Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1892-05-12
Rev. DR.. Parkhurst.

Rev. DR.. Parkhurst
The sermon TO young men preached
by DR.. Parkhurst last Sunday was
smart, sIangy. vulgar. irreverential,
and utterly vain and shallow. 1t was
such talk as might have been expect
ed from a minister so far insensibIe to
all considerations Of self-respect, honor
and deIicacy as TO take with him to a
vile resort "a Christian young man to
dance with naked women.
Let us pick out few Of the express
siOns used by this preacher in the Mad
i5on Square Presbyterian Church:
Christ has taken out the only patent
method of saving the world that is feas-
iblc
If you and I. each of Us, have any
wish to be a little redeemer, there is
no other way to do but to put our feet
in tracks left behind Him by the great
Redeemer.
He was competent to save the world
in part for the reason that He knew
enough of the world to understand
what he had to deal with.
Il can understand some of the angels,
not in the Redemption business, loafng
along the celestial courts as the Son of
God laid aside His glory and moved
down to Bethlem in Advent. arching
their celestial brows and expostulating
with Him and re6uking Him for vent
uring into the contacts of world over
which the serpenu had so long dragged
his scaly coils, and suggesting to Him
to despatch a second or third class
angel down to this disgusting and sin
reeking world. with instructions to
send back an affidavit of what he found
there. My God. where would redemp
ton have been?
'.Ihe old Testament was not rubbed
out when the New Testament came.
John does not make Moses "a back
number.
If you. young man, strike concrete
iniquity full on the brow. the man or
the men that you paralyze will feel
precisely the same interest in making
relic out of you that the embittered
people in Jerusalem did in driving nails
into the feet and hands of Jesus Christ.
Of that | could show you considerable
documentary proof, if you cared to see
it.
The flippant irreverence of these re-
marks and their startling comparisons
Of the preachers vile detective meth
DDS with the sublime sacrifice Of Jesus
Christ show how coarse and perverted
are his conceptions of Christianity and
how low is his spiritual tone. They
are not words uttered in extemporane-
Gus fervor. They are the language Of
a carefully prepared sermon of whose
delivery he made previous announce
nent. They are the best he knows
now to say on the subject, and they
exhibit the highest elevation of thought |
and sentiment to which he can rise.
They show, therefore, that when DIR. |
parkhurst went among the base and |
vile he did not have to step down, but |
entered into associations congenial to |
he cOarseness of his own nature and |
he bIuntness of his own spiritual per-
,eptions. If their sight is blinded to
moral beauty. 50 also is his own. If |
n their grossness. wallOwing like swine |
n the filth, they are incapable OF holy |
emotions. and without reverence for |
he sublime mission and mystery of re-
igion, he bctrays the same incapacity.
1 in their depravity and degradation
hey look unawed at the Divine exam
,.c and ideal, and imagine that no one
Ese can have higher aims and deeper
'etrays the same deflement of the spir-
t. Both they and he make jest of
he sacrednesss Of the innermOst sanct-
.ary Of religion. When he talks about
ngels mot in the redemption busi-
ess," and likens the Advent to the ar
ival of a detective at house of i'll
anne. he gets down as low as they are,
nd they can laugh with him at the
orrible blasphemy.
Christianity presents a Divine ideal
ublime in its beauty and perfection.
t has been said of it that it pictures a
fe impossible of human attainment, a
fe possible for a God, but not for
lortal men; but no infdel has ever
ared to smirch that image of trans
endent spiritual spotlessness as was
one by this Presbyterian preacher last
unday. He sought to drag it down to
is own debased level and to point it
ut to men as no better than an image
# himself disguised as a decoy.
If the Presbyterians enjoy that sort
discourse. the work of social reform
nd spiritual elevation must begin
mong them, as men and women most
1rely in need of purer and more exalt-
d conceptions.-N T. Sun
We Will ask No Money From Con-