The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-06-29
FISHERS OF MEN.
An Eastern Preachers Sermon ut Ply
mouth CONGREGATIONAL Church.


mouth Congregational Church.
Kew: K K Harlow, OF Midway, Mass, occu-
pied the pulpit of the Plymouth Congregational
church yesterday, both morning and evening.
In the morning be chose his text from Mark
i;le-l1; and Matthew xix:2S; the theme being
the promise OF Jesus to the fishers to make them
nshers OF men and kings
Mr.. Harlow said that it was easy to make pre-
aictions that were pleasing to the auditors. La
DOT reformers do this, socialists do this. Was
THIS prediction, which Jesus made to these
plain fishermen, a politicians dodge TO build up
party 1t seemed so, no doubt, to nine-tenths
OF the Jewish people. Did they catch men?
Inc DOCK OF the Acts is the answer. At Pente-
cost Pe'ers sermon changed the lives of 5000
men. what about the other prediction that
they should be kings? Who are the enthroned
men. e. g. in literature? The writers whose
DOCKS are TOO unusual for one language TO hold
tnem, the writers whose books so touch the pop
uiar heart that they are universally de-
handed Peters episties have been
translated into 800 languages and dialects.
Two sentences out of the old fiisherman's let
ters present the very kernel of the controver-
sizes that are causing ferment in the Protestant
church. What he says about Christ's preaching
10 the spirits in prison, a text that nobody can
interpret, is proof text of the hypothesis OF
probation after death, which is q hypothesis
that greatly disturbed the Congregational
church and did crack the American board at the
ends, but fortunately the glue of Christian
charity has made 1t as firm as ever.
The question of the extent OF inspiration, with
which the Presbyterian church is now dealing,
Is a question about which the fisherman Peter
has something to say for fisherman, to put
In his oar into a dissension eighteen and one
half centuries after his death and in such COM
handing phrase as this: "a light shining In q
dark place." is to be taken as the
"a
suits reached? Christ awakened in these men
a consciousness of what was possible for them.
Get person to say 81 can" and then 81 will, !"
and he is q made man. Phillip Brooks says: u
never baptize an infant that do not envy it the
opportunity on which IL enters In beginning Its
life fifty wears later than my life began. Ii the
multitudes of young people who are graduating
from the various schools were only to have
visions Of what is possible to them this last de-
cade of the century would feel pulsation Of
life that would make civilization thrill with q
great expectation. Christ awakened in these
men the ideal of catching men of sitting on
thrones.
The preacher then spoke of three types OF be-
ing-The frivolous, that means to get without
giving; the manly, that expects to give an
equival mt for what it gets; the noble that gives
without expecting any return. This last is pre-
eminently the Christian type. Christ came into
this world with no promise of bonus for serv-
ing and labored here unsalaried. And those
who have His spirit will do as He did. waken
in man the possibilities God sees in him, and
what the poet says becomes true for every one:
Couldst thou in vision see
Thyself, the man God meant,
Thou never more would be
The mau thou art, content
Following Christ brings one into this noble
type of living. Following means submission to
His leadership, sympathy with His thoughts,
motives and purposes, imitation of His acts,
fellowship with His spirit This made the fish
erman Peter able to catch men; this enthused
him. 1t will do the same for us.