The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-08-21
FREE SALVATION
Defined By Rev. G. H.
Spencer at Trinity
Methodist.
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.
Rev. B. F. Kingsley De-
nounces Sunday
Newspapers.
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.

The evening sermon at Trinity Me-
thodist church yesterday was preached
by Rev. George H. Spencer of West
Newton before a good attendance. He
spoke on the subject, 1.-THE price of free
salvation" and said in part: Some
time ago 1 was spending few days in
country village and while there at
tending prayer meeting in the little
church, 1 became aware of an unusual
feature in the service. 1t seemed that
everyone was glorying in the fact that
he had received something for nothing.
and / fell to thinking whether it was
healthful idea. There is a desire in hui
man nature to get something for moth
ing. The great successes and failures
men make in investments is due to this
and the cause of the great ten
dency toward dishonesty is the desire
to get money easily.
Men are coming to learn, however,
that we cannot get something for moth
ing. 1t is certainly so in intellectual
matters. There is no royal road to
learning. To learn you must pay the
price of laborious study I am convinc-
ed that in some very important essen
tials religious life is not so very diff
ferent from the ordinary life about us.
| think we usually put the religious
life too far off and put it in a rather
mysterious light
The browning glory of our church is
that it breaches a free salvation. Free,
lnsomuch as it is possible for all men;
that God has not selected any particu-
lar men or nations to receive eternal
life, but that all men have the same
right to it, and all may gain it in the
same way. Salvation is free in that it
is the gift of God. Not by any efforts
Of any kind will man gain salvation.
1t is not won by our merits or because
we are so much worth while, but be-
cause He loves mankind
Now in what sense has it cost some
thing? 1t has cost God, the Father,
something. God so loved the world
that he gave his only son. And it cost
the Son something. I suppose there
was never day in the life of Christ
when he did not experience a shock of
sorrow at the sin of men. He was a
lonely man, misunderstood, and with
out friends who could sympathize with
him. 1t was not simply the anguish
OF death but the anguish of being mis-
understood that bruised his heart. And
1t has cost the church something. When
the Master had gone, the apostles one
by one suffered and died for his sake.
We have free salvation tonight because
thousands of men and women gave
their lives that they might preserve for
us free salvation.
Now, what is salvation? Being saw
ed from hell, or being saved into heaven
is not a complete definition of saliva
ton. One of the churches of America
has said that salvation is by character
We know that it is by grace. Salvation
is character. Christ came to the world
for no such limited mission that he
might merely rescue men from the pit
of their transgressions. Christ came
not to transpose but to transform men.
If God saves men and women it will
be because they are worth saving. Be
cause there is in you at least a bud of
that life which may expand into the
celestial flower. Let US get over the
idea that we are to get something for
nothing. Let us be ashamed unless we
are ready to give the strength to work
out our salvation