The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-07-27
THE NEEDS OF OUR PEOPLE.
A Lecture by A. s. Green, OF the Nashville
institute, Nashville, Tenn

A Lecture by A. s. Green, OF the Nashville
Institute, Nashville, Tenn
Part 7,-eontinued from Wtanesday.)
From the competent Christian teacher we
are to obtain the third prerequisite, which is
found in the
We need educated pastors who will preach
the pure unauthorized word Of God. ''My
people perish for lack of knowledge" These
are the words OF God himself. Truly the peo-
pie Of the Lord are destroyed for lack Of
knowledge.
Our pulpits to great extent are filled with
incompetent ministers. who do not instruct
the people, do not elevate and lift them up, do
not properly inform them of Gods written
and revealed will--fhe Bible--but preach to
them "old wives" fables, and other gross and
supersttious things. Roman Catholicism,
which is.idolatrv, or more properly Mariolatry,
because of her feigned charity. and pomP and
splendor of her church and ecclesiastics, is
coilinp her destructive doctrines around a
great majority Of our people and fast drawing
them into her folds.
Hence The need of educated pastors to teach
our people the fallacy of the doctrines OF
Romanism--such as the rite of transubstantia-
ton, the power of the priests to forgive sins,
the infallibility OF the pope with respect to re-
ligious affairs, the necessity Of prayers for the
dead and such like.
The people greatly need spiritual knowledge
and intelligence. But whence are they to OBJ
tain this spiritual knowledge, if not from the
lips of the educated pastors?
We need educated pastors, who will take
the lead in rescung our people from those
evils which now surround them on all sides.
IT'S the duty of the pastor to direct. instruct
and point the way to heaven. Upon him is
laid the burden of SOULS but unless he is edu-
Gated, enlightened, he cannot impart that in
growth and immortal salvation.
The TIVE pastor is the true teacher magnl-
fed.
The work of the two properly performed
ends in the, accomplishment of one and the
same thing-the amelioration of suffering and
sinful humanity.
His it is to 90 out into the highways and
hedges of sin, and seek out the blind, the halt,
the lame, and compel them to come in tina
the house Of the Lord may be full.
He is the special instrument that God has
chosen to fit men for heaven and eternal
blessedness. The fourth thing needed is that
THE LAITY,
Or common church members, in distinction
from the pastors, should be educated.
Party spirits and church dissensions usually
arise from the ignorance on the part of the
laity of their christian duty. Pastors exer-
else lordly spirit over them, and lead them
whithersoever they will because of their ig-
norance as to the revealed word "f God.
II they were educated such would not be.
Ifthey were educated they would be the better
prepared to enter into confidence and sympa-
thy with the pastor, and thereby help him in
the execution OF his pastoral duties.
The fifth and sixth things that our people
need, briefly are,
RDUCAl ED FATHERS AND MOTHERS,
And more especially the latter. From infancy
to youth the child is under its mothers es
pecial care and training. She it is who
shapes and wholly controls its future destiny.
She it is who instils into its infan'ie mind the
seed of truth and honesty. She it is who
teaches it to lift its youthful hands
in prayer to God. ere yet the tempter has
fastened his coils upon it.
In short she either prepares it to.tread a
life of happiness or one Of misery.
How unspeakaby grand and beneficial the
mothers training. if first she has been, both
morally and Intellectually, trained!
Who, but the mothers and sisters, are to
render nome pleasaIt' anu the nreslue attTaC-
tive?
Who but the mothers and sisters, are to
make home a desirable place-a safe and
pleasant retreat-from the cares and vicissi-
tudes of the world?
What smile can equal mothers or
sisters?
Who, better than they, can calm the weary
breast and tighten it of all its anxieties?
How important it then is that they should
be rendered capable of filling that great and
all important position!
"Sweet is the image of the brooding dove =
Holy as heaven mothers tender love!
The love of many prayers. and many tears,
Which changes not with dim declining years
The only love, which, on this teeming earth,
Asks no return for PASSIONS hayward BIRTH"
Let us now take
RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE PRIMAL CON-
DrTION OF OUR PEOPLE.
But as preparatory to doing so let US seek
the origin of our race, whence they sprang,
aud how they stand in respect to other nations.
As to the origin of the human race ethnolo-
gsts do not quite agree. The three principle
theories. however, as to the origin of the races
are the following:
(I). That all human beings have descended
from a single pair. and that external causes,
such as difference in food. manner OF living,
and local position are sufficient to prove the
present diversities.
(2) That the human rare came into exist
encp by simultaneous creations at different
points on the earth. each being the source of
a s-rar.e race and separate family of Ian