St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-09
Automatic Morality the Theme Upon
Which Mr.. Beecher Addresses His
Congregation.
Soldiers in the Army Of the Lord in This
World Merely Members Of the
Awkward Squad.
DR.. Talmase Among the Stars--An
Interesting Discourse on the
PIeiades and Orion.
He Teaches an Entertaining Lesson
on the Ancients and the Heav-
enly Firmament.
BecchersS Sermon.

Beecher'S text this morning was the last
clause of the twenty-third verse of the fifth
chapter of Galatians: Against such there is
nc law" the theme of his sermon being
Automatic Morality. He said: There are
a great many persons who are sometimes
alarmed at such a phase as this. Their
alarm in some sense is historic. There
have been periods in the history of the
church where there sprang up what We're
called antinomianS, or men that thought
the law had ceased to have any dominion
over them, and that they were at liberty to
do what they pleased, and it gave rise at
different times to very great irregularities
and immoralities. There is scarcely any
need at present to go into that matter, 1or
there is no antnomianiSm IN this passage.
1t is merely statement that the law had
sunk within persons described and acted no
longer from without as a rule OF application,
but acted from within, as rule OF Insplra-
ton. 1t is not question at all OF law, but
simply question of
WHERE THE LAW SHALL BE,
whether in mans unconscious nature.
or whether it shall be external and adhere
to him simply as a rule OF law from with
out. 1t is simply, when all comes to be
analyZed and explained. demanding that
highest qualities of human nature should
be subjected to the same rule Of develop
ment as belongs to all the lower qualities OF
human nature. That is all. Men train
thoroughly their bottom nature, but they
regard the qualities OF their higher nature
as accomplishments. Now man must De
a thorough accountant if he is to be in busl-
ness; but while he considers it necessary to
train all his faculties for business until it
{, l>o in hn
that his moral qualities must go through
like education and become automatic.
These are, like music to the non-prOfessional
person, amusement, pleasure, not business.
Now the thing that here alarms people
takes place every day in them and before
them. Laws or rules cease to exist as the
ground and reason of conduct. They must,
or man yet remains a savage. Any
course, in the beginning, that involves the
EXTERNAL LIFE
must have some way pointed out for it, some
experience which becomes rule or law.
But by practice the man gets it. as 1t is
said, by heart, and afterward he does the
same thing which at first he did by looking
sharply at the rule, does it without being
conscious of it. He does it so that the
phrase, II have learned it by heart" is
great deal nearer the philosophical truth
than most phrases are. The lower forms
of morality have already been educated to
this extent. It is not the fear of the Lord
that makes an ordinagy man civil, but
something better and higher than that, and
for me and for every man brought up with
even the slightest enamel of civilization on
them, the reason why we don't do wrong
things is not because we are afraid OF the
law. The law may be abolished because
the law has already done its work, 1t has
implanted in us such sense Of propriety,
and of rectitude, and of honor that we now
do of our own mood and mind the things
that we should otherwise have to do from
the compulsion of the law.
MORALITY IS AUTOMATIC,
such as it is. This is the meaning
when men become a law unto them
Selves" as the Scriptures expresses it. 1t
is, that all that is in the law, and good
deal more besides, is, as it were, sunk into
him so that it is a part of himself and he no
longer depends upon the outward script of
law, but on the inward impulse and neces-
sity of his own nature, and only so is a
man free from law, when he has risen
higher than the law, and does cheerfully
a good deal more than the law requires Of
him. Spiritual civilization demands that
we should bring every great mind force
into this automatic condition, or this cOndi-
ton in which it becomes an impulse acting
of itself. | say spiritual civilization, breth-
rem. We are not settled for good here.
We are only here to learn a little. We
are in the awkward squad in the world and
we shall not be drafted into the regular reg
iments until after we die. This is pre-
naratory school and school of the flesh
and the relations which it bears to the flesh
less life, the spiritual existence, is vague
and
UNSETTLED IN OUR MIND.
That is the point at which revelation stops
and onlv guess, imagination, faith, as men
say. begins; but one thing is very certain.
that the state of existence here is often one
in which men shall not strive nor cry. 1t
is expected that they shall. either in this
life or in some intermediate practice ground,
have attained some condition in which they
shall be thoroughly luminous, thoroughly
automatic that is to say, every quality
shall burst out as lamps when the flame
touches them having in themselves power
of sustaining the right. We are trained in
this land for another and this is the training
we need. We shall go into them as men
die in all sorts of unpreparedness. For one,
| hope have no authority in Scripture,
either for or against. but l hope there is
some intermediate land, or if there be not,
that there is a graded heaven in which men
shall have some salvation and some hope of
unfolding. for as men live and as they are
when they die, unless there be miracle
wrought upon them-and we have no evi-
dence that there is-theY will need a
COCO DEAL MORE ILLUMINATION
and a good deal more practice before they
are fit to be associates with the general as
sembly of the Church of the First Born,
for men live in very imperfect Christian
state. 1t is said that ii man merely has
faith in Christ, that will save him. Well.
yes, save him in one sense; 1t may carry
him away from annihilation, 1t may carry
him over the abyss of death, and give him
another schooling beyond, but that saliva
ton consists in being ever present
with the Lord, that salvation con-
sists in joining the saints, thegreat army of
the pure and noble. l don't think that every
man saved as by fire necessarily joins at
once in that great assemblage. He has not
learned the language; he has learned the
carriage and he cannot keep step; he is in
the awkward squad yet, though ne may be
saved. And this is the place where
mel are to be drilled. and where they are
to carry up their various higher powers
until they come into that luminous and au-
tomato condition in which they at harmo-
niously without thought and without pur-
pose, spontaneously.
Or. Talmage's Sermon.
Special to the Globe.
+ BROOKLYN, N. Y, Nov. s.-The music
at the Brooklyn tabernacle this morning
by Prof. Henry Eyre Brown was more than
usually excellent. 1t consisted OF the
organ solo Satz No. l, in G minor by Thiele.