Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1902-10-09
WEAK INDULGENCES
DR.. cHAPMAN's SUNDAY SERMON.

DNs kuAI MAN , SUNUAI SEkMVNs
Self Indulgence Weakens the Charac-
ter and Units Us For Life's Great
Work.
NEW YORK CITY.-The Rev. DR.. j. Will
bur chapman, the most popular of our
pulpit orators, has never preached a more
dramatic and powerful sermon than the
following one, entitled Insane From SIM
1t IS founded on the text, Tn the tombs,
crying and cutting himself with stones.;'
Mark 5: s.
| You are doubtless familiar with this
New Testament chapter in which our.
Lord IS represented as having power over
devils, disease and DEATH. Over devils
| when He cast out the evil spirits from the
man In the tombs, finding enough in him
| TO fill herd of swine. and enough swine
say; over disease when He healed the
woman who had faith enough to touch
his garments hem, and power over death
when He stands at the home of Jairus and
commands his little daughter to. awake
and restores her to her weeping parents.
1t IS comforting chapter in the light of
the tact that lie Is the same yesterday, to-
day and forever.
In speaking of "the snfulness of sin"
desire to present it at this time in it's eff
feet upon the mind Insanity has been de-
scrlbed as chronic disease of the brain
inducing chronic disorder of the mental
condition, yet there is a sense in which the
fevered patient in his delirium and the
drunkard in his excitement or stupor is
insane. There are two kinds of insanity,
6rst, congenital, or that which is inherited
where brain development is arrested. Sec
ond, acquired. or that in which the brain
is born healthy, but has suffered from
morbid processes affecting it primarily,
diseased states of the general system i'm
plicating it secondarily. In our treatment
Of this theme I have to do with both of
these, tor IN the first we see how the sins
of the fathers are visited upon the children
unto the third and fourth generations,
while In the second we behold an exhibi-
tlon of that insanity of sin which is due
to individual excesses or the breaking of
Gods laws. The Bible is full of illustra-
tions.
It is not necessary that I should 90 to
an institution to find men who are insane.
turn to the pages of this old book and
read the story of Nebuchadnezzar. the
king Now you see him on his hands and
knees eating grass, and his nails are like
BIRDS claws and his hair like eagles feath-
ers. Yet as we read we find he lifted his
tyes to heaven and God set him free.
There is not less for man in this City of
|
free. ~ - 10y -
Then we turn to I. Samuel, second chap
ter, and we see the man who wrote the
Twenty third Psalm, David playing the
fool before the man of whom he was
senfs cnggeEr & ggaaIP We reau
the story of the man who was the king
whose face had the privilege of seeing as
mummy in Egypt-the man who said
Il will let the people go now # you will
take away the swarm Of fies-if you will
take away the frogs" And the frogs
were taken away, and the flies, and he
did not let them go, for God hardened hi:
heart-an insane man, but not more in
sane than the man who has promised evel
since he was child that he would be
Christian and give up sin, and is still it
save
I Turn to the New Testament, and her
he came to himself-when he was not him
self he was satisfied with swine, so lon
as he had forgotten his father and hi
mother, whom tradition says he killed
he was satisfied, but when he came t
himself he was not. All, the young mar
in Ohio, who has stepped into the evil {
, sin in New York and turned his fac
away from Christ, he is insane. It is til
hope of the minister and the prayer of &
q least one hundred people in this churc
that during this series of meetings som
Of these young men may come to then
g selves, and then come to Christ.
@ I have been going through the instit
. tions, where I have had the privilege
Il looking upon the insane people con6nt
First, many people are insane becau
) Of the sins of their parents. Results
a crime on future generations.
At the recent meeting Of the Congre
Of Criminal Anthropology at Genev9
: Switzerland, DR.. Legrain, physicians
= chief of the asylum of Vile -Evrard, ga
% the results of his investigation, which {
2 tended over period of years and show
how sin, like disease, is transmitted frc
in drunken father to appetite enslaved so
IN how in such soil the seeds of crime a
- madness develop and ripen in the last g
- Grafton into sterile idiocy and the exti1
s. tion OF the race.
First Generation.
He traced the course of four generatie
C. Of drinkers in 2l5 families. One hund1
TX and sixty-eight families showed unmist'
ba able symptoms of degeneracy; sixty-th
10 - cases of mild insanity; eighty-eight WI
OF mentally unsound; forty-fve at times d
Ill gerously insane; many OF the child
we-e weaklings and died at an early a
siX.OuC OF elgnC ID one case, Ten out "
~ teen in another. These six latter who
is mained were all feeble minded and
90 epileptic fits and prey to evil instin'
- Thirty-nine families found convulsio
at epilepsy in fftytwo; hysteria in sixte
he meningitis in five; 108 families out Of
NJ 2l5 counted one out of every two indy
+o uals victims of periodical alcoholic d
~ rum; LOG families of the 2l5 insanity
al developed.
Second Generation.
Ninety-eight observations gave the
lowing: Fifty-four families had one
ri more members who were imbeciles
~ idiots; twenty-three families there VI
cn those who were morally irresponsible,
Ire timely births, extraordinary morta
lif- and hereditary diseases caused the child
icb to die in appalling numbers. At this 81
- - fathers and mothers had become conn
'Hs drunkards with but eight exceptions.
at forty-two families he found chronic C.
r a OF convulsions, and epilepsy in forty.
tWenty-three families insanity exists.
Third Generation.
Seven observations, Or families, {
-. him total of seventeen children;
leu were mentally unsound and physlc
ose stunted; two were insane, four subJec