinnati, 0,, spending one and a half years of the time with 
 the West Side Church, NewarJc, 0. 
 
 91 821 
 
Home-coming Day Address 
 
 OUTLINE 
 
 I. Centiipetal Home Forces tliat Center in tlie Home Itself. 
 
 1. Family affection tliat makes eacli member of tlie 
 
 family to love the home. 
 
 2. Family lo3ralty that impels each member to protect 
 
 the home. 
 
 3. Family faith that inspires all to dedicate the home 
 
 to God. 
 
 XL Centrifugal Home Forces that Beach to the * 'Uttermost 
 Part of the Earth." 
 
 1. A radiating hospitality that blesses every home 
 
 guest. 
 
 2. A constructive enthusiasm that backs every commu- 
 
 nity interest. 
 
 3. An upbuilding patriotism that supports every nation- 
 
 al ideal. 
 
 4. An outreaching Christian sympathy that extends to 
 
 the rim of the world* 
 
 823 
 
HOME DYNAMICS 
 
 Home'Coming Day Address by E. JV. Thornton 
 
 Scripture. — ^ ^ Beginning from Jerusalem ' ' (Luke 24 : 47) . 
 Used not as a text to be expounded; but as a phrase furnishing 
 an idea. 
 
 FRIENDS, we are here to-day in answer to the call 
 of memories. Back of your kindly invitations there 
 have been silent spiritual appeals even more powerful. 
 Every year the memory refrain of ''Home, Sweet 
 Home,'* has been mutely sung by the autumn leaves, 
 the winter snows, the spring flowers and the summer 
 rains, so that with Coates Kinney we can all say: 
 
 "Every tinkle on the shingles has an echo in the heart, 
 And a thousand dreary fancies into busy being start. 
 And a thousand recollections weave their bright hues into woof, 
 As we listen to the patter of the soft rain on the roof.'' 
 
 The memory of the old, shaded house, whose restful 
 doorway once framed mother's presence; the memory 
 of cool paths through the dewy grasses of mornings 
 long gone; the memory of the white-branched, love- 
 marked beeches on the hill slope, where young vows 
 were once made; the memory of the sweet-toned bell 
 that sang its peaceful summons to worshipers no longer 
 here — ^these, and like memories, have been the urge that 
 has reinforced your written invitations, and we are 
 gathered again in the old home community. 
 
 To those of us who in childhood moved away from 
 this hallowed spot there are many changes noticeable. 
 "We sense the pathetic absence of old landmarks as well 
 
 22 823 
 
324 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 as loved faces. We feel the jar of ultra newness as 
 certain ''improvements'' obtrude themselves in the place 
 of the bygone things we fain would see again. There 
 is a noisy garage standing where the melody of the 
 blacksmith's anvil used to be made ; there is a debonair 
 public library covering the playground of the old brick 
 schoolhouse; there is a brazen-fronted ''movie" theater 
 within the walls of the little meeting-house that once 
 sent forth the quavering cadences of common-meter 
 hymns. The sacred things of yesterday are unable to 
 hold their own against the profane things of to-day. 
 Yes, and it is barely possible that to those of us who 
 have been away, the pull of the old home attic has been 
 as great as the pull of your anticipated welcome; for 
 to the attic the quaint outgrown things of years agone 
 have found their decrepit way. Where else are the 
 worn, split-bottomed chairs, the settee, the andirons and 
 the tongs? Where is the old Dutch oven that used to 
 hover over the fireplace while from beneath its ample 
 lid there came forth odors that have never been equaled 
 before nor since ? Where are the horn-handled knives, 
 the two-pronged forks, the pewter castor — and where 
 are the frazzled remains of the once glorious fly-brush 
 made of peacock feathers ? Where is the long-spindled, 
 corded bedstead, on which the fat straw-tick supported 
 the fatter feather bed, inviting disappearance and ob- 
 livion? One by one in limping procession they have 
 passed up the attic stairs. 
 
