The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1876-06-24
THE PACIFIC
GOmmcrtialA OOrrtisrr
SATURDAY Y. JUNE q.
FOREIGN MISSION ANNIVERSARY
SERMON,
Preached at the Fort Street ChafsA, Hoaolalu.
June nth, 1875.
By THE REv. JAS. VI. ALExAxBFR.
(Pu5Iisked b. RegufffJ

IPu5Iissed By Requssfl
Mas.. Is %. Iaaszuch as ys hare done il unto cve q
the lsasi of these, my brethren. &c have done il uaIo ne.
The giving Of life is the prerogative Of God alone
At the creation it was he only, who, after man had
been formed from the dust of the earth, could
breathe into him the breath Of lie. In Ezekiel
vision at the Valley Of Dry Bones, after those bones
had been clothed with flesh, that prophet was told
TO cry, Come from the four winds, o breath, and
breathe upon these bones, and they shall live.
This need of Divine Influence for life IS especially
apparent in the promotion of mans spiritual good.
Even if mere men have c0atrived plausible theories
for the perfection Of our race, they have been
unable to truly enforce those theories, so as TO
elevate men, least Of all so as to elevate tae most
debaSei Of men.
But our Lord, speaking as never man spake.
uttered truths, which with the blessing of his spirit,
are calculated, like the mysterious power of life
itself, to both move and direct in the way of the
highest welfare of even the lowest of society. These
truths are those, which teach Of his relation to men.
No mere men have been able to give any important
influence by their own relation 10 those they have
taught; the systems of the best philosophers would
be of the same value if those philosophers were
themselves forgotten. But Christ is essential both
TO his teachings, and to thar enforcement.
We shall be aided in receiving the lesson we are
to draw from the words of my text. By thus first
observing how, like Il world without the power of
life, human nature alone Is, without the incentives
given by Christ's teachings.
The chief method by which men are now able to
influence each other, is that OF appealing TO the
feeling of self interest in its various forms of fears,
desires, and hopes. The results Of appeals TO this
feeling have been, either systems Of intimidation,
such as the ancient despOisms, in which one man
was sometimes able to bring almost a continent
to serve himself, the least thus serving the great,
not the great the least; or contriyances for the
adjustment of interests, such as are formed amongst
modern nations by the " the balance of power
and such as appear in Republicanism, by the
appointment of checks on the powers of the rulers
and on those Of the ruled; in ali which there can
be little more devotion Of the great to the least, than
selfshness naturally prompts; or there have been
devised by philosophers systems of So Sociology
drawn from a wide induction of the facts of nature
and of human history, in which the only influence
proposed is that Of the remorseless and Implying
struggle of all things for the {" survival of the
fttest,' not for the survival of the least; which
struggle, we might naturally apprehend, would
bring society only to u character and wretchedness,
like that of He'll; but which, strange TO say, has
been actually proposed in practice, as well as In
speculation. Thus not long ago, when in England
II was proposed to send aid to these p~erishing by
famine in India, philosophers objected, that IL were
better to leave the inferior races to die of, and to be
supplanted by a better population.
Even if, borrowing from the Scriptures, we were
TO take the idea of effort for the least members of So
clety, the self-interest, now overmastering humanity,
is a force to prevent such effort. In even the
natural impulses of kindness, which with somewhat
of Eden-beauty have survived from the primeval
Eden, there cannot be power to raise men to the
heaven OF such endeavor against the gravitation of
selfshness. In the nothingness of the mere abstract
definitions Of duty, made by philosophers, there can
only be the power of nothing TO thus move US.
What the world needs is less laws and theories than
life. But as no man has yet been able to enter the
holy of holies of Gods peculiar prerogative, to
create even the lowest species of life, so no one has,
or ever can, enter the higher temple of Gods
spiritual kingdom, to cause the life of such conduct,
like his, by mere human power. To produce such a
life, and its growth, and fruitage, there must be she
influence of one living that life towards us; such
an influence, as we are taught by the words of my
text to derive from considerations of Christ's Infinite
excellence, and so to receive from his life.
Several times previously Christ had uttered
somewhat similar words, as once, taking a little
child in his arms, he had said, Whose shall receive
one such little child in my name receiyeth me. On
the occasion of speaking the words of my text. he
gave a fearfully impressive picture Of the final
judgment of the world, f~oretelling how, as he will
come in the clouds of heaven in great glory with
the holy angels. to judge all nations. he will regard
We have done, or not done, in life to even
the least of our ielowmen, as having been done, or
not done, to himself.
These words OF his were based ON the fact, that in
he had so espoused the cause of his people +"
to make his own worth the reason for WIZ
treatment they should receive. So L ~
that the reason for our obligation to BE-.
and the measure of that oblirat
to be found in his infinite worth. The
ne thus laid dosn, and which l propo.
IS, that for determining whether to serve
men, We ~ iot to look to their merit, | ev.,
90 ~ - e. multny. o9.ed, those he fe
4 may be. We Ia aEff himself. Since us h
are to serve even the least, there can be no and
an being, whom we may neglect. ques
,v if against the mere human influences, we Whe
hem considering. there could prevail that of loveC
law of Christ's, what a change would be pro- HON
a in the world In nature against the tendency chile
xvrep. to destroy everything by spontaneous and
10 through the agency of vegetation, separating to a
tarial necessary for the vegetable fabric, and by