St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-04-10
Rev. Vail Takes Two Noted
Books for His Series OF
Sermons.
Edna Lyall'S Donovan" Dis
cusSed From the Church
RoStrum.
Series Dealing With the Re-
ligious Problems in En-
glish Literature.


I'VE Two" the first sermon detailing
the religious history of Donovan. The
next will take up 1--WE Two" and will
be followed by third, giving more
tention TO the general prob lem of faith
i'll the present century and its disturb
ance by SkepticSm. In the initial SER
mon the preacher gave some detail OF
the early life of Donovan, and then pro-
ceeded substantially as follows:
In indicating the steps of Donovan's
downward career, much of the common
experience of mankind is Indicated, and
many of the lessons common place, no
doubt are of the most intense interest.
The neglect first of alb OF his mother
must touch a chord of response in every
life. In her case it was DOT Intentional.
But Malta was most attractive, and the
balls were very gay, and British uni
forms flashed through the maZeS OF the
dance, and then the next day one was
tired and worn. How easy, then, to put
the little fellow away. How easy to
Danish him with the nurse, the beach
and the music of the waves. And then.
when she went to India, was not the
heat enervating? And how easy it was
for one to swing in the hammock under
the enervatng power of neat, and to
forget that personal association ti1at
comes from heart to heart contact. Now
our childhood comes but once. The
time comes, after few swift years run
their course, that we are cut loose from
our mOOrings at the old home, and drift
out to the sea of life-Often to US the
sea OF hardship. By natural law of
life the young mind is like the soft
aYh HnnnlU foi-nc tbg Of
what it touches. That is why memory
in the old man leaps so many years
to the days of childhood. That
is why President Garfield, dying SO
far from his Datiye home, left the
cottage and the shimmering sea, and
wandered once more in the valleys OF
his native state in imagination, in MEM
DRY. That is why the grown man so
often takes comfort, amid care and sor-
row, in contemplating his early home.
Our conditions were not so perfectly
ideal. There are many conditions we
have forgotten: but these experiences
in which the love of father and mother
is mingled were apprehenGed with much
JOY, entered into with: much enthu-
siasm, that in the after years we are
full of the memories, and they are to US
the grace that God has given to His own
child.
Add to the neglect mot intended as
neglect, but thOughLleSSneSS that meant
nothing lesS) add to this neglect the
cOmpaniOnship of the careless and the
bad, and you have another cause Of his
fall. On this | will not dwell. Only ask
yourself this question: Is it not true
that most people take on the coloring of
the Society with which they aSSOcIat e?
Is it not true again that we do come to
see things without shudder that at
first seemed entirely wrong? And when
we see them without shudder have we
not begun to make secret alliance with
them? And when we have reached that
point are we not nearing the danger
mark?
The first step in the direction of i'm
proYement was the consciousness of
| degradation. One of the veteran proof
texts of the schools declared that some
should rise TO resurrection of damna-
| ton condemnation, the new version has
| it,, and that declaration was supposed
| to indicate the hopeless condition of the
| soul so condemned. But the very Ian
| guage implies different fact. The
| only hopeless man is the man who is
freezing TO death, yet knows not that he
| is freezing at all. When he feels the
who went out of the gambling den of
Monte Carlo went from the sitting
| air to the stand by the beauty
| of the sea and to catch breath
| of the soft Southern breeZe-the mo-
ment that man stood in the open air
| under the light of Gods stars and thor
oughly deSpised himself for the fool
| that he had been, for the opportunities
! lie had thrown to the winds, for the
manhood he had trampled beneath his
! feet; that moment he had touched the
turning point; that moment he realized
the words, It'll life is coming back our
death we do not feel;" that moment,
though he had not turned his steps to
the path of Righteousness there was
being realized in his Utmost soul the
sentiment (of Mrs. Browning), "And l
smiled to think Gods greatness flowed
around our mpIeteneSS-rOund OuI
restlessness His rest"
And this brings us one more step
Here he returns to England. Fortune
is less unkird to him, and the series OF
events has a beginning that is to end
at last in peace. Among these events
think we should place his misfortune
of sinking in the DartmOor fen. Sturdy
| kindness pulled him out half-dead, but
| he touched the hand of sympathy. In
the mist and the darkness, sinking
| slowly down in the bog, his brow kissed
by the miStS. the night winds singing
an awful requiem among tie rocks anC
! hills, sympathy crossed his path, and he
had the first glimpse of new life.
What made Donovan Christiani
He was turned in that direction by hui
man sympathy. The power of fort
innate friendship made him feel that he
was at least III the hands of goodness
After this came the poem, I'm Me
moriam," and it appealed to him in &
way that other books could not. He
could not believe in miracles. The
Bible may be to you an authority, but
| it was no: to him. The promise that
so many people have found in its tex
was only promise to him if that prom
Use were substantiated by some
other evidence. He must have re
ligion that found its evidence in hi:
own soul. Nor was it better to threaten
Like thousands of men, he felt that al
appeal to literal hell was an insult tt
his intelligence. The God of the av
erage church was little admired. He
(such God was endowed with power, bu
! would use that power as the king of Z
modern nation would not dare to do
How could he believe! Now the theory
of "In MemOriam' is that love is the
one eternal and finally governing prin-
ciple; that it may be thwarted for {
while but cannot be finally resisted
that nothing walks with aimlesS feet
that not one soul shall be destroyed o.
cast as rubbish to the void when Goo
has made the pile complete" Witt
this idea fixed in his mind he inter
preted the universe and found that III
knowledge could outwing such be
lief, that all OF best in the Bible wa!
based upon it, that all the aspirations
of poet and prophet were the result o
it; consequently he became Christian
with the larger hope. believing in
''That God which ever lives and loves,
One God one Jaw, one clement
And one far-off divine intent.
To which :he whole creation moves