 But why should it make any difference what be- 
 comes of the rubbish of former generations? Why not 
 make kindling-wood of grandmother's spinning-wheel 
 and wreckage of grandfather's clock? The real answer 
 explains our presence here to-day, and furnishes the 
 theme of this address. As in nature there are forces 
 
HOME DYNAMICS 325 
 
 that throw off from the center, and forces that draw 
 in toward the center, so in human relationships there 
 are heart forces that are concentric and heart forces 
 that are eccentric. 
 
 I. Th^re are centripetal home forces that center in 
 the home itself. Since the beginning of history and 
 the dawn of tradition Jacobs have been returning to 
 Hebron, and Naomis have been going back to Beth- 
 lehem. From the corners of the earth men and women 
 yield to the irresistible pull of home, and make pil- 
 grimages to the scenes of their childhood. Is this the 
 mere accident of custom, or is it not rather the subtle 
 working of primordial impulses designed to preserve 
 the integrity of the home, whence come the forces that 
 move mankind, and weld the world to God? It is in 
 the home that the family is builded, and it is in the 
 family that the race is shaped. Let us therefore make 
 brief inventory of the home's centripetal forces in the 
 order of their importance. 
 
 1. Family affection, fhat makes each member of the 
 family love the home. No one ever loved a house for 
 the sake of the house itself, or loved a tree or rock 
 because of the inherent loveableness of rocks and trees. 
 We love objects and places only as they are inseparably 
 associated with somebody, and it is the somebody that 
 we love, not the places and objects. Bring down from 
 the attic a certain moth-eaten, rickety chair. It is bat- 
 tered and unsightly, patched and tottery, yet we look 
 at it through tears, and touch it with loving fingers. 
 Are our hearts stirred because we love rusted tacks, 
 ragged burlap or worm-eaten wood? No, not that. It 
 is because mother sat there, or father sat there, or baby 
 sat there. It is because some loved one sat there who 
 was so much a part of ourselves as to affect the very 
 
326 SPECIAL SEEMONS 
 
 wellsprings of our life purposes and conduct. All the 
 finer sentiments that make life worth living — sympathy, 
 kindness, forgiveness, considerateness, solicitude — are 
 but different expressions of love. They are facets of 
 the one diamond, and it is in the light of home that 
 these facets are shaped to reveal their true luster. The 
 home is the source of the formative influences that lead 
 to human betterment. Whatever dwarfs the homing 
 instinct blights humanity at its core, and whatever nur- 
 tures it helps to give the world a sound heart. "What 
 is the real offence of the man who profiteers in home 
 necessities, house rents and home-building materials? 
 Is it simply the grabbing of an unfair profit? No. 
 That is bad enough, but the real offence is in the 
 strangulation of the homing instinct. The profiteer is 
 a home strangler. 
 
 And apropos of home strangling, is it not barely 
 possible that the modern woman needs to strengthen 
 her appreciation of the divineness of her prerogative 
 as a home-maker? There are certain theorists who, 
 under the seductive plea of ''larger liberty," would 
 reduce the home to a communistic garage, and turn the 
 community's children over to the town council to be 
 mothered. More than any one else it is the mother, 
 the wife, the woman, who makes the home to be home. 
 There are not enough men in the United States to 
 make a home without the presence of a woman to give 
 it the right atmosphere. The family is love's supreme 
 institution; the home is the family's nesting-place; 
 woman is the soul of the home; therefore every home- 
 making woman is at the very fountain of the world's 
 welfare and happiness. Let no woman who has either 
 heart or brains be guilty of dallying with any theory 
 of ''emancipation" that calls home a treadmill, and 
 
HOME DYNAMICS 327 
 
 brands housework as drudgery. ''Housekeeping is 
 only the shell of a woman's business," home-making is 
 its heart. Does the daily grind become irksome? 
 Doubtless it does. But how much of a price is irksome- 
 ness when it pays for the privilege of being associated 
 with almighty God in the work of molding and lifting 
 the race! 
 
