The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-04-09
REV. DR. PATT0N'S SERMON
DELIVERED II bIEoTM. Y. CHURCH
 lESTERDAY MORNING.
A Large Congregation Attended Palm Sunday Services-Dr. PattOn's Sermon Was Companion of the Church of Ephesus and That of Our Oay-The Best Side eff n Man.

Best Side eff Man.
 The Palm Sunday sermon at the First M. E. church was preached by Rev. pr.
 Walter M. Patton of Yale university. The preacher chose for his text Rev. ii., 2, T know thy works, and thy labor. and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil.'
 Dr. Patton said that we might spend time in. profitable study of the Church of Christ at Ephesus, and spoke of its rapid and great success. No church of early times had more dangers-dangers from pagan priests and pagan crafts men'-he said; dangers from curious and extravagant tendencies of thinking, dangers from the worldliness and wick edness of a great city. The only heret- ics mentioned in St. PauPs writings probably were found in Ephesus. The only heretical seat mentioned by name in the New Testament is named by John in the message of the Apocalypse.
 Ut is in view of the situation of the church in this Asian capital that the epistle to the Ephesians was written, and probably the letters to Timothy. For its benefit was given the farewell address of Paul at Miletus. For 1t, first of all, the general letters of St. John may have been composed. Study the address of Miletus and the letter to the Ephesians. Both suggest danger. Both are especially taken up with the defense of the church against danger. When the letter has got fairly under way there is a prayer for the churchs true enlightenment then prayer for it's spiritual strengthening, then an ex- hortation to unity then an eXhortatlon to good living and finally call to put on the spiritually good armor and be ready against all foes. What beset and endangered church, too, it must have been that Paul contemplated when he wrote his letters to his own saviour in the faith, Timothy'
 The preacher then gave comparison of the church of that time and the church of to-day. Tt will be well,'' he said, flor us to set over against our diff faculties and discouragements this thought that the chief Shepherd of the church knows. He has far more at stake in our churches than we have. What difficulties there are He has fore seen. That people grow cold He knows and always has known. The lives that do not yield to Encouragement and those that do are marked by Him. Tbe faithful and the unfaithful, the helpers and the hinderers, are known. The grumblers and the workers, the patient and the restless, are in the eye of the inspecting Christ.
 "There is warning for the careless fl,ic 1y,,n1 nf Christ. Take hold and don't give up. The hopeless causes are His as well as ours. He works with all His workers. They cannot fail within His sight
 pr. Patton then went on to say that there is great danger in emphasizing the dogmatic side of Christianity ''We must get people to have rigat notions" he said "Whenever tt has been insist ed that correct ideas were the all-im- portant things, evil results have follow ed. It is wrong thing to create an ex- elusive interest in the intellectual truths of religion.
 "A Christianity whose interest is thus is a religion of bitter-spirited, unpro- gressive, unmissionary orthodoxy, an tagonizing an inevitable host of schisms and heresies.
 ''The best of man is his practical side. The service he does to his fellow men is worth more than all he knows. | The manhood of a man is worth roore | than his correct views. Hence we say | that religious people must always keep | in the first place the life-the religious life-and destiny. Religious truth has a value, as knowledge, but the highest value of such truth is in it's capability | of application in life.
 "The aspects of our Christian faith which are most worthy of our study are those which contribute to the worthiness of our lives as Christian men ond wo men,"