Morning journal and courier., 1885-09-07
CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH.

] Sermons By 160Vs uArs samson
 Calvary Baptist church was reopened yes- terday after the usual August vacation. Large congregations were present at both the morning and the evening services. In the morning communion services were held, at which graceful reference was made by the pastor, Rev. T. s. Samson, to the interesting fact that yesterday Sunday was the eightieth birthday of Major Moulthrop, one of our best known and most esteemed citizens. Major Moulthrop is the oldest Baptist in New Ha ven, both in years and in church member ship. He bears his weight of years lightly and appears much younger, while he is as at tentive and active in his business as most younger men. That his years may still be long in the land is no doubt the wish of all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance. Deacon Stowe of the First Baptist church is next in age and length of membership. In the evening the pastor preached the first in a series of discourses to be delivered by him on Sunday evenings on Old Testament themes; subject, ''The Call of AbIam." The sermon was based upon the words, "So Abran de- parted as the Lord had spoken unto him"- Genesis 12, 4. The aim of these sermons on Old Testament themes is practical and not
 
 doubtedly arise with which it were wiser for us not to meddle. We begin with the call of Abram which Dean Stanley has called the opening of all ecclesiastical history. The record presents us tribe or family of the great Semitic race about to move westward from the cradle of the earliest civilization To Abram, afterwards called Abra- ham, the Hebrew, the man who had crossed over the river Euphrates, the strange summons comes, "Get thee out of thy coun- try." How the summons came we know not, and it matters not. We know that God call ed him az he called Moses and Joshua and Solomon and Prophets and Apostles, as he calls men to-day. Look, for moment, at the man thus called. He was probably not unlike the Bedouin Sheikh, the chieftain of the Arabian desert to-day. Leaving his home in UT of the Chaldees he came to Haran Here he halted fifteen years. Here his father, Terah, died. Thence his brother returned to UT. Here his call was renewed. With all of his substance heaped high upon the backs of his kneeling cameIs he sets out for Damascus. His slaves are at his side running along with the caravan. At noon they rest while the focks and herds of sheep and goats browse around and the asses move in and out under the towering forms of the camels. The chief busies himself stirring here and there or resting resting , in in 1TOIQ Gn6 rest Dv HIS CLOdk OI SCdT1el and the fillet of rope binding the loose white handkerchief about his head. The princess, the chieftain's wife, is near at hand in her OWE tent making cakes or preparing the usu al meal of milk and butter, while slave or child stands near to bring in the red lentile soup for the weary traveller or to kill the calf for the unexpected guest. Such is this man as, ,obedient to the call of God, he comes into the land of Palestine.
 I offer you nothing new in the way of thinking when I say that the two great ele- ments of this mans character were his faith and his obedience. Let me call your atten tion first to his faith. Of course God knew was possessed of precisely those qualities of mind and heart which fitted him, pre-emin- ently, for his great mission. It was not by accident that he was chosen to lead this migration. Men are not raised up accidentally. When the American revolution took place George Washington was the man pre-eminently tory. Grant was the man raised up for the civil war. We may disparage successful men and attribute their success to fortuitous but men succeed because they deserve to succeed and they fail because they deserve to fail We believe in the ruling providence of God. You may say, if you will, that this man Abram was an adventurer, and that he simply acted in the exercise of ordinary prudence, as any man of good judgment would do. Be it so, still you will grant me that he had faith, at least natural faith, he believed in himself and in his cause.
 Now see what his faith did for him. To say nothing of certain needful elements of character with which it supplied him of cour- age, usefulness, activity, an activity which led him at seventy-fve years of age when most men now, at least, are thinking of rest, to go out into country that he knew not of, to say nothing of this, think how his faith enabled him to rise superior to outward at fractions. It overcame his love of country. This is strong feeling in all men, not the weakest in an Oriental. The half civilized Soudanese inspired by it beat back the flower of the English army. Abraham loved his native country. The memories of the past and the sepulchres of his people endeared him to his Chaldean home. But he went which God was to show him. In like manner his faith led him to overcome the ties of kindred. He took Sarah and Lot, but left others whose faces he was never to see again. He went out not knowing wheth- CT he went to a strange people, speaking a strange tongue. If you still disparage his motive and say that he went out as an ex- plorer merely, as Columbus, or Livingston, or Stanley, we say very we'll. But we are studying the life and character of this man, not as his contemporaries may have seen it, but in the light of $500 years of human his tory. And what historys What B harvest has that seed sowing yieldeda If you tell me that Abram was mere ad- venturer you confess that all this mighty his tory is the result of unpremeditated causes and you eliminate God from the history of our race. Again, see how this mans faith enabled him to rise superior to prospective dangers. It was unprecedented journey which he was about to take, not along the banks of the river according to the law of migration, but across trackless desert. He was going to an unknown destination. Did he pause when the call came to ask whithera "Get thee out" This was all. Did he insist whither2 To land that shall show thee This must satisfy thee. Opposition? Yes, never mind, get thee out, and he went out not knowing whither. But the most strik- ing manifestation of this mans faith, that faith in God, was that it leaned constantly on God. His halting places were marked by the altars which he reared. Ah, but you say that was his superstition. Be it so. But you will remember that this man brought into Canaan the worship of the one true God which was to go thence into all lands to the world. Undoubtedly he had what you may call & natural faith in distinction from what you may call theological faith, although I pro- test against divorce of the two. He had faith in himself, in his mission, in his power to command and control men; this is the se- sret of all heroic endeavor; but above and beyond all he had childs faith in Jehovah who had called him.
 It goes without saying that such faith as shis would express itself in obedience. The sext tells us that Abram departed as soon as the Lord had spoken unto him. This is characteristic of all true obed- ence. It knows no delays. When Jesus called Peter and Andrew they left their nets and followed him. When he commanded he man with the withsred hand to stretch t forth, he obeyed at once and immediately t was restored whole the other. His obedience was also literal, exact. He found 1o place for evasion, for the exercise even of discretion. This is the nature of true obedi- snce. It implies the qualification, and therefore the right to command. It implies superiority. Some one blundered in the Orimea when the light brigade was ordered o charge for the guns, but it mattered not o the six hundred.
 Theirs not to make reply,
 Theirs not to reason why.
 Theirs but to do and die.
 And because the faith of this man was so prompt and so exact it was unwavering. Tried as he must have been in some critical moment when utter disaster seemed to con- front him, hs faltered not. in his humble, faithful obedience to the voice that was ever calling him, "Get thee into a land that I shall show thee." And so we come to the