The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-08-13
SERMON BY REV. s. D. PAINE
PREACHED AT THE GRACE 1T. E.
 CHURCH YESTERDAY.

Christ as Great Preacher, Was the sub- feet and the Text Was from John iii-2 The Sermon Was a Most Interesting E One.
 The Rev. S. D. Paine, of West Palm Beach. Fla. preached a most interest ing seromn yesterday morning and was listened to by a large congregation. The subject was Christ as great teacher" and the text was taken from John 3:2: Rabbi we know that thou art a teacher come from God for no man can do these things that thou doest except God be with him." He spoke in substance as follows:
 There is no man in the New Testa- ment that has been more misrepresent- ed and less understood than Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish Senate or San hedrim. He has been held up to the gaze of the world by many in the church as a moral coward because he came to Christ by night instead of the day to consult with Him in regard to His mission and the doctrines which He taught.
 Nicodemus was no coward. He de- tended Christ after that before the Sanhedrim and when all the disciples fled and forsook Christ It was Joseph of Arima then the so called secret dis ciple, and Nicodemus that saved the the bead body of Christ from being buried in pauper's grave.
 It was not James, John or Peter that came to Pilate and begged the dead body of Christ but Joseph and Nico- demus; they gave Him a respectable funeral They both deserve to be can onized instead of being censured.
 Nicodemus came to Christ at night that he might have better opportun- ity of consulting Him when less sur rounded by the multitudes of people.
 There have been great teachers III the world other than Jesus Chris Over four hundred years before Christ was born in India his family name was Guatamen or Buddha. He was man of marvellous self-abnegation, great reformer. To- day there are over four hundred millions of Buddhists on the face of the blobe.
 Then there was Confucius, more ot an ethical teacher than religious Hundreds of millions reverence Confu- cius
 zoroaste founded a religion that once was held by fifty millions Of Per a 1- pire. Socrates, Aristotle and Plato were great teachers, but the Galilean Carpenter towers high above them all
 He was the only perfect man who en- tered the lists of human history
 The man who sold him for thirty nieces of silver said, 'I have betrayed an innocent man. and he committed suicide when he saw Christ led off to execution The judge who tried Him exclaimed, T find no fault in Him. fine Centurion who watched His dylne agony said. Truly, this was the Son of God"
 The dying thief said, This man hath done nothing amiss.'
 Rosseau, the great French skeptic exclaimed, 'If Socrates died the deatA of philosopher, Jesus Christ, the son of man. died the death of God.
 Let us notice three great teachlhgs of Christ:
 First-The fatherhood of God, the parable of the prodigal son, represents God as a Father who loves His chlldrer more than any human father can love When the wandering son came bacR Inc human father saw him great way snff and ran and fell on his neck anc kissed him.
 God don't love us because we are good, but because we are his children
 The second teaching, the brother hood of man, the thrilling story or tht Good Samaritan, has done more to SCI on foot great philanthropies than al +be teachings of the great philosophers through all time It has covered Chris tendon with hospitals, Red Cross socl' a+ies homes for the friendless, colleges s.r,ools Szc. I remember seeing two ,iotures that hung side by side. think it was in the Louvre III Farls' ol in the National gallery in London.
 One represented a scene III the am nhitheater in old Rome. In the days Q the Jesuits of Roman civilization. 1 wac gladiatorial contest. A wounded r1a diator was lying on the floor of th' arena His comrade who had wounded t,,,, looked to the galleries, where a;rh+v thousand Romans were to soroa sign to save his life, No mere! +bara "Kill him. came the cry, an' ha nlunged his short Roman sword lnt' his heart.
 The other picture represented a scen' in the hospitals at Scutarl, Turkey during the Crmean war. An Englsi woman in the dress of nurse is pass ,np through the hospital at night. Ih' wounded English soldiers raised them s5 saIves nainfully upon their elbows anC lxissed her shadow as it fell on thel -,ilo,re It was Florence Nightingale +ha heroine of Scutari. She represent
 a rhristian civilization It wa Christ the great Teacher, that mad' the scene possible
 rhe third teaching was immortality we have many evidences of presump +,ye nature, but we want something ,,,aro when we look into the faces O our dead for the last time on earth.
 Tasus Christ representing God oi earth teaches the great and blessed dootrine of the souls immortality.
 We live in a grand age, the mos h1essed the world has ever seen, full of hone. full of inspiration. Slaves ar aroancipated, serfs are liberated rr1, fInn n