The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-03-31
Passion Sunday Sermons.

Yesterday introduced the commemorative
season of the Saviour passion and suffering
more Immediately preceding his crucifixion,
and it was fttingly observed by the Catholic
and Protestant Episcopal churches Father
McNamee looked upon this season as one
peculiarly adapted to prayer and meditation
and offerings of gratitude and praise to
the compassionate Jesus, who suffered and
died for the race. These sufferings and this
death, the scene in the Garden and on the
Gross, we are told, were so wildly depicted that
the audience wept. And we do not wonder at
it. The recital of this story has a power to
move human hearts that no other story has,
and, as Father McNamee suggested, the ines
Unable results of the Saviour's passion will
flow in upon the soul that meditates thereon
and seeks through faith the blessings of divine
grace. 1t is the story of Gods love to SHINING
man.
Of like tenor were the remarks of Rev. Mr..
Thompson, who gave Christians a scourging
for wounding their Saviour by their incon-
sistent, if not absolutely wicked, lives. The
crucifixion, he said, was not the lesson of an
hour. Christ was crucifed from the beginning
and was crucifed to the end. The energy that
is concentrated and used in twenty four hours
in the United States could conquer Africa and
make it Christian from end to end. If this
statement is true, or even partially true, does
there not rest fearful responsibility upon this
Christian nation? And by our neglect in this
matter is not Christ wounded in the house of
his friends?
Mr.. rockingham, who had been accused of
being q nothingarian, has manifestly veered
around considerably within brief period,
else it would not have been necessary for a
religious exchange last week to deny a rumor
that he was thinking of entering the ortho-
dox ministry. In his discourse yesterday on
the vanity and value of life he acknowledges
his belief in the hereafter, and admits that un-
less we live cordially and sincerely here we
may not hope for the felicity beyond His
statement Of woman's sphere and duty
should commend itself to every true woman.
To rear child and to rear it well, to soften
its disposition and to teach it what it will be,
is the noblest work woman can do. Home
is the casket that contains men, women and
attractive and beautiful, so that men and
women will love to be there. We hope the
women will read this discourse and be profted
by it.
DR.. Clarke, of Brooklyn, depicted the iudg-
ment day that is within every mans breast in
the souls living consciousness of sins unpar-
doned. The sun can no more efface the water
marks on stationery than the record of sin on
the soul can be blotted out save by the blood
of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the
world.
Mr.. Beecher yesterday delivered beautiful
essay on the senses and their uses. IF Plym-
outh congregation pay the large salary they
are reported to pay for religious instruction
every Sabbath and get only such as this,
in our opinion they do not get the
worth Of their money. And why minister
of the Gospel should go into philosophical
explanation of the use of the reason in re-
ligion, any more than in the business Of every
day life, is little incomprehensible. The
exercise of reason that men bring into their
daily business, if applied to the subject of
religion, would save every reasoning man in
New York in a week, if not in q day; and
hence Mr.. Beecher might have told his hearers
in five minutes what they could practise at
once, instead of laboring through an hour to
teach them that the business of this life
is one thing and that Of the life to
come is another, and that different
faculties, and their exercise in differ
ent degrees, are needed. for each. 1t is
to be presumed that the majority of Plym-
outh congregation believe the Bible and the
cardinal doctrines of Christianity contained
therein, and all this sensuous philosophy
will not increase their faith in these things
What they need is to know of the doctrines
whether they be of God, and this knowledge
they can obtain only in one way-by doing
the will of God. Let them apply the same
principles to salvation that they apply to
making money, and they will have the former
as certainly as the latter.
Rev. John Dickinson has been preaching
sermons on temperance and reading works of
fiction, and in late discourse on the last
named topic he taught that the reading of the
higher and nobler works of the imagination
was simply the employment of God-given
faculty He had been demonstrated with for
making this observation, SO yesterday he gave
his people some lessons on Bible study. He
claims that this Book contains some beautiful
specimens of the higher and nobler works
of the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and parallels
But how to study the Bible should be no
more of puzzle to people than how
to study history or geography or poetry. The
Bible is book, and asks no odds Of any
other book. It demands study, but not par
ticular kind of study, unless the student is
seeking for n particular thing. But if the