Morning journal and courier., 1888-10-29
SUNDAY ECHOES.


 Sawyer of New YSrk-Inher1ted
 Riches of Earth vs. Inherited Faith
 The FleetinE Nature of Wealth
 Endurance of Faith In GOd-The
 True Guarantee of Permanency
 Of our Free Institutions.
 Rev. Rollin A. Sawyer, D. D., of New York, occupied the pulpit of the First Presbyterian church yesterday morning. preaching from the text, "Our fathers trust ed in thee; they trusted and thou didst de liver them" Psalsms, 22,4.
 The speaker said: This is singularly compact and comprehensive statement of the wealth there is in ancestral faith.
 InheIitanoes differ in permanency ss well as value. After century of great national life we have immense wealth, but too little permanency. Riches o-day cover, like 8 snow, the whole earth, but they shrink up like snow under 8 touch of heat. Modern fortunes have, like railroad stocks, lot of water in them; capital is called timid, and for the reason that 1t depends on credit and the value Of paper securities; failure to ne- gotiate one loan makes deadlock that car ries destruction far and wide; fright on the exchange Is just disastrous. Even more 30 than actual failures, and this want of sta- bility in our riches is the result of our mak-- ing little real value go great dista nee, too very often. The old earefulness and thrift were slow, too slow it may be; the new exa psnsion and daring are fast, too fast in many cases, without any question.
 AS a result we find that inherited riches are not very stable or secure in the hands of many inheritors. More fortunes are lost in 8 day than are transmitted in years.
 When we place this view of inherited riches alongside an inherited faith we will find the parallel very instructive. Faith in God is something that endures. We find that family religion is better to keep, to stay by, to last over all and beyond everything, their family lands and household plate and jewels eyen. Our great law of entail is not written on bills of Congress but in the book of God. Better than any domesday book is the word of Gods covenant with our fathers that their children should be loved for their sakes. Every body has been thinking of our fathers in this year of centennial; 8 great deal has been said in their praise and great deal more suggested. I doubt if anything more grand, more true, more simple and yet more sublime has been said or sung than just this impressive psalm: "Our fathers trusted in thee; they trusted, and thou did'st deliver them"
 One thing must be very clear to every hon. est reader of our story, that this nation was not built on the principles of the French re- public, that followed it for 8 day and then
  flame and smoke of Waterloo. There is not 6 man who dsres to say that our fathers trust in God was a superstition, or that the wor- ship of Him was womanly weakness to be gotten over in time. It was not the differ ence between Saxon aud Celtic blood; it was the difference between English faith and French infdelity that built here a state and over there set up an empire-hollow and faise-out of the smoke and blood of ftreign of horror"
 Every body believes in progress. The trou- ble is that so many confo1nd progress with evolution. Progress is no evolution. We grow from principles as roots. We have principles, and go on into properties, just as an oak tree leaves the roots in the ground and goes on up to hundred feet of branches and foliage. But the oak has living roots and the same roots and the oak does not become sassafras and yet call itself an oak. You see the trouble with men who try to be progress siye is that they leave their principles alto gsther. They cut loose from, cast off the cid confessions, take up the doctrines of-say 'philosophicaI heathen," which means man who lives and acts in private as heathens do in all sin and inamorality-and then detes religion that calls him to account because It is not perfect by ideal yet in it's organized form. And then those men will turn around and say "Our father" Why, a Confucian could say the "paternoster" with better req son.
 Our young people are getting the notion that a great man cannot be gotten out of the old stock. The oak takes hundred years to grow 8 shade, you can cover a church with a vine in @ season. Haste and impatience pre- fer the swift and perishsble. Young men graft on another stock in the hope of expan- sion and progression. It is mistake in two worlds made in one; mistake made in one nourned forever.
 There are some conclusions which will cut like razor and cleave like 8 soythe as to our attitude and our pretensions. The line between true men and false men is as dei- nite as the edge of knife. The boast of our expansive culture is to be tested by the kind of fruit we bear. l had rather my son should be the good man reviled as 8 bigot than to find him among unbelievers. The new England deacon, whom Murray used to iibe for the amusement of his auditors, is still 8 good citizen and an upright man, while his reviler cannot be called either the one or the other.
 "Ye must be born again " is the flaming line that stands over the gateway to 8 true life and to the kingdom of God. Under that our fathers walked reverently to their mighty mission. They entered in by the door. The door, cut out of their trust, was that they knew God and He knew them.
 Young man, the day in which you are l ashamed of your ancestral religion is the day of your manhood's downfall.
 Fellow citizens, the time when the intelli- gent manhood of this republic denies the es- sentials of our fathers faith and refuses to submit itself to the receiving of Gods spirit | is the beginning of the end-the start of the l revolution in which the republic will die.