St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-07-29
AVOID NOVELTIES,
ESPECIALLY IN MATTERS AT
FECTING MANS RELATION
TO GOD.
OLD TRUTHS WEAR BEST.
TIMELY SERMON BY REV. ROB-
ERT HAMMOND COTTON AT
ST. JAMES,.
PAST EXPERIENCE A GUIDE
That Should BE Needed by Those
Who Would HeedIessly EN-
brace New Ideas.

"Some New Things was the
theme of the sermon preached yes
terday morning at st. James EpiS-
copal church by Rev. Robert Ham
mond Cotton. The reverend gentle
man took for his text Acts xvii, 81:
For all the Athenians and strangers
which were there spent their time in
nothing else, but either to tell or to
hear some new thing"
Such was the state of things, he said,
In the city of Socrates and Plato when
they that conducted Paul brought
him into Athens" and we may, per-
haps, see in it the survival of that
spirit of inquiry which characterized
the better days of Greece, as we'll as
the restless, dissatisfied state of mind
which an active intellectual life leaves
behind it at the period of it's degener-
acy. The peaceful, placid ideal of Epi-
Gurus had given place to the coarser
theory of pleasure as the end of life;
and had allied itself with a total dis
belief of the supernatural; while the
ethical asceticiSm of Zeno and his sue
cessors had become a proud contempt
for the common man and the common
life, unspeculative and formal, like the
Roman paganiSm. Universal doubt,
and a tendency to despair of truth,
along with the great knowledge of life
which travel affords, created among
the people a universal ridicule for re-
ligion on the one hand, and a protest
ing spirit of superstition on the other.
Credulity and skepticism were, as they
always are, strangely mi--ed. The city
hn1 ciIr 10 InIo 4,-1rJ n
some Knocked, and others said, I'VE
will hear thee again of this natter
The old civilization was dying, or
dead; the new had not come to life.
The heather, preparation for the COM
ing of Christ was over. There was a
lull and pause of all the better &C
tivities of humanity, while many of
the worst were rampant and overbear-
ing.
Left to their own devices, heather
philosophy and religion had shown
what men could do and what men
could not do. Spiritual successes and
hopeless failures alike witnessed to
the possibility and the need of a re-
demption. Both the best and the
worst elements of human society spent
their time"-and their strength, too
In telling or hearing some new thing"
The world was weary and heavy-laden.
1t wanted rest; but the easy yoke and
the light burden of the meek and
lowly in heart had not yet been heard
of. 1t would be interesting if we had
time to point out the analogies be-
tween the dying civilization of the
ancient East and the nascent order of
the modern West.
Let us avoid the depreciation and
contempt of what seems to be old.
Some persons pretend to look down
upon old customs and manners. old be-
Iefs and forms, old men and exploded
dogmas" (as they are pleased in their
conceited superiority to call them), as
II the world that went before us was
a world of ignorance and imhecility
This is very foolish. The experience of
the past is surely human and full of
guidance. We have not time to begin
at the beginning; and if we had, it is
absurd to think that we should make
any better beginning than those who
have gone before us. And surely. it
is transcendently true in the divine
and higher life that whatsoever
things were done and written afore-
time We're written for our learning.
that we through patience and comfort
of the Scriptures might have hope"
Can we ever be sure that we have ex-
hausted this learning? Do we abso-
lutely know that we have yet attained
TO the patience and comfort of this
hope?
On the other hand, let us avoid an
exaggerated valuation of that which
pretends or seems to be new. One of
the truest words ever spoken is that
which declares that of most or many
them is not new, and what is new is
not true" You would suppose, on
hearing modern takers, that all ira
ditional or Catholic doctrine was a
mass of ignorance and superstition, in
furious to humanity; that the doctrine
of the Fatharhood of God and the
Brotherhood of Man, for instance. was
a sort of new discovery, and had never
been heard of till the dawn of this
selfish, Misunderstanding Nineteenth
century-whereas, it has been the
teaching of the Patriarchal, Jewish
and Christian religions from the be-
ginning; and, as a matter of fact, it
is not and cannot be the teaching of
modern secularism. Some men would
have you believe that the so-called
Emancipation Of Woman was a
product of modern enlightenment
whereas. the fact is that what is
true in the movement is the work of
the Christian church and nothing else,
and its vagaries and mistakes are the
new and startling features derived
from elsewhere.
The ideas of political freedom, lib
erty of conscience and the dignity of
labor are as old as Jesus Christ, who
is the same yesterday and today, and
forever" and he who would insinuate
otherwise is misleading you. Those
points which form the basis of the
separateness of the modern Christian
sects are, when true, parts of the old
Catholic doctrine which the church for
the time forgot to emphasize. What
was good in the Protestant Reforma-
ton was a going back to the old;
what was bad land that was very
much) was the new and the untried.
OF course, we know that the Lord has
always more light and truth to bring
forth from His Word: but He does
this for those who are most faithful
to the old light and truth that first
appeared to them. Do not be everlast-
ingly looking out for novelties. The
modern thirst for news is not all
together a wholesome appetite: and to
be always trying to crafty it has
about the same effect on the soul as
the too free use Of stimulants has on
the body. Do not be like the Atheni-
ans, spending your time in nothing else
but either to tell or to hear some
new thing. Be faithful to the old
light, and God will give you the new
when you need it, and in His own
good time.