The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-06-19
THE VOICE OF THE PULPIT
REBUkE FOR PEOPLE WHO EvADE
THE OBLIGATIONS OF LIFE.
By Rev. Brevard ID. Sinclair, ID. D.,
Pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church, PIacerviIIe, Cal.

/
Human nature is much the same in all
ages. The parable from which our text is
taken describes the fiimsy excuses given by
those invited to supper as illustrating the
Discrimination of that age for spiritual food.
So to-day men and women are evading
! obligations in every walk OF life, on one
| pretext or another. and especially in things
religious. There is material for many SER
mons in the excuses offered for the nonsup-
port of public worship. on which the very
stability of this Christian government rests.
| There are two facts which meet us One
is the felt obligation of religion and the
other is the growing commences of ire
| ligion Specifically. it reminds one of the
reported paradox of Socialist audience in
New York city kissing the mention of the
churches, while it cheered the name OF
Jesus Christ.
How shall we explain the coexistence OF
| these two things? The reason must be
found in the habit of self-exeuse. 1t is
either a pretext invented so as to shun
without self-reproach a plain but distaste-
full duty, or it is an excusing of a prefer
ence for the second rate over that which
/ is of supreme Importance.
Men say there is no need of going to
| church for intellectual food L reply that
! religion, while commonly ii does afford in-
| tellectual entertainment of a high order.
was never intended simply for such amuse-
ment or TO contribute TO mans intellectual
nature merely. The whole course of Chris
tianity refutes the assumption Paul, writ
ing to the Corinthians says: Il came not
with excellency of speech or of wisdom
and my preaching was not with en-
ticing words of mans wisdom, but in DEM
onstration of the spirit and of power, that
your faith should not stand in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God"
1t will not do for any man to say that
| Paul was not an intellectual giant; yet the
whole course of his ministry, in the midst
of the magnificent PHILOSOPHERS and litera-
| ture of his day, was to lead men away from
| the cold abstraction of barren and icy
| intellectualism to the warm, glowing hearth
ness of faith. His spirit was stirred within
him when W men spending their time
| in nothing ut either to tell or to hear
some new ectual problem solution
Surely it v ot to titillate the intellectual
vanity of linen that Paul went everywhere
preaching Christ nor that Christ himself
went about doing good"
Men who talk in this manner have neither
rightly estimated the mission of Christian
| ity nor their need of it.
AN UNWORTHY EXCUSE.
Another man excuses himself on the
| ground that he cannot afford to waste the
| morning hours Would that l could look
| into the eye of any man who makes that
| plea and ask him fairly as a man If 1t is
wasting his time to consider the highest
| interests of his existence? Man is created
/ worshipful being; and worship, one of the
foremost objects of church attendance is
an ennobling exercise of an uplifting In
f1uence upon the whole man. His better
nature Graves and is benefited by it, This
excuse is unworthy of intelligent, fair
minded men.
Another alleges lack of faith to be the
reason. He says: People have, conscious
| ly or unconsciously, become thoroughly
skeptical to the fundamental dogmas
There is no longer for them a God that
hears prayer; the doctrine of immortality
is to them an absurdity and an impossible
ity; they no longer believe in an infallible
Bible, miraculous Christ" etc.
| Space permits only d brief word upon
one or two points under this head. The in
stinct of prayer in men of all races and
centuries, holding false religions as well as
true, being universal as life ITSELF In
vincibly declares that the objection to a
! prayer-answering and prayer-hearing God Is
| purely pretext, from which all 'intelli-
| gence has fled. A Johnstown flood or a
first-class Charleston earthquake will bring
| the most hopeless skeptic or arrant bragg
| CART to his knees.
Nor does foreordination or the unchange-
| ableness of natural law dispose OF the
efficacy of prayer. With such logic as this,
what is the use of breathing If God has de-
creed that we shall live? If we are to reap
a crop, why need we SOW any seed? As to
natural law, earthly fathers find its i'm
mutability no barrier in providing for the
wants of their children. Is it any evidence
of intelligence in men that they profess to
| believe the Heavenly Father more circum-
scribed in using the order of nature to pro-
vide for the wants of His children than are
our earthly parents?
Prayer is not a physical cause, but a moral
| cause it is a means, its answer is the end.
A child knows his father hears him. What
can the stranger know about it? He has
never truly prayed and SO never expert
enced an answer.
| So of the avowed disbelief in immortality.
| If it is honestly held men deceive their own
/ hearts On test the belief is as universal
/ as humanity. Like Banquo's ghost it will
not down at any mans bidding; and per-
! haps this is the strongest proof of the recog-
nized binding force of religious obligation.
We are told that men no longer beleys
! in an ''infallible Bible" And yet, in
! world where physician will give an es-
sential prescription without putting 1t in
writing; in country where no court, legis-
lature or congress is held without clerk
infallibly recording it's proceedings In
! nation where our Department of State in
| structs our ambassadors not orally, but by
written dispatches, men who profess greater
| intelligence than the modern pulpit ask us
| to believe that God Almighty the Physician
of souls, the Judge of all the earth. the King
| of kings, has not made an infallible written
/ revelation of His will
/ Man must have some infallible basis of
/ faith and life. Humanity has not been
/ turned adrift on the sea of life without
| charts, compass or rudder.
| ATTACKING THE PULPIT
About dozen of the replies 1 have re-
| ceived to inquiries made of thinking men.
| tell me as an excuse that there is sensa-
tionalism in the pulpit on the other hand,
other men write me that ''the pulpit is not
4 sensational enough" How doctors will diff
| fer! Sensationalsm for the sake of draw
| ing crowds merely gaining notoriety Is
morally reprehensible. 1t is not true, as q