The herald., 1897-07-12
PULPIT VOICES
Discourse of Rev. Burt
Estes Howard
LORD WHAT is MAN?v
B. W. R. TAYLER's SERMON AT
ST. JOHNS CHURCH
Rev. Rice on the Third Article of
Faith-Services at Unity Church
and Elsewhere

Rev. Burt Estes Howard preached
yesterday at the First Presbyterian
church from Mark. viii:36: "For what
doth it profit a man to gain the whole
world and forfeit his life?" 1t has been
said by some one that Jesus discovered 1
the Individual Whether this be true
or no, he certainly discovered the value
of man as man. The Gospel is not an
appeal to self-interest but to the di-
vinity that sleeps within each human
heart. Jesus was the mighty redeemer
Of manhood. Not alone did he save men,
but he rescued the ideal from the low
level to which it had fallen.
Viewed from a long perspective, the
king and the beggar look just alike
Jesus was so far above the mere acci-
dents and artifiecs with which men love
to drape themselves and by which they
Judge each other, that from his point
OF view all these trappings faded out,
and every man stood forth simply as a
man. With Jesus, nothing from without
could add anything to the true dignity
and worth involved in the idea of man.
Neither wealth nor birth nor station
could add one cubit to the stature of
man. Jesus discovered the divinity of
bare humanity; he believed in the
Individual. When it came to a compar-
ison of men and things, Jesus declared
not only that men are worth more than
things, but that a man is worth more
than all things.
''What doth it profit a man to gain
the whole world and forfeit his life" is
not an appeal to loosen our hold upon
earth in order to secure heaven. 1t is
no stimulating of our cupidity in order
to get US ito give up one pleasurable set
OF conditions for a set of conditions in
another world far more pleasurable. 1t
is no pious speculation in margins, or
dealing in futures. 1t is a manly, square
appeal to the best there is in us-an
appeal for recognition of the inherent
lignity and worth of our own manhood.
Jesus does not imply that the world,
the complicated system of buying and
selling, eating and drinking, the intricata 2
relationship in which human life finds
itself located, is evil in itself and for
that reason to be scorned, and avoided.
Jesus never taught a weak withdrawal
from life's responsibilities and pursuits.
The world is Gods world and he meant
his children to live in it, but he meant
them to be larger than any circum-
stances in which they were placed, and
Jesus taught with intense earnestness
the fatherhood of God, but he morticed
It with it's corollary-the sonship of man.
All his aims and efforts were directed
toward quickening the minds and hearts
Of men into consciousness of Gods hu-
manity and their own divinity.
II man is the child of God and heir
of the eternities, if the world with all
ito briHiancy passeth away with the de-.
sire thereof, then as practical business
proposition brought down to the level
Of ordinary calculations of everybody
transactions the question carried with
It its own answer. He saw men, as we
see them now, suffering and shaving and
sacrificing, cheating each other and
cheating themselves, scheming and plum
dering by direction or indirection, toll
ing and moiling day after day, year after
year, until the withered husks of them
selves are buried in the earth-and all
for what? For fuller man
hood? For a divine soul? For a
rake and scrape together a bit of dust,
a little heap of stuff, that they must
needs leave as soon as they have gath
cred it, and that is not legal tender the
other side of the grave.
Here is a plain business proposition.
What are you profited if you gain all
that you are striving for in the way of
houses and lands, money, stocks and
+l,- : III, fN,,
felt the man in you? Mark you, the con-
trast is not between this world and the
next, although we usually read it that
way. Jesus does not set forth choice
of worlds, nor does he imply it. 1t is a
contrast of world over and against man.
The caution is not against gaining the
world, but gaining it at the expense of
personal soul. Jesus is really melting
men to get the most out of this world,
but not in the terms of the world; rather
in the terms of manhood. There is to be
an accumulation, but it is an accumula-
tion of personal character; there is to be
a profit, but it is in the man that there
must be evidenced the increment of gain
There must be the making of money
the building of ships and railroads, the
opening of mines and mills, the stir of
marts and the rumble of traffic in the
streets-men are called of God to these
things as to a holy ministry, but these
things are ministries not ends in them
selves They are false to their divine or
dination, save as they are made tribu-
tary to larger and better manhood.
It is far better to open the minds of men
to a noble and uplifting truth than it is
to open the mills and the mints of the
world to the makers of money at the
expense of truth.
The ideal the large part of the race
has is the making of money rather than
Of manhood; the securing of comfort
rather than character. There is as much
truth as wit in the remark that the pur-
poses of most of us can be put in three
degrees of comparison-frst, to get on;