 ''The purple of her regal robe, 
 The crown of regal worth. 
 She wears who sways in gentleness 
 The scepter of her hearth. '' 
 
 2. Family loyalty, that impels each member to pro- 
 tect the home. Based upon family affection, and grow- 
 ing out of it, is a second centripetal home force that 
 draws the members of the household into a league of 
 home protection and defence. It inclines each to stand 
 up for the rest, and bands them all together in a com- 
 mon determination to preserve the family integrity. 
 Most men, as Eauschenbusch says, toil early and late 
 ''with little else in mind except to maintain their 
 homes.'' Most women spend two-thirds of their lives 
 in a routine of sacrifice and self -repression in the in- 
 terest of home. Most children therefore grow up im- 
 bibing from the atmosphere of their surroundings a 
 home loyalty that is interwoven with every fiber of 
 their being. When conditions are such as to make this 
 loyalty impossible, home is not home. Note the quick- 
 ness of the average man to resent insult to his family. 
 Note the swiftness of the mother as she springs to the 
 defence of her children. Note the boasting of the boy 
 as he relates the prowess of his dad. Note the pride 
 of the girl as she describes the accomplishments of her 
 mother. This centripetal loyalty must mean something. 
 Jacob Riis says "that one of the direct enemies of the 
 
328 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 home is the slum/' It is the enemy of the home be- 
 cause it breeds ignorance, disease and crime; and, 
 where there is nothing to love that is loveable, and 
 nothing to be loyal to that is worthy, the human being 
 sinks to the level of the brute. Slum life, hotel life, 
 tramp life, society life, or any other life that interferes 
 with the normal growth of home, love and loyalty, is 
 inimical to the highest interests of humanity. 
 
 3. Family faith, that inspires all to dedicate the 
 home to God. This third centripetal force is not found 
 in every home, but it is found in all homes where 
 family ideals are at their best. In material wealth, 
 conveniences and scientific contrivances, we who are 
 here to-day are away in advance of our forefathers. 
 They knew nothing about wireless telegraphy, electric 
 lighting, telephones, aeroplanes and automobiles, but 
 they knew God better than we know Him. When our 
 great-grandparents settled this community they en- 
 dured hardships and privations of which we have never 
 dreamed; their education was limited and unpedagog- 
 ical; they never heard of Biblical criticism, and knew 
 nothing of the *'two Isaiahs''; but they knew their 
 Bibles, and in practically every Christian home there 
 was family worship. Out in the fields grandfather read 
 the New Testament while the horses rested, and in the 
 house grandmother laid the good Book in a convenient 
 place where she might pause occasionally for a precious 
 glimpse as she went about her homely tasks. The utter 
 simplicity of their unclouded faith made spiritual giants 
 of those pioneers, and as one by one they have fallen 
 with age about us, we have felt ourselves to be like 
 underbrush in the presence of passing monarchs of the 
 forest. Theirs was the day when mothers taught their 
 children to memorize the word of God, so that from a 
 
HOME DYNAMICS 329 
 
 babe each member of the family grew up, like Timothy, 
 knowing the sacred writings which were able to make 
 them *'wise unto salvation/' Since then there has been 
 a gradual infusion of materialistic, pagan philosophy 
 into the minds of those of our sons and daughters who 
 have sat at the feet of imported professors, and these 
 sons and daughters have come home from college spirit- 
 ually negatived for the rest of their lives. The home 
 is throwing up the job of Bible training; the public 
 school can not undertake it because *' there are too 
 many kinds of people to please"; the college is disposed 
 to consider the sources of Biblical data as somewhat '* hy- 
 pothetical, '^ and the university, to its own satisfaction, 
 at least, has analyzed the Bible into nothingness. Even 
 in ''church school" circles some of us, with unpracticed 
 tongue, have begun to stammer in academic phrase, 
 hoping to convey the impression that we are in touch 
 with higher learning, but often getting unexpected 
 results. The son of a leader in city Sunday-school 
 work was asked if his school taught the pupils to memo- 
 rize Scripture. ''Naw," he said, ''we don't have any 
 of that memory stuff; we study religious education." 
 Shades of the apostles, preserve us ! 
 
