Huntsville gazette., 1886-07-10

Of Ne
ligion on the Rule of Love--A London
officials Opinion.
LONDON, July 6.-Double the usual
Plymouth Church Sunday morning throng
and quadruple even the Plymouth Church
enthusiasm will convey some notion of the
eager way in which the London folk re-
sponded to the announcement that Rev.
III. w. Beecher would preach in the City
Temple yesterday. After the church had
been so packed, policeman said that a
couple of thousand people had to be re-
fused admittancc. Mr.. Beecher was
never in better condition. He was full of
fire and energy and possibly somewhat
inspired by the fact that it was the Fourth
of July. A great basket of flowers,
among which the American colors were
intertwined, had been placed in front of
the pulpit. There was goodly sprink-
ling of Americans in the church, includ-
half dozen Plymouth parishoners.
Mr.. Beecner selected a theme familiar
to his own people and on which he has
preached his greatest sermons
But the Greatest Of These is Love, Cor.
l; Is,
which gave him an opportunity to COM
ment on the broad principles of the
Christianity he preached when at home.
1t was surprise to most of Mr..
Beecher'S listeners to find him heap de-
nunciations upon the narrow Christianity
of sects and give utterance to more libe-
raj views than they had been accustomed
to. Mr.. Beecher showed that Christianity
meant not a strict adherance to rule of
three formulas, but a wide and tolerant
catholicity that had love for God and
neighbor, and consequent decency and
manlinesS in human conduct for it's CEN
trail element.
There were in many churches, he said,
among many pious people, elements that
were enough to make man run away
from them. They called themselves by
holy names and lived like devils. There
were beautiful Christians who sat down
like cannibals to eat up the regulations of
their neighbors. True Christian love did
not oloat over human infirmity; indeed
it did not rejoice in iniquity; it did not
tread the common sewers of life for the
sake of finding out the worst element of
human character, as many a muck worm
did. Love was the only note of orthodoxy
in the New Testament. The applicants
for church membership and for ordina
ton, when questions were put to them.
swallowed at a gulp all the cast-iron or
thodoxy of the catechism, but he had
never yet heard them asked to respond to
this note of orthodoxy: "Do you love
one anotherY" And yet that was the test
of what was known as conversion. Life
was without its keynote in all that had
not love.
He touched up with much sarcasm
what he called the religious crowd. The
people who had experienced religion,
who had become converted at four
O'Clock in the afternoon, and who clung
tenaclously to tenet and doctrine, but
turned the back of their hand to their
fellow-men and were too wrapped In p-
ETY. to have a chance to think Of how to
sympathize with human misfortune and
how to relieve human misery. Some of
them, too, contributed in way to this
and the other, to make the world talk of
them, and poor, miserable fools that they
were, thought they could carry them
selves up into Heaven and enter by their
reputation Some Christians were like
the hypocritical and ill-deserving insect
known IN America by the name of the
mosquito. There was nothing of them
but the power to harm. They always
said grace before they stuck their bills
into you to suck your blood.
Creed, Mr.. Beecher went on to say,
was not religion. 1t was quite possible
for a man TO change his creed without
losing his Christianity. To persistently,
and despite enlarged knowledge and
changed circumstances, hang to the par
ticular creed was like dragging into the
present the steel armor of the warriors
of Old and with cuirass and armlets and
steel -gIoved hand march clanking through
the ways of orthodoxy, weighted down
with what was necessary at certain
stages Of the worlds progress, but was
not needed now.
"If were in Brooklyn" Mr.. Beecher
said, ~ should without heSitation-and
| may possibly here-aoply' this subject to
the inquiry of what is the true church,
that is, the true church which produces
and is adapted to produce the largest har-
vest of love. You can't test church by
its history. The less you read Of that
the better you will think of it You
can not test a church by any OF
these material measurements, by arith.
metic, nor by the trick OF logic,
That is the true church which most near
ly represents the mind and spirit OF
Jesus, and the mind and spirit of Jesus
Christ is: "God so loved the world that
He gave His son to die for it, The true
church Is the church that continually
brings forth the sweet fruit of righteous
ness in the form of love. God be thanked,
there are grand, true churches. Holy
men and women there are among them,
and there are churches wherein | see un-
folded the sweetest and choicest flowers
in the garden of love. Humble they are;
SO are the violets. Unpretentious they
are, and not widely known, but we know
that they are the gardens OF the Lord;
and churches there are, all around about
whose boundaries the towering holly
hooks and the pretentious sunhowers are
looking, saying: besides these is moth
ing The churches that bring forth
and are adapted to bring
forth in their ruling ideas all the sweetest
perfumes of the spirit of God are the
churches of Jesus Christ"
When the sermon was over London
official said: "That justities all that l
have ever heard of Henry Ward Beecher
He is the greatest preacher OF modern
times. We have no one to equal him."
Half the congregation tried to shake
hands with him hut he hurried away to a