The San Francisco call., 1898-01-17
Dr. Jordan of Stanford on the Cause of Human
 Misery.
Man Prone to SelfiShness and Disregard of the Laws
 of Right.
"Carries in His Own Breast the Key to His own Heaven or His
 own He'll"
Special Dispatch to The Call.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY, Jan. IS. The announcement that pr. Jordan would deliver this mornings sermon overcrowded the chapel with students, who were desirous of learning more of their presidents religious views. The subject of the sermon was The Hu- man Reaction" Dr. Jordan prefaced his remarks by saying:
 Lincoln once said that he would walk one thousand miles to join a church which believed in God and hu- manity. As a humble member, 1t may be, of some such church I would speak to you"
 He first showed how the tendencies to worship humanity arose in the rev elations of power that made for right eousness and come to us from the lives and acts of other men, who were the sons of God incarnate in the human flesh and a part of our common hu- manity. The reason that men had never been content to worship human ity as God was ascribed to the fact that they recognized a larger responsi- bility than that of man.
 Man." he said, the last of the ami nal creation on earth, is not the first cause of his own creation. He can claim no credit for his own develop ment. Man, therefore, cannot worship himself He knows that whatever he does of goodness or of wisdom was good or wise before he did it; that good or wise action on his part is but fol- lowing in line with the great tendencies and purposes in the universe which ex- isted before man, and by virtue of which man came to exist. It is not the work of humanity but of God in hu- manity, and this only can man wor- ship"
 After speaking of how slow people were to recognize that nature had her own laws and purposes and that she was not the eXecutOr of human justice, he added:
 We smile at the jealous clergyman who predicts the destruction of San Francisco by material earthquakes, be- cause of her moral and political delin- quencies. We stand aghast at the blas- phemy of the clergyman in Pittsburg who found in the death of a fireman, in a burning storehouse in Chicago, punishment for the opening of the eX- position on Sunday. Gods penalties are self-infiicted, for the forces that punish sin are innate in the heart of man. Every man carries in his own breast the key to his own heaven or his own hell.
 Much of human misery" he contin- ued. comes from the belief that nature owes us a living; that somehow or other she ought to make an exception in our favor. Most rascals consider themselves privileged characters. The laws of right were intended for some one else"
 The spirit, he believed, that made each nation think itself the favored of God and each little sect of Christians ,1. ,f other to the true apostolic succession, was a phase of human selfishness.
 Man." he said, projected his little egoism out on the face of nature"
 Prayer. he thought, was the express sion of what might be called human reaction"-the force which caused man to resist gravitation, which pulled man toward the ground In conclu- sion, he said, Right and wrong exist in human conduct. All else in the uni verse is merely truth. Thus it may be in the universe. God is truth, while within man God is love, and love and