The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-11
HOLY WEEK SERMONS.
Special Services on the Occa-
sion Of Palm Sunday.
MR.. NuTTINe ON HYPocRlrEs.
Or. George on the Barren Fig Tree
Appeal for Butte Mission Church
Church News Notes.

Rev. Wallace Nutting, pastor of the
Plymouth Congregational church,
preached yesterday morning to the largest
congregation which has gathered within
the walls of the new temple. He chose
for his subject Mechanical Religion"
and treated it in broad, philosophic
manner. His discourse from BEGINNING to
end was chain of beautiful thoughts,
and his conclusions were logical and ap-
propriately illustrated. He read from
Genesis n:7-"The Lord God formed
man of the dust of the ground and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life, and man became living soul'-and
said:
Paraphrased, these words mean: The Lord
God first organized matter into the form best
fitted to serve as the abode of a spirit resem-
bling His own, and then, by a subsequent dis
tinct act, he placed in that human form a spirit
instinct with His own life
He said that God never made a machine
yet the highest compliment applied to me-
chanical development in machinery was
that it was almost human. Gods products
were back of mechanics and were a law on
which mechanics rested. When things
Got away from the current of Gods life
they became stagnant. Where God was,
there was change, urged by an unchang-
ing God. Man substituted mechanics for
lfe-the human machine for the living
soul, which God made. and which must be
kept alive, else the man became a mere
galvanized corpse.
He spoke of passing night in a rude
house where the walls were covered with
pictures from weekly papers. One repre-
sented physicians attempting to revivify a
man by the use of electricity. That was a
terrible example of mechanism versus
life. The physicians had mistaken motion
for life, and that was what was constantly
being done at all times. religion, a
character, through which the eternal life
of God flowed not, worked like machine,
and finally went to the junk shop. He
continued:
lam sure that creature without Q response
fle moral life is az far from being q man az the
tin form covered by q macintosh, and with
collapslbe joints, which an independent city
lady devised as an escort to the opera. Every
hypocrite 10 more or less unique, and in his hol-
low heart can thank God that he Is not as other
men are. For he is a temple from which God
has departed; walking lie, giving tithes Of all
that he gets, ana thanking God that he is not
Ike the poor wretch of publican from whom
he has wrung it. for which fact God also is glad.
EVIL has an evanescent character that it can
not hide. Its power and its terror are derived
from the last perverted relics OF a true life, and
the explosion il fatal to ITSELF as we'll as to its
surroundings. EVIL is mechanical; it is not
natural or spontaneous 1t has to DO devised.
He said that tendency to unreal life
combatted the tendency to q true life, vet
to be natural was not always easy. Jesus
Christ found the Pharisees with q nearly
perfect organization: they had an admira-
bic machine, but it would not work. The
tendency of religion was to become SO
highly organized that its power was lost
In running the machinery. Jesus saw this
and said it obstructed rather than con-
: yeyed the word of God. He proceeded:
The difference between mechanism and life Is
that In mechanism the power Is applied from
the outside and in life 1t 10 applied from within.
Thus, in a community that has lapsed spirit
uslly there is necessity Of cathedrals and pomp
In worship; there il nssd of the continual ap-
plieation OF rules, and the observance of days;
and adherence to forms OF speech and prayer, to
make religion appear alive, and to keep its de-
voices In automatic action, but the weightisr
tuch ceremonies become the more difficult it Is
for them to carry the load Of their own machin-
cry. Like the knight of the middle ages, By the
time they are fully armed, they are too I'M
weildy to move.
Now, it might be supposed that church like
our own, without any machinery whatever. was
an ideal church But II such a church lacks
lie, 1t is in even worse case than a church fitted
with an elaborate ecclesiastical wardrobe. For
II we lack life there is nothing left US to lie in
state at our own funeral
He spoke of the difference between the
real and seeming Christian, between real
prayer and the prayer that is simply
words. In closing he said of the Lords
Prayer:
Toe man who can repeat that prayer and mean
1t all as he says it is u Christian far above the
average. We need to sit down and take each of
It's clauses and write them over in words all our
own that they may mean something to us. The
educated Christian heart must be able TO pro-
duce tokens of the life that is in it. If We
cannot talk with God we are not the children of
God Our sonship is a mere name, and our
prayers will be like that of the Pharsee.