 No school or other organization of learning can do 
 for children and young people what the Christian home 
 can do. The three centripetal forces — ^love, loyalty and 
 faith — are primarily home forces. They center in the 
 home. There they are given and there they are re- 
 ceived. But if the home center is satisfied simply to 
 centralize, it soon becomes a dead center. When the old 
 Jerusalem church was becoming content to remain in 
 Jerusalem, it was providentially "scattered abroad." 
 Home forces can not remain at home. They are ex- 
 pended within the home that they may be expanded 
 
330 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 beyond, and every Christian family circle becomes a 
 miniature Jerusalem through: 
 
 n. Centrifugal home forces that reach to the 
 ''uttermost part of the earth." This is a great vision 
 we are trying to get before us — a vision of home as 
 the place where, under divine benediction, all the best 
 powers of the soul may grow, expand and shape them- 
 selves for the job of making the world sweeter and 
 better. Among the humblest of these outgoing in- 
 fluences is: 
 
 1, A radiating Jiospitality tJiat blesses every Jiome 
 guest. 
 
 ''There are hermit souls that live withdrawn 
 
 In the place of their self -content ; 
 There are souls like stars, that dwell apart 
 
 In a fellowless firmament; 
 There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths 
 
 Where highways never ran. 
 But let me live by the side of the road 
 
 And be a friend to man." 
 
 And, after all, what is it that gives to the roadside 
 home that indescribable air of hospitable hominess that 
 is so delightful to us? Is it fine furniture, tapestries 
 and gold? No, for we have sat at firesides where the 
 light flickered over threadbare rugs and pathetically 
 faded chairs, and have sensed the presence of a rich 
 contentment that no money could buy. Is it an abun- 
 dance of delectable food prepared with the skill of a 
 chef, and served in elegant taste? No, for we remem- 
 ber having sat at a rickety kitchen table, on which there 
 was nothing but hot corn pone and sweet milk served 
 a la any old way, and we had the time of our life. 
 A warm good will glowing in the hearts of home folk, 
 and expressing itself in unselfish cordiality — that, and 
 that alone, speeds the parting guest, and gives joy to 
 the guest who tarries. In fact, we sometimes feel that 
 
HOME DYNAMICS 331 
 
 an excess of modern conveniences interferes with hos- 
 pitality's radiation, so to speak. Pressing a button and 
 installing a thermostat may result in light and heat, 
 but human solicitude is not turned on that way. 
 
 Permit me to paint a memory picture. The old 
 farm home stood on the hill by the side of the ridge 
 road, its gable windows overlooking the near-distant 
 village, where chimney-tops signaled one another hos- 
 pitably. The air was clear and cold, and the fields and 
 woods were wrapped in the mantle of God Almighty's 
 white. In the farmhouse on the hill every room was 
 alive with excited anticipation as scurrying feet and 
 hurrying hands wrought magic in the happy prepara- 
 tion of the home-coming Thanksgiving dinner. Grand- 
 mother sat in her invalid chair where her dear, remi- 
 niscent eyes could see a little way down the road, and 
 grandfather pottered around doing unnecessary things 
 with an air of great concern. Under the direction of 
 younger members of the household the finishing touches 
 were being given here and there, and then the folks 
 began to come. In threes, in sevens, in twos, in fives, 
 they stormed the blessed old front porch, some crying, 
 others laughing, and all talking at Once. Shall we 
 attempt to describe that dinner? No, there are points 
 of effort beyond which the vocabulary of mortals be- 
 comes anemic and feeble. Suffice it to say that the 
 longest dining-table was too short, and had to be sup- 
 plemented by a table from the kitchen. The longest 
 table-cloth was not long enough, and had to be helped 
 out. Chairs were assembled from all over the place, 
 and ''Webster's Unabridged" and the big family Bible 
 were called upon to assist in elevating the younger 
 generation. The only high-chair was given over to the 
 youngest baby, who forthwith became the center of 
 
