The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-09-06
"THE CASE OF EARL SMITH"
CONCL USIONS DRAWN FROM IT BY
 REY. J. LEE MITCRELL.

Why a Son of Christian Family, Reared
 Under Christian Influences, Turned
 CriminaI-giblioal Citations of Firing
 ChiIdren-Preventiona and Cure as Found
 in the Faith of Christ Set Forth.
 Rev. J. Lee Mitchell, at the Grand
 avenue Congregational church, preach-
 ed an interesting sermon yesterday
 morning, the topic having been sug-
 gested by his recent vacation visit to
 Michigan. The discourse was as fol-
 lows the topic being ''The Case of Earl
 Smith"
 'The very first conversations I had
 with my former people they told me
 about the case of Earl Smith; in fact,
 they seemed to me to pitch in to me
 about it as though I was to blame for
 it, or at least owed them an explana-
 tion of it. It was only when I observ-
 ed that they pitched in to each other
 in the same way about it that I escap
 ed an uneasy feeling of responsibility.
 Nothing for some time has apparently
 so disturbed the brilliant little city's
 theology--or lack of theology
 This was the case: A year ago the
 safe Of the state agricultural college
 was robbed of two thousand dollars
 blown open with dynamite apparently.
 The robbers were not discoverable by
 ordinary methods and detectives were
 set quietly to work. A short time ago
 they arrested the son of an official of
 the college and another student, Earl
 smith, the son of a physician. The
 young men confessed, and it appeared
 that the safe had been unlocked by the
 officials son, who knew the combina-
 tion, and that Smith had bought the
 dynamite in Grand Rapids on his re-
 turn from a vacation and blown up the
 safe to distract suspicion. The detec-
 tive had noted that the dynamite was
 not the means by which the safe was
 opened, because the lock was uninjur-
 ed. The boys, both sons of well-to-do
 parents, gave as their motive for the
 crime only the desire to have more money to spend. The parents of young Smith were people of the highest char acter and devoted Christians. Their family had neither been neglected nor brought up too severely, but both wise 1y and lovingly. Now said my friends, what are you going to do? It just makes an end of all the promises of God as well as human and scientific theories. Pain, sorrow, loss and death we can understand, but this moral de- struction of one born and nurtured in the fear of God makes all things hope less. Of course the death of the boy would not have been the blow to the | parents nor a circumstance of the con- fusion to our minds and theories
 You may say that this is simply puzzle to be solved, if solvable at all, | by trick and not by faith or reason: that the God-fearing soul must just be- | lieve in the wisdom of Gods govern | ment and not try to understand There l are three objections, if not more. to | leaving puzzle thus. A genuine prom i 1se, principle and law of God must work i every time; there are no exceptions. ] The exception may be mans way of | proving the rule, but it is not Gods. | Christ does not say, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, { and with very few exceptions I can | give you rest He does not say: 'Pret- ty nearly everybody that confesses me before men I will confess before my father and the angels. He did not look with His calm eyes into the blind eyes and say, Believe ye that I am able to do this;' and when they said, Yea. Lord, reply, Well, then, the chances are 99 to that I can heal you,' but Be it unto you without exception accord ing to your faith
 If it is a law and promise of God that the children of Christian parents brought up with the utmost care those p1 rents know bouv +o er;va eIo11 k ..xx ed from moral disaster, and there is one exception, then that exception proves that there is no such law and promise of God. Science may make allowance for freaks of nature; faith needs not and knows not any such allowance for 1 however rare.
 Another objection to gliding over ] this puzzle or any other is that faith is { not blindness. It trusts farther than it i can see, to be sure, but not farther than it can see into darkness, farther l than it can see into light. The path { way along which sight fails and says, l I can see no farther; must trust for l he rest is clear, illuminated, glori- :, jed pathway. That which divides sight i rom faith is not blank wall, but the f glorious distance. To come out from ( my trial of life or problem of mind I against a blank wall is to come out } rom it wrongly You may not come t ut on the final answer. the last goal. S ut you ought to come out on the path, f hough the path lead over the hills and a ar away. lr And 6, third reason for not gliding V 'ver these puzzles is that they do upset t people. IT there is a rough, steep place g n the road then the strength of your y wagon and your team must be equal to a hat place, though it be only hundred Ii ards in ten miles, This case that I t lave spoken of came sufficiently near V Ill the neighbors of the sufferers to r hahe a whole church. We ought to at y east find the way out of our puzzles. T ven though We cannot tell whither the e vay leads. We have divine warrant or so much. That is faith; faith is to V ollow the path, not to kueel before the e, Let us examine, then, this case of u Iarl Smith, which is as good as any r, ther for test case-better, because if VI real case. Restated, it is simply m his: Parents who are not only Chris tl in hut in, I