, 1900-05-29
We ARE NOT ALL BAD
SERMON BL REV. F. T. KRUGER
OF THE METHODIST EPIS-
COPAL CHURCH.
OF Course There Is a Tendency 70
Evil. But God Never Made Man 70.
Sin but for Righteousness-Yicld
to the Noble and the True and

A large congregation vas present
Sunday evening at the Methodist
church, when Rev. Frederic Tevis
Kruger preached an able sermon from
the text And when he came to him
self" Luke XIV, II. The minister said:
THE church has long since ceased
to believe in the doctrine of total de
pravity as it used to be taught. 1t no
longer believes that every nan is bad
all bad. and that there is no good in
him. There Is, to be sure, the tendency
TO evil. But there is also the power fog
good-in every man and woman Their"
is a spark of honor-a spark of good
ness, which needs only to be famed
into a blaze. This tendency to evil t.
not the real self, it is the baser. the un.
real self. 1t was this unreal self which
prompted the prodigal SOL to demand
his share of his inheritance and go
away into a far country. His real an
better self would never have done such
a thing.
God never made man for sin but for
righteousness. And when We say that
He did, We SANDER our Creator. |
learned when a boy, that the chief end
Of man was to serve God and to enjoy
Him forever. Now this does not look
like sin, but like righteousness.
But there are people who say. Il can
help it. | must sin" No you must
not. To declare such a thing is to de
clare that you have lost your manhood
or womanhood. Your real self declared
no such thing but rebels against it,. 1t
is only your baser inc unreal self, that
can take such a position.
What we need to do is to come to oul
real selves, but this is not always easy
to do. 1t is often difficult to retrace our
steps, to re-assist ourselves. to use our
powers.
The sense of need always follows
from self awakening. Take the intel
lectual life. Let there be awakened in
you your intellectual powers and YOU
feel your need. And the more you fee
your need. the more dissatisfied you
become. but the more you reach out af
ter higher things. 1t is hard to get the
boy or girl to realize n need in the
matter. Why study Latin or Greek or
anything else is the usual question
Rnt in 1atar lifa thnr ranl;1n th;- L,S
then it may be too late.
The same law holds true in the
material world. 1t is only by self
awakening and creating a sense of need
that civilization makes progress. The
savage is satisfied with his string oi
beads and a few yards of calico, and il
hats were for ornament only, the man
ner in which he dresses his hair would
answer well enough. But let there -
a self-awakening and the creation of a
sense of need and there comes an hon
est effort to satisfy that need. And
thus civilization progresses. The same
thing holds true spiritually. Some peo-
pie go through life in a self satisfied
name spiritually. They have no
Of any spiritual or moral need
and why? they have never had a spir-
itual awakening. They have never
come to themselves. They are not con-
scious of their situation in life. They
may think they are. They may think
they know themselves but they do lot.
Many people never really come to
themselves. They rest upon a false
basis. They adopt wrong . methods.
Take again the matter of education.
A good many things pass for culture
which are shams. The mere fact that
you live in a college town does no,
make culture. The mere fact that you
go to college, or even graduate will not
give you an education, nor will YOU
diploma of degree in later life prove a
pledge Of knowledge. No more will