St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-01-11
MR. REECRER,s SERMON.
The Bible Word Hatred Not to be
Given n Literal Reading.
Special to the GLOBE.

The Bible Word Hatred Not to be
Given n Literal Reading.
Special TO the GLOBE.
NEW YORK, Jan. 10.-Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher spoke this morning from the text,
Luke xiv. %: And there were great
multitudes with him, and he turned and
said unto them: If any man cometh TO me
and hate not his father and mother and
wife and children and brethren and sisters.
yea, and his own life also. he cannot be my
disciple, andwhOSOever doth not bear his cross
and come after me cannot be my disciple"
Mr.. Beecher said: What sort of a religion
would religion of hatred be? We are
tolerably proficient in that now, with a lit
tie help, think we could make eminent
disciples. But hatred of what? 1t is easy
10 hate our enemies and wicked folks, but
we must learn To hate our father, not the
tyrannical father, but the typical father of
love. and as to the mOther-she must indeed
be weak; she must indeed be very poor and
very low when child cannot love it's
mother. The watchwOrd of life, the tails
man, indeed the very object almost of
prayer. when she is translated. for as the
Catholic devOutly prays through the Virgin
Mary, so you and pray devOutly through
our mother, not because we really believe
she is a mediator, but because we want to
have some sense of sympathy up there and
the mother has got it. We get a hold
through her. And yet we are To have
mothers and brothers and sisters. How
sweet are these affinities. The harp of the
household has strings that no other has, yet
you have got to
HATE BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
if you want to be a Christian, Now a
great many people interpret the Bible in
just that way. They take passage and
say: You must do so and so, and they
say: Now / don't want any of your getting
around it. / don't want any explanations.
L want it just as the Bible says" The fact
is, the Bible is book of common sense.
read half of the time by folks that haven't
got any common sense. Is there not an
other view, then, and is it not view that
is perfectly familiar to us? When il comes
to be Illustrated. do we not see that all these
difficulties of the literalist disappear, and
the thing is not natural. but very powerful?
Hatred ought to be used to show a malign
feeling on the one side, but relative valua-
ton on the other side. 1t becomes a term
often simply OF preference, term of in
tensity, indicating the value of anything
which We are to choose as between the two
things. 1t is not the act of malign passion,
but of valuation. You deSpise these things
in comparison with something so much
better. 1t befel me in Venice TO enter one
of those galleries of the works of immortal
artists. From the walls looked down
Titan, GiOrgiOne, TintOretti, a grand as
semblage, but the gallery was being used as
an exhibition room for modern painters and
below these august masters, hung on frame
works the new
PICTURES OF ARTISTS
of all modern schools, snug, smooth, dainty
effeminate, foolish, smirking things, and
stood and looked, and wondered that the
old heroes did not come out of their canvass
TO kick out these things belOw-wretched
daubS, corrupt things-and yet, considered
as steps in the progress of nascent artists,
they were not TO be despised at all. These
were good in some things, but when they
undertook To put them under the brow of
these sublime intelligences they become des-
picable. So it is in all the realms of
thought and feeling. The intensity of our
preference begets a relative dislike to the
other extreme, or to the competitors as com
pared with those who are our dearest
friends. The idea of supplanting them
and putting anybody else there excites a
feeling of Indignation. There were hun
dreds of good men, but it was Grant, and
Sherman, and Thomas, and Sheridan, and
the other great men that my heart em-
braced. l heroized them, and then let
other men alone, unless they pretended to
equal them, and then l despised them. To
put lower loves, then, in the place of tran
cendently higher ones, should excite indigna-
tiOn and even hatred itself. Christ is the
Goldman, Incompatible in every excellence,
in wisdom, in power, in goodness,
IN THE WONDER OF PATIENCE,
which is the most wonderful of all the
divine attributes. When we come to learn
the slow evolutiOns of Gods purposes in
this world, infinite in power and in good,
in full sympathy with sinners, the very
fountain of love, compared with which all
human love is adulterated and insignificant,
what quality is there that men agree to
praise, what virtues have come down to US
as heroic, what in the whole realm of art
has the mark of genius and has put upon it
the stamp of eminent value, what is there
in mankind everywhere that has excited
their admiration that has not in overhOwing
measure been characteristic of God him
self? You may scoff at many of the ex-
creScenees seen in the church and many of
the impossibilities taught in the catechism
and creed, but when you come to the re-
ligiOn: Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God,
and better than you love anything else on
EARTH" Every man must uncover his head
and take off his shoes and say: 81 am on
holy ground" / pity the man so morally
obscured and degraded that when he comes
to the very root and meaning of religion he
does not respect it and does not say: IF
this prevailed all over the world, the world
would be unspeakably happier"