The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-05-06
NEAR To
SODOM
ALeSson From the
Story of Job
Told.
REV. w. M. KlNCAlD
ON SOCIAL EVILS
Says That Sodom is at Our Own
Doors and it Has a Fatal
Beauty.

the pastor, Rev. w. NJ. Kincaid, spoke
to young men upon Pitching Ones Tent
Toward Sodorn, or lessons from the sto
~ of Lot, taking for his text Gen. 1872.
And Lot pitched his tent toward Sod
om"
Among all the stories of Genesis none
is better deserving our moral considera-
ton than the history of Lot His story
may be described as an epitome OF hu-
man life. Just as evolution asserts that
| in the structure of man every form of
created life is represented, so it may be
said that every man epitomises in him.
| self all the moral forces that make the
tragedy OF the triumph of life. The
passing of thousands of years makes alb
solutely no difference to the problem.
The story of Lot is as human, as real.
as vital as though it happened yester-
day-indeed, there is no day when it is
not being reacted in human lives. Lot
was offered a choice in life and he chose
wrongly, with what a harvest of terrible
consequences we all know. To us also
there come hours of solemn choice when
a destiny hangs on the decision of an in
slant. Lot obeyed an inclination rather
than a principle We also are under the
constant temptation to shape our con-
duct by the lower rather than by the
higher dictates of our nature.
| This is the real significance of the sto-
ry of Lot, and surely for the young who
have the making or the unmaking of
their lives in their hands there can be
no story more deserving of careful study.
! Let us see if we cannot put it in the
setting of our modern life.
And first, what is there in Lot himself
to explain his fatal choice? The first
thing we need to remember that the ex-
PLANTATION of the foolish acts of man new
er lies in their circumstances, but in
| themselves. We forget this. We are al
ways trying to put the blame of our fol-
! ly upon circumstance, or fate, or envi-
ronment;- forgetting that men are the
architects of their circumstances, that
| fate is only the shadow of character, and
| environment the mould of habit. We
1 must look deeper for the determining
motive of human action, and We find it
| in what is called principle. We see in
daily life, that the great difference be-
| tween raen is the possession or the lack
of principle. And this was the great diff
| ference between Abraham and Lot
| Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom and
the action explains the man. And this
choice of Lot is being continually re-
peated. Men will enter on forms of bus
| mess which they know to be full of NOR
/ al risk simply because they can make
money faster in them. They will pitch
/ accounts grow larger as souls grow
| smaller.
Better a crust of bread and a good
conscience than all the gold of all the
world if smeared by the slime of Sod
ON. The first, the last and indeed the
only duty of any man is to do right. You
may buy your Sodom too dear; indeed,
no man or community ever bought evil
lat a cheap rate.
| Again, the choice of Lot implies lax
| ity of virtue in himself. There was
something in the very atmosphere of the
fertile, sun-saturated plain of Sodom
which man of robust virtue should
/ have dreaded. 1t is matter of obser-
walton upon which the world is agreed,
that where nature is most bountfful
man is morally the weakest. The per-
! feet climate means the most imperfect
men. 1t is where man has to battle most
strenuously with nature that manhood is
| noblest. In the dangerous air of the
tropic, the moral sense is quickly dulled
| to great moral evils, and man is most
ivle, most impotent for good, more thor
oughly the slave of his animal passions.
| Behold the Sodom at our own doors.
1t has soft winds and perilous fragrance,
and a fatal beauty. It is the realm of
| passion, of desire, of impurity. And
see those on every side who leave the
sunny hills of life where the air is clear
/ fatal plains
1 know not Whether any such are list
ening to me tonight but do know there
/ Is a door opening into Sodom from every
life. I do know that the road to Sodom
| is a well-beaten road, all too easily
discovered. Men co not take it at a
bound they approach it by easy stages.
They begin by harboring the unclean
thought which poisons the imagination.
They pitch their tent toward Sodom.
They look with cal Gus compliance upon
its corruption. The vehement abhor-
renee Of vice that very pure man feels
goes out of them. They tolerate sin;
they inspect it. palliate it-excuse. They
| live on good-natuTed terms with it; they
do everything but abhor it. And even If
they never enter Sodom, IS this nothing?
Has the unclean thought no penalty, as
well as the uhclean act? You cannot
handle pitch and not be defiled You cam
not pitch your tent toward Sodom with
out a loss of moral purity, with a GER
tain deterioration of character. Some
one may say, Surely it is possible to live
in the near neighborhood of Sodom and
not share its SIM" That is not the point
at all. It is the duty of the true man
not to see how far he can reconcile him.
self to evil but how best he can destroy
it. Tt was compromise with sin that
ruined Lot We can easily trace the
stages of his fall We hear him argu-
ing with himself, as men still argue, that
IL will be much better for his worldly
interests to live a little nearer Sodom,
and it need in no wise mean that he viii
become as the Sodomites. He thinks he
can maintain the simplicity Of a patri-
arch, but that is impossible. Men still
think that they can live in the suburbs
of sin and go no further. It is equally
impossible.
The retribution that overlook Lot was
swift inevitable and tragic. His home
ruined. his possessions swept away, his
wife overwhelmed in the fiery han and
volcanic ashes of a great upheaval-a
poor, broken, pitiable old man. he fees
to the hills which he should neve4. have
left
I ask you to remember that the daily