The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-05-04
* SERMON. }sz
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THE RELATION OF HEREDITY
AND ENVIRONMENT TO
CHARACTER.
nv, prv INN M'cOIJESTER
BY REV. LEE S. M'coLLEsTER.

In those days they shall say no more, Inc
fathers have eaten sour grapes. and the chill
drens teeth are set on edge" But every one
shall die for his own iniquity every man that
eateth the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on
edge.-Jeremlah xxi. 1870.
Whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also
representations viz.
The history of one life is largely
the history of all lives. Men as bi-
peds are of similar construction.
Men as minds are produced under
similar laws. The differences between
men are largely superficial. The
facts of birth, growth and death; OF
morals, intelligence and spirituality
are practically the same the race
through. Therefore, he who studies
the history and life of the average
man, studies the history and life
of the race as whole. The birth
of human life was the most in
teresting event which Mother Earth
ever looked upon. That unique event
and interest are re enacted every time
a desired babe is born into home.
That birth is the beginning of child
life. the miracle of the home and real
ization of parental love. The babe
at first is not anything like man. 1t
is only bundle of nerves and mus
Giles, of hunger and thirst wants. Its
distance from manhood is as much a
wonder as its mystery of existence.
It is as much wonder how man
comes up through the grades of de-
velopment out of the helplessness OF
infancy, as it is how the babe comes
"out of the everywhere into the here"
for
who can follow the gossamer links.
BY which the manikin feels his way
Out from the shore of the great unknown,
Blind. and wailing, and Alone
Into the light of day?
Out from the shore of the unknown sea,
Tossing in pitlful agony
of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,
Specked with the barks of little souls
Banks that were launched on the other side,
And slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide"
1t is not given to any to go back to
his own past, and tell the impressions
which this world first made upon
him. It is as impossible for man
to tell the history of his first year, as
of his life before birth. Sometimes,
when we have grown old, we think
what child might think, and we are
told how we acted, and concluded
that we do remember our first sensa-
tions and perceptions. Yet who,
from memory, can answer,
what does he think of his mothers eyes?
What does he think of his mothers harp
What of the cradle.roof that flies
Forward and backward through the air?
What does he think when her quick embrace,
Presses his hand and buries his face
Deep where the heartthrobs sink and swell
with a tenderness she never can tell.
Though she murmur the words
OF all the birds
words she has learned to murmur well?''
Yet here, comprised by the space
of one short life, are the greatest ex-
tremes known to this world. At one
point is the child-the most helpless
of all animals born to earth; and at
the other point is mantle finest
mental mechanism and the fullest
conception of power ever connected
with elements of dust.
To paint the extremes of distance
and immensely the poet used to sing
of the lowliness of the earth beneath
and the immeasurability of the
heavens above; to extol the glory
of salvation the preacher used to
picture the poverty of mans pres
ent estate and the richness OF his
heavenly life. But faint smiles are
these of the distance between the
states of helpless infancy and imperial
manhood; or between dormant, vacu-
Gus infant mind, and wakeful, fully
developed manhood mind. Set side
by side the two pictures which
preachers SO frequently paint, viz: a
lost soul and saved soul, and they
do not offer fraction of the contrast
that is presented when we place side
by side the actual facts of life, viz:
new born babe and matured man.
Rocking in its cradle, knowing
nothing, caring nothing, conscious of
nothing, simply eating and sleeping,
is new born babe. Sixty years pass,
and now behold the result. The
world has been able to watch the
babe grow to manhood. AS Paul
said of his work, "This was not done
in corner" Yet we are awestruck
at the facts. For the second picture
shows face of power, an eye OF SYM
patty, and the lips have spoken
words of divinity and music of in
spiration. And we question this mir
acle of life and ask, did this man,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, begin in and
come from the bundle of flesh that