Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-25
A Well-Known Minister Says That
They Exist Now as of Old,
MAKING A SHOW OF GREAT VIRTUE.
Their Efforts Against the Sunday Papers
Will Do No Good.
ANOTHER sTEREOrYPED L. GO. SERMON

Church, who has an interesting congrega-
tion of West End people. He preached to
q large congregation, taking the following
as his text:
They bind heavy burdens and grievous to
be borne, and lay them on mems shoulders;
but they themselves will not move them
with one of their fingers. Matthew xiii, 4.
'Jove of power" he said, 'comes natural
to men. They are never happy unless they
are bossing somebody, and the more they
succeed in compelling others to submit to
their authority the happier they seem. We
instinctively delight in legislating for our
fellowmen, and are generally far more eS-
ercised over infractions of law by others
than because of any delinquencies of our
own. Some people grow pale when others
err from the right in the least particular,
while utterly disregarding the great laws
of charity and sympathy themselves. Many
derive equal pleasure from seeing their
hapless fellowman punished severely for
some technical violation of law, and in de-
family ignoring those simple and all-em-
hracing precepts defined by prophet of
old, What doth the Lord require of thee
but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to
Ndlk DSlOIe IDy OOu.
VIII Not Acknowledge 1t.
"It would be waste of precious time at
this late day to arraign the Pharisees who
so often evoked the displeasure of the Son
of God, since they are all dead and gone to
their account long, long ago, while nobody
admits to being their successors in the
church Of our day. The fact is that the
L. Ii
practices would resent the implication that
would place t I'm along side of the Pharisees
of the New Testament. Men do not like to
he called by this title, though Saul of Tar
sus was very proud once to be styled a
Pharisee OF the Pharisees.' 1t is best
therefore to let the old Pharisees rest,
since neither our praise nor out censure can
reach them now. But when We decide on
this course. it is not to be inferred that they
have not transmitted their peculiar habits
and modes of thought to certain legitimate
successors.
"A brief description of the Pharisee, as
he passed under the scrutiny of the Master
in the olden time, may possibly aid you in
identifying his counterpart in our modern
life, and especially if YOU make the search
in those communities where Christianity
has become firmly planted.
characteristics Not Obsolete.
''The Pharisees were not naturally nor by
open act bad set, far from it; they were
regarded with an awe bordering on rever-
ence for their supreme devotion to the law
of God, while thev did more than any
Others albeit in most irrational ways, to
show their extreme devotion to a cause
whose work and mission they wholly mis-
conceived The Pharisees were always pre-
pared to enforce the law at all hazards when
It bore heavily on such as differed with |
them in religious opinions. They were |
even ready TO obey the law themselves, if |
thereby they were rendered conspicuous by |
placing their conduct in contrast with that |
OF their less hypocritical fellow men.
$50 long as the Pharisee could keep him. |
self before the public as rigid adherent to |
the law in its minutia, he never suffered the
opportunity to pass unimproyed, since his
obedience made others feel Uncomfortable,
and that delighted him immensely. The
more absurd the law appeared in his mar
row Interpretation of it, the more it annoyed
and oppressed others, the more Jealous he
was about its observance. Two motives
seemed to dominate his mind in all that he
did, and these the Master plainly pointed
out: the ambition to lord it over others and
the desire to impress them with his superior
duct, Christ also indicated, they shut up
the kingdom of heaven against others, and |
themselves refused to enter.
Only to BE Seen of Men.
''The text is plain, unvarnished picture |
of the Pharisee as he hourished in Christs |
Gay, though it is by no means a fiattering |
one, nor such as any one in this nineteenth |
would like to have fixed upon them. |
They bind heavy burdens aRd grievous to |
be borne, and lay them on mems shoulders, |
but they themselves will not move them /
with one of their fingers Their purpose in
I'll this was uncovered in these expressive
words OF Christ: 'All their works they do |
to be seen ofmen.' A religion Of that particu-
lar type, though rare in these days, is yet
TO be encountered.
zone OF the singular phenomena of the
working out of that old Pharisaic spirit has
invariably been g reaction such as has
caused the friends of truth and Justice to
.ad.y ieplore the results. The Reformation
NJ Ire sixteenth century was noble victory
Tor the rights of conscience against the
vrannical encroachments of Phariseeism.
Sran3 as were the results of that reforma-
iaa there were yet evils flowing from it
which were greatly to be regretted, spirit
Of insubordination to all ecclesiastical
authority, liberalism which developed in
its time into rank skepticism. The same
was observed IN the French Revolution,
when the people undertook TO throw off the
rksome restraints of the effete monarchy;
he issue was the Reign Of Terrors, with its
never to be forgotten horrors The Puritans
ot England were another case in point
Brought on Reign of Evil.
'They started out to redress the wrongs
Thich had been nurtured In the corrupt
,7urt Of Great Britain. With the law max
ng power at last in their hands they pro-
,eeded 10 enact laws against every sin in
the calendar, and attached to them penalties
d the most dire character. BY the time
he Puritans got this far, the people began
% rebel, and the final outcome of the strug-
yle was the annuling not alone of the op-
Dressiye laws which those fanatics had
'assed, but the entire abrogation of good
md wholesome laws bv which the evil
passions Of men were held in check. In the
,arly days Of the colonies the Puritanic
pirit displayed itself in the enactment of
avs Of the most oppressive character. laws
which bound the consciences of men and
'obbed them of inalienable rights bestowed
lpon them by the great Creator What
ollowed? That which always follows the
exercise of the old Pharisaic
pirit, a reaction issuing in antinomiapism
nd open licentiousness.
"The age which succeeded that which
urned witches and put men in the stocks
or not going TO church on the Lords Day
-as one in which infdelity and all manner of
swlessness fiourished as thev had never
one before nor since in this country.
General Grant was right when he
eclared that the speediest wav te secured
he repeal of an obnoxious law Law in its
igid enforcement: but it is also true that