The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-03-14
REV. DR.. FERRIS SERMON
At THE CHURCH OF THE REDEEM-
Err SUNDAY MORNLNG.
He Exchanged with the Pastor, Rev
DR.. Phillips, and His sermon Was u
Very Interesting One.

Dr. Philips, and His sermon was u
Very Interesting One.
The Rev. George II. Ferris, the pas
tor Of the Calvary Baptist church, ex-
changed with Rev. Dr. Phillips, of the
Church of the Redeemer, Sunday morn
Ing, and preached a very strong sermon
that was heard by a large congregation,
His text was taken from ii Timothy,
AZ, and he spoke as follows:
] love to think of the enthusiasm of
Paul. He was called a babbler, a
blasphemer, a mailman; he was de-
scribed as "a pestilent fellow and a
mover of sedtion;" he was said to be
trying to turn the world upside down;
he was likened to Mercury, the spokes-
man and winged messenger of the gods;
and whenever the Book of Acts records
his visit to a place we expect to read
the sequel in the following words, "And
the whole city was in an uproar." Ger
tain 1T is that he never Rugged his Cos
pei to his breast with selfish cupidity,
or concealed the light of his revelations
under a bushel of cowardice; but he
looked upon truth as a trust, and went
straight on remembering perhaps the
words, "Ye have not chosen me, but
have chosen you" Was ever life
lived that faced such hard and hostile
environment and walked over so many
rough roads Of perplexity, and yet
seemed so full of a buoyant and cheer
ful contentment, and 50 able to say,
amid desertion of friends and opposi-
ton of foes, amid perils on land and
shipwrecks on sea, "None of these
things move me?" What ties of friend
ship and tradition did he not break that
he might become the ambassador of
Christ? What weights of persecution
and reproach did he not lay aside that
he might run the race of service and
apostleship? Scorned from the hour of
the conversion by every loyal Jew,
bounded because of his liberality by
Judaizing Christians, he forgot that he
was an outcast and a wanderer because
he believed all men We're his brethren,
and he was saved from brooding over
his sorrows because he threw his soul
50 earnestly into his great labor of
love. Not by narrowing his life to
smaller and smaller compass, but by
expanding it to the measure Of his OPP
portunities not by shrinking back into
some cavern of self Righteousness, but
by walking forward with free faith and
elastic step into the open fields of SER
vice; not by seeking to crowd the
glowing and resurrected life Of the
present into the outgrown shell of the
past, but by building more stately
mansions to meet the needs and COM
pass the faith of the future, did he
seek to find rest in a world of change
and difficulty. When the pathway be-
fore him was darkest, the light within
him was brightest; when the deed to be
done was hardest the determination to
do it was firmest; when the word of
witness brought persecution, his testi-
mony was more clear and sure. In his
character Christianity and manliness
were one and inseparable, as they
should be to all who bear the name of
that prosecuted Carpenter. to whom the
Roman procurator pointed and said,
BEHOLD the Mani"
You sometimes meet men who are
trying to be Christians sin secret"
Let us examine that theory! If you
were to come to my parsonage next
June. and I were to take you into my
garden and show you a rose bush with
out any roses on it, you might ask me,
but, Mr.. Ferris, where are the roses?"
suppose l were to answer, 'tShh!
Down on the roots" What would you
Say? You would say, "Why, roses new
er grow on the roots If a rose bush
grows rose 1t puts 1t away out on the
tip end Of branch; and then, for fear
it may not be detected, it sends out a
delicious perfume about fifteen feet into
the surrounding atmosphere" Suppose
l were to take you out here somewhere
to a swamp and say, IF you will take
q spade out there, and dig down deeply
enough, you will find a snow-capped
mountain peak, higher than the Mat
terhorn." You would answer, IF there
were a mountain here, l fancy l could
zee It," Do you not recolect something
like that which certain teacher once
said of Christianity? "A city set on a
hill cannot, must not, be hid.'' What
think you Paul would have said, when
he fought with wild beasts at Ephesus
and came out of the arena alive, If, as
he passed through the door into the air
Of freedom and safety once more, he
had heard two dainty patricians of the
great city whispering to each other
that they half believed in Christianity,
but were not yet willing to risk their
lives for the sake of an untried theory? |
Would he not have said himself, |
with that fine heroism that character
lied him amid all his dangers, Far |
more happy and contented is the man |
whose love for Christ makes him will |
ing to go down into the pit with the |
Ions and tigers, than the man who tries |
to face both ways, introducing the spir-
t of anarchy into his own breast and !
allowing his judgment to be with the
stars while his heart is in the olod?"
More and more do I feel that the
,trangest phenomenon / meet in my |
is the man who has not the
to be either an atheist or a be-
lever. He dare not be an atheist, be- /
.ause he shudders at the thought that
ife goes out at last like a puff of
moke; because something tells him
hat this grand and wondrous universe
ogether with our conscious selves,
.ould not have arisen by chance; and
BECAUSE it is impossible for him to con-
GIVE that some day, when the drama
# life has been played out, this old
world will go ON in silence, bearing the
obes and tinsel of the dead dreamers,
Who once fitted across it's stage, and
hen vanished forever. He dare not be
believer, because religion gives him