332 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 attention, and the happy meal that had begun with 
 grandfather's ''blessing" closed with the tearful hope 
 that the circle might remain unbroken for another year. 
 
 Every man who goes forth into the world with such 
 a picture in his heart has with him both a guardian 
 angel and an angel of conquest over evil. But these 
 centrifugal home forces, like circles, grow wider as they 
 leave the center, and there is next: 
 
 2. A constructive entTiusiasm tJiat hacks every com- 
 mumty interest. The genuine home spirit, being un- 
 selfish, is essentially missionary. Its virtues begin at 
 home, but they can not stay there. It forms friend- 
 ships that link home with home until an interlocked 
 group of homes becomes a community, or a family of 
 families, so that whatever blesses the community pros- 
 pers each citizen, and whatever injures any individual 
 cripples the community. Unwillingness or inability to 
 see this in homes that are mere stay places, or worse, 
 is responsible for the lack of a community conscience, 
 which lack, in turn, is responsible for the retardation 
 of all that's good. The entire burden of community 
 betterment rests upon the homes that get back of every- 
 thing that is right, and array themselves against every- 
 thing that is wrong. May God have pity upon the 
 spawning sources of those supine inhabitants who take 
 greedy advantage of every civic improvement, but take 
 no constructive interest in, and contribute nothing to, 
 the public welfare. After the smashing of windows, 
 robbery, looting and assault that took place during the 
 strike of the Boston police force, the Transcript had 
 this to say: ''Boston is reaping what she has sown. 
 She is ascertaining that among large masses of her 
 population no foundation of religion and character has 
 been laid to which can be spiked a morality that will 
 
HOME DYNAMICS 333 
 
 work.'^ The foundations of religion and character are 
 laid in Christian homes. Out from them must go the 
 intelligence that seeks the community's good through 
 all constructive religious, social, educational, political, 
 commercial, civic and philanthropic organization, and 
 no community life can even offer its families protection 
 from the lust of the despoiler until men make home 
 the object of their chiefest solicitude, and women con- 
 sider home-making the supreme privilege of woman- 
 hood. In a material sense Christian citizenship '' re- 
 quires the subordination of private interests to the 
 public good," but in a spiritual sense the civic right- 
 eousness of a community never rises above the moral 
 and religious ideals of the homes that compose it. 
 
 It can not be said too frequently that the Christian 
 home is the chief support of the church of our Lord, 
 and is the supporting background of all community 
 movements and institutions identified with the public 
 weal. Out from a home atmosphere of sunny devout- 
 ness a child goes naturally into the wider joy of the 
 Master's kingdom. Out from a home atmosphere where 
 books are loved he goes happily into the wider fields 
 of knowledge. This is why the memory of school-days 
 softens our eyes, and brings a reminiscent smile, and 
 we love the poet who wrote : 
 
 ''The rieli air is sweet witli the breath of September, 
 The sumach is staining the hedges with red; 
 Soft rests on the hill-slopes the light we remember, 
 The glory of days that so long ago fled — 
 When, brown-cheeked and ruddy, 
 Blithe-hearted and free, 
 The summons to study 
 We answered with glee. 
 Listen, oh I listen once more to the swell 
 Of the masterful, merry Academy bell.*' 
 
334 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 But let US follow again the still widening circles of 
 the home's centrifugal influences and we shall see: 
 
