The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-04-30
AT CENTRAL UNION.
Rev. Mr.. Kaincaid Talks Upon the
Problem of Evil.

At the Central Union church yester-
day morning the Rev. Mr. Kincaid
spoke on The Problem of Evil" taking
as his text the parable of the Wheat and
Tares. He said in part:
The distinctive power of Christ as a
teacher lies in illuminative flashes of
thought; He taught men in parallels,
and parable is truth seen by flashes
or imagination. Two things are re-
markabie about his teachings. The first
is that he made no effort to harmonize
or preserve them; and the second is
that we are very far from knowing all
that he did teach.
The parable of the wheat and tares
is striking example both of the silence
OF Jesus and of his manner OF speech.
He Is dealing with the awful problem
of human evil, but he does not attempt
to give us more than a partial solution
of it. He puts a clue In our hand-no
more.
The first truth he means us to grasp
Is that good and evil entwine them
selves throughout the field of life
Wheat and Tares then exist in every
age, in every man. You cannot paint
an age, or a human character in plain
black and white. They are a hundred
tones and gradations of color IL the pic
ture is to be entirely just. You cannot
separate the good and evil by any sum-
mary process. NO" says Christ, LET
us wait till the harvest" till the great
gathering in of souls before the face Of
God. for He alone Is righteous. true, anc
just in all His judgments.
Wheat and Tares-they entwins
] oary in, oil http fr1 fi0p c
Take war for example. There are those
who would destroy it utterly. not by
any slow process of evolution. but in
stantiy. Whatever we may think of war
we must admit that the sword has otter
been welded by the hand of righteous
ness, and that war has done much In
the education OF nations; that 1t ha:
instilled even into the basest magnifi
cent ideals of honor and chivalry anC
courage; that II has more than once
worked out the regeneration of a people
and won for them the priceless blessing
of liberty. Who, then, would be sc
daring as to root ii up entirely? Who
[ does not see that in the growing horror
of war among all civilized peoples We
have the promise OF that slow but SURE
evolution by which il will at last dis
appear OF itself? Wheat and tares-
they entwine themselves also in human
qualities. Take, for example, anger
What is anger? II is the power of an
tagonism. Now. evidently what yot
want to do with such a power is not Il
eliminate It but TO direct II rightly
Anger is one of the noblest forces in tn
world when penetrated by the mora
spirit.
Many a young man would have beer
saved from vice had he known what l
was to feel sacred rage against thu
insults which vice offered to his honor
his purity, his manhood. Many politi
clan might have become something IA
higher-a statesman and leader of tn
people-had he known what II meant t
catch the fire of a deathless enmit.
against popular evils and corruptions
The curse of our American civilization
!, today is lack OF moral anger, the los
capacity of passion for noble ideals, tn
lost capacity OF rage against triumph
ant wrong. having its issue in tina
, meanness OF spirit which Is wilfull