The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-11-11
DR.. DOUGLAS FIRST SERMON
me NEW RECTOR OF TRINITY BE-
GINS IN HIS NEW FIELD.

'hrlst's Victory over Death, Meaning of
the Term "world" In John 1888, No
Absolute Meaning but Applicable Conno-
tatively as Well as Observation-Disclosures
Lessons Drawn From the Text-Dr.
Douglas New Home.
n Rev, DR.. George William Douglas,
Nate of Washington, d. c., the new
fector of Trinity Episcopal church yes
erday morning preached the first SER
mon of his pastorate in this city. The
congregation was large despite the
weather and much interest was evinced
n the pastors first sermon. There was
Ma beautiful display Of choice flowers in
honor of the occasion. Rev, DR..
douglas took as his text John 1888:
These things have spoken with you
6that in Me we might have peace.
BE of good cheer; 1 have overcome the
world" and spoke substantially as fol-
Bows:
These words were spoken before
sChrist's death; yet they did not antici-
pate, they actually expressed Christ's
victory over death. For these words
indicate the underlying fact of Christ's
perpetual being, which alone made His
resurrection possible No single, iso-
Hated act of a PERSONS career is signif-
Ncant apart from the whole being of the
Eperson. The act is but the sign and
Soutcome of the possibility that finds
Repression in the act. The thing that
seems decisive in any mans career
1.-THE event that lifts him into prom1-
Ssnence or Sinks him in oblivion-is the
manifestation of what was in the man
beforehand. Even so our Lord and
Saviour was not so much prophesying
1.-THE future as expressing the present
when, during that discourse to His dis
sciples in the upper chamber at Jeru-
salem He declared to them in advance
N of His passion, BE of good cheer; I
have overcome the world" In the ac-
tual hidden fact of His being and char
%acter Christ, even there and then, had
conquered the world; and His endur-
ing the cross and the triumph of His
resurrection were but outward proofs of
\ this.
n 1t was not easy, that night of the
Last Supper, to perceive that Jesus
r had overcome the world. 1t looked
rather as if the world had overcome
Him How then shall we explain that
4 unseen victory? How is it that Jesus,
even at the moment of His apparent
y shame and overthrow by the world,
& was really superior to it? We must
n understand first what Jesus in these
4 words intended by "the world"
Of all the terms employed in holy
scripture, none is more various, more
elusive in it's meaning than this. The
Y term is elusive because the thing is
So '"rhe world is not the material
universe only, nor brute nature only,
( nor man only. 1t may be each and all
\ Of these; it may be none of them. It's
scapacity of transformation is marvellous.
Why, this world that Christ calls sim
j full sometimes Furnishes sin for the reason
that sin is not respectable; and constant
Y w the world helps to build churches, to
endow hospitals, to further Christian
missions, to dessiminate the Bible, to
uphold good morals, because these
things are respectable? Nevertheless
st. James tells us that the friendship
of the world is enmity with God. Again,
the world is not the devil though the
devil is the prince Of this world 1t IS
not the flesh, though feshy lusts thrive
in the world. 1t is not so much SIN
this or that sin--as the atmosphere, the
arena the dollhouse of sin.
All this is vague, but it is the vague
mess of the fact,-the vagueness that
characteristics ever our Lords language
when speaking of the world. For ex-
ample, Christ says, on the one hand:
81 am the Light Of the world" GOD
so loved the world that He gave His
only-begotten Son." "God sent not
His Son into the world to condemn
the world, but that the world through
Him might be saved" On the other
hand, Christ says: 20 righteous Father,
the worldhath not known Thee" Il pray
not for the world" "Those whom Thou
hast given Me are not of the world,
even as I am not of the world" i
have overcome the world YET
every docile reader of the Bible feels
after while that these apparently con-
ficting terms are true to life. The
reason WHY our SaViour'S language is so
elusive in this regard is that the world
is only the world when man REGARDS
If as such. There is no one thing, no
honest trade or profession, no style
of living on which you can lay
YOUR finger and say certainly:
s'That is the world; to have that, to 90
that. to he there is to be worldly" "Laz-
arus may be quite as worldly as Dives
The same thing may or may not be the
world according to the point of view
The world is the temporal when mis-
taken for the eternal; the creature when
regarded apart from the creator. To
overcome the world as Christ did, is
to realize in feeling, thought and action
that the world can stand of itself;
lis to recognize, in other words, that all
which man sees and possesses and rests
1lnon. as he moves across this earthly
stage. is not only a gift from God, but
colrld not exist without God-that it is
hut the instrument of Gods action; the
screen of Gods presence; the token of
Gods love- To say this, and to mean
DIT, is to overcome the world. The mo-
ment that the travelling soul mistakes
the inn for the home, that moment the
soul is worldly" Man, thou hast for
gotten thine object. Thy journey is not
to this but through it -