The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-02-26
OF SOCIETY. "
A STRONG SERMON YESTERDIY BY
REV. MR.. FERRIS

Contrast with Christs Classification
of Men, Shown-Two Things That
VIII XIII Christianity-A Deed OF
Kindness the Truest Ritual.
At Calvary Baptist church yesterday
morning the pastor, Rev. George II.
Ferris, preached strong sermon from
the text, Matthew V, AZ. The church
was filled with one of the largest con-
gregations of the season. The sermon
was as follows:
The tendency Of that which we call
society" is to unite the like and divide
the dissimilar. Instead of bringing men
together on a basis of mutual helpful
ness and reciprocal needs, it parts them
into separate classes on the ground of
some surface similarity or external
distinction. BY teaching a man that
he ought to associate only with those
whom he can call his equals, it con-
dennis him to live in place where he
can see himself whichever way he
chances to turn. He mixes continually
with those who echo his judgments,
confirm his ideals, strengthen his likes,
live for the thing for which he lives,
give him no vision of higher things, and
lock him up, as the years go bye, within
the narrow, selfish walls of some little
social set. He maintains his position in
his set, and is popular with it's men,
bers, just in proportion to the degree
in which his soul conforms to the size
which the goddess of fashion fixes as
the type and form of her faithful dis
ciple. If he should chance some day to
try to bring some nobler worship into
that old temple, whose divinity Yields
such a fateful scepter Of fear over her
dutiful devotees, he would find that
even long years of service and devo-
ton could not keep him from becoming
a victim Of the very cult which he him
self had helped to create. Society
stands no foreign god, no opposing love,
no superior truth, within that sacred
court where she rules over all her vo-
taries with such absolute and sovereign
sway. 1t is she who divides men into
groups, into circles, into sets, into class
es, into ranks, where each man may
hear his own ideas fall from the lips
of other men, where opinions may hard
en- into certainties by constant repeti-
ton, where nobler and sublimer
thoughts may be laughed out of mind
where all truth that disturbs and is
inconvenient may be drowned in Kisses
and cries. and where each member may
confirm and bolster up his own life by
the aid of those who are just like him
self.
Now no man can read the teachings
of Christ with any degree of apprecia-
ton without observing that He
made it one of the chief OBJ
jects of his life to classify
men on different basis; to bring to-
gether opposite lives, the weak and the
strong, the high and the low, the wise
and the ignorant, the pure and the vile,
the true and the false, in order under
the fusion of the fires of love, to make
the vile more pure, and the pure more
like Himself. To me this chief mission
of my Master is so plain and self-evi-
dent that it has become impossible for
me to feel that anyone is a follower of
Christ who tries to live and love only
on the level Of his own life. There are
two attitudes characteristic of Christ,
neither Of which can be reconciled with
that spirit of exclusive selfshness,'
it's own social and educational zone,
excluding from companionship and
sympathy those who are inferior in cul-
trre, poorer in property, or different in
creed One of those attitudes keeps
the heart open toward heaven, that the
infinite light and truth of God may
come streaming down into a trusting
soul, and that the pathway may be- |
come palmer that leads us away from
the mists and damps of difficulty into
the peace and serenity of a loftier I'M !
ion with the Father. The other atti-
tude keeps the heart open toward men, I
that it may never cease to look with |
eyes of faith into those depths where |
immortal souls have surrendered to sin |
and that it may always feel thrill of
love and hope mingled with it's sad
ness at the thought that these men are
the sons of God. So you see church
is a place where an effort is being made
to restore that tie, which the world
has so sadly broken, by joining togeth-
or dissimilar lives that the strong may
hear the infirnlities of the weak, and
the Lord may bear the infirmities of
the strong.
Two things will kill Christianity and
scar the soul with an iron of selfshness
until it is no longer tender and sensi-
tive TO the touch of these two intlu-
ences. One is that pharisaical and big
oted spirit which draws it's lines too
sharply between the sheep and the
goats. making the membership of some
church the chosen people of God and
the particular favorites of heaven, and
looking upon all outside the organiza-
ton as belonging to Cog and Magog,
who are subjects for pity or proselyt-
ism. but who of course are not Gods
children. The other is that selfish and
worldly spirit which yields absolutely
tn the sway of fashion or pleasure,
which makes wealth the infallible
measure of a man. which drifts with
the ideals and tendencies of it's class,
and which draws narrow and un-Chris-
tan lines separating the privileged I
neonle within the circle from the great
rabble without. Both the b1got and |
The aristocrat try to construct a caste,
me on the basis of his doctrines or t
his forms and the other on the basis
Of his blood which separates them who '
walk in outer darkness, and deVelopes
their self-sufficiency and pride. Both {
the bigot and the aristocrat are lack {
,o, -, no mark 1f tr1le