 3. An upbuilding patriotism that supports every 
 national ideal. When the World War began, we citi- 
 zens of the United States felt ourselves to be merely 
 long-distance spectators of a quarrel that was none of 
 our business. We had no notion of entering the con- 
 flict. We had been cultivating the ideals of peace. 
 We even did not believe in war. But later, when un- 
 bridled ruthlessness broke loose in Europe, seeking ut- 
 terly to ''crush the spirit of all free peoples," and 
 force upon the world the doctrine that ''might makes 
 right," our Government decided that national honor 
 made it necessary for us to leap into the fray and 
 help the Allies. From the capitol at Washington a 
 direct appeal to patriotism was sped across the thresh- 
 old of the homes of America, and, like magic, the 
 nation arose to the rescue. Now, what national ideal 
 were we supporting? Simply this — ^we were upholding 
 the traditions of our great-visioned forefathers who 
 saw more in American patriotism than a mere willing- 
 ness to flght when attacked. Around their flresides 
 they dedicated themselves to their beloved America, 
 and in their assemblies they dedicated their beloved 
 America to almighty God and to the defence of eter- 
 nal righteousness and justice. 
 
 Under modern conditions we are in danger of los- 
 ing this lofty ideal. Hordes of strangers from all 
 over the world have swarmed into our cities, scattering 
 godlessness and un-American conceptions of life and 
 conduct. New York, for instance, is a city of cities. 
 Within her corporate limits there are teeming popula- 
 tions that neither speak our language nor understand 
 one another. In the light of this fact, we scarcely 
 
HOME DYNAMICS 335 
 
 know how to resent the unfeeling sneer that *'the 
 statue of Liberty was designed by a Dago and pre- 
 sented to the United States by the French to enlighten 
 the Irish immigrant on his way to Dutch New York/' 
 The children of these foreign folk are, many of them, 
 keen-minded and eager to learn. They are capable of 
 catching the true spirit of our Republic, but the trans- 
 forming democracy of the unecclesiasticised religion of 
 Jesus Christ is the only power that can make their 
 perfect Americanization a fact. 
 
 An American girl was in conversation with a titled 
 Englishman who was inclined to snobbishness. He 
 said: ''The stripes in your American flag make it 
 look like a stick of cheap candy, don't you know." 
 ''Yes," she flashed, "there is some resemblance; it 
 makes everybody sick who tries to lick it." Very 
 gleefully and properly we shout our approval of this 
 platform story, but, friends, we must not forget that 
 American patriotism means more than exultation over 
 victories. No type of patriotism is ideally American 
 except Christian patriotism. The founders of our Re- 
 public were men and women whose supreme aim was 
 to dedicate it to the promotion of the Christian re- 
 ligion. "We have always been classed among the Chris- 
 tian nations of the world. The Supreme Court of the 
 United States has declared that we are a Christian 
 nation. The charters of the early colonies formally 
 asserted the fact. "Within one hundred years after the 
 landing at Jamestown three colleges were founded: 
 Harvard, William and Mary, and Yale. They were all 
 dedicated to the propagation of Christian righteous- 
 ness. The national observance of Christmas and 
 Thanksgiving Day has continuously proclaimed to the 
 world that we are a Christian nation. So indisputa- 
 
336 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 ble is this fact; so plainly has it been written into our 
 national history; so essentially has it been wrought 
 into our national institutions and breathed into our 
 very life — that an American home, to be patriotic in 
 the highest sense, must be Christian. Deliberate god- 
 lessness is treason to the ^' Stars and Stripes," and no 
 atheist can be one hundred per cent. American. 
 
 The final and already anticipated centrifugal force 
 emanating from the home is: 
 
 4. An out-reacMng CJiristian sympatJiy tJiat extends 
 to the rim of the world, A Christian nation can not 
 do otherwise than disseminate Christianity. In the 
 very nature of things the religion of Jesus Christ 
 has to be given in order to be kept. From the home, 
 through the church, its radiating power is divinely 
 designed to go out and out until it touches the bor- 
 ders of human habitations. In the necessary effort 
 to reach and warm the chilled heart of the last 
 man lies the power that keeps the home fires 
 burning. Such is the ideal. Such the divine 
 plan. But how well are we qualified to carry it out? 
 Investigation shows that half the children and youth 
 of our own country are not reached by any organized 
 religious educational influence whatever. Multiplied 
 thousands of children from polyglot and unenlightened 
 birth-springs are streaming into the current of to-mor- 
 row's citizenship while an inadequate number of Bible 
 schools are devoting thirty minutes a week to the work 
 of focusing the sun rays of the Christian religion upon 
 the turbid tide. Can this *' spiritual illiteracy,'' this 
 pauperism of soul, go on forever without cumulative 
 and retroactive disaster? Can a misasmatic marsh for- 
 ever be left undrained without menace to the dwellers 
 on the heights? The mayor of a great city once re- 
 
HOME DYNAMICS 337 
 
 fused to inspect and clean up the slums. His daughter 
 bought an expensive coat from a fashionable modiste, 
 who let out a part of the work to a less fashionable 
 tailor, who sub-let some of the rougher sewing to a 
 tenement seamstress. After wearing the garment a 
 few times, the young girl sickened and died of a ter- 
 rible contagion. The tenement had struck back. Ex- 
 tending the argument, can any American Christian 
 home afford not to cultivate a world vision? Some- 
 how, sometime, the *' uttermost part of the earth" will 
 strike back unless our Lord's commission is carried 
 out, beginning at the Jerusalem of each Christian fire- 
 side and reaching to the world's horizon. 
 
 That, and that alone, which can save our country 
 from the crumbling disintegration that has befallen 
 the nations of antiquity, is the continuous infusion of 
 the spiritual ideals of the Christian religion into our 
 home and national life. These spiritual ideals include 
 a redemptive interest in all '^the people that sit in 
 darkness.'' In saving others we save ourselves, and in 
 neglecting ourselves we lose the rest. Sectarianism 
 and liberalism have been equally shortsighted in failing 
 to see that the New Testament church solves the prob- 
 lem of universal brotherhood by simply consisting of 
 the total number of individuals who, through implicit 
 obedience to the divine will, are united with and living 
 in Jesus Christ, and so constitute the ''family of God." 
 The sectarian spirit can not make disciples of all the 
 nations because the nations do not care to be en- 
 meshed in fifty-seven varieties of ecclesiastical harness. 
 The spirit of liberalism can not ''go into all the world 
 and preach the gospel," because, unless it can first 
 get its feet placed somewhere, it can not even start. 
 Our heterogeneous population puts us in racial touch 
 
338 SPECIAL SERMONS 
 
 with the world, but the world can never be touched 
 spiritually through a heterogeneous gospel. Josiah 
 Strong said: *^The supreme need of the world is a 
 real God; not the great perhaps, but the great I am,'' 
 If this be true, then, in the very nature of things, the 
 preparation to meet the world's need must begin in the 
 warm firelight of the world's homes. 
 
 Friends, those of you who have stayed here in the 
 old home community are the custodians of the material 
 things associated with the childhood of us all. It is 
 your privilege daily to look upon scenes the very ab- 
 sence from which ofttimes makes the rest of us sick at 
 heart. Once more we home-comers scatter to our newer 
 places of interest, carrying added memories of your 
 graciousness. Once more we leave to you the care of 
 the old home that is so rich in associations. Once 
 more from the hill-road we shall look back upon the 
 homes of friends who are here, and upon the near-by 
 peaceful abiding-place of loved ones that are gone, 
 and say ''good-by till we meet again." 
 
 ' * The clouds are round us and the snow-drifts thicken. 
 0, Thou dear Shepherd, leave us not to sicken 
 In the waste night; our tardy footsteps quicken; 
 At evening bring^ us home.*' 
 
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