The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1903-06-03
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
A SCHOLARLY DISCOURSE BY THE
REV. DR.. c. H. PARKHURST.

of Virtue and Yet 1t May Never Arrest
the Worlds Attention.
New YORK CITY-Dr. Charles Fl. Park
hurst, pastor of the Madison Square Pres
byterian Church, preached sermon Sun
day morning on subject which might be
termed "Inconspicuous Greatness" He
chose as his text Mark xii: 41-44: "And
Jesus sat over against the treasury and be-
held how the people cast money into the
treasury, and many that were rich cast IN
much. And there, came a certain poor
widow, and she threw in two mites which
make farthing. And He called unto Him
His disciples and saith unto them, Verify
I say unto you that this poor widow hath
cast more in than all they which have cast
into the treasury; for all they did cast in Of
their abundance, but she of her want did
cast in all that she had, even all her lir-
ing" DR.. Parkhurst said:
Which undoubtedly was an imprudent
thing for the woman to do, for perhaps at
q later hour of the same da! she had to
borrow, beg OF steal in order to meet the
necessities of her subsistence, but beauti-
full intention may still be beautiful even
if it is little careless and uncalculatlng;
indeed, we like it still better if it is not too
careful and too calculating. The case is
like that related by St. Matthew of the
woman with her aiabaste' box of DIN. .ment.
who spent-in ono: sense of the word
wasted-a prodigal. amount OF money on
Jesus amounting; it was eytravagant and
reckless. but the recklessness of it was one
of its charms, for it made only more evil
dent the sweet sincerity of her affection,
and if she had been more economical with
the spikenard less of the fragrance might
have foated down to our own day.
Jesus presumably was the only person III
~ j. al,
of the woman with the two mites. She was
simply one of a crowd and as uninteresting
and unpromising probably as are the mem
bers of any crowd, but the fact that she
was, outwardly at least. uninteresting
makes it interesting that Christ was inter
ested in her. and it is one Of the features
of our Lords character that He was i'm
pressed by unpromising people. whoever
it might be that He was dealing with He
seemed to feel that He had a good deal to
20 upon. No one. we should say, appealed
to Him to be ordinary. We were speaking
here some time since about the haphazard
way, one might almost say, in which ne
selected His disciples, as though any one
He ran across that day, when He was walk.
ing along the edge Of the Sea of Galilee,
would answer we'll enough for disciple,
and go for an apostle-this to. be under
stood not as disparagement OF the position
He selected them to fill, but as recognizing
that even common men were so uncommon
as to be inherently able to fill the position.
He could doubtless have continued His
walk along the seaside and have selected
another twelve lust as competent ms the
first twelve, if He had cared at that time
to have so many. And, certainly, 1t is not
venturing much to presume that He could
have come into this city. yes; and into this
congregation. and have found dozen peo;;
pie with natural qualifications that would
have made them az capable as Peter, James
and John and the rest to lay, IN co-opera-
tion with Himself, the foundations of the
Christian church.
Probably the most ardent leveler in the
world would not claim that all men are fun
damentaIly alike, and fundamentally equaf,
and this is not the place, certainly, to be
drawn off into any nice speculation upon
that matter, but apparent differences be-
tween people are not at all to be taken as
just measure of their actual differences;
Christ's eulogies are conspicuous for being
pronounced upon the inconspicuous, and
that is fdct to be thought upon as tend
ing to change the attitude of our feelings
toward the submerged ninety.nine per cent.
of the race. And I am urging this point
not for the purpose, of establishing the
"
are evidently of q good deal OF account
may see more reason for respecting and
honoring those whose claims to your re-
spect and admiration are Of an undemon-
strative type. Once let them have an open
field and fair charce and perhaps they
will change places with you. This may have
been a mart of what the Lord had in. mind
when He said that "mapy that are first
shall be last. and the last first"
The idea has been rather hard ridden.
overridden-that if the possibilities OF ef-
feet are in man or woman, those posslbill-
ties are bound to come to their realization,
however untoward may be the clrcnm-
stances that stand in their way. it was
uuent face is still fresh in the memory of
many of us-"How many Millions may have
died in their mothers arms we cannot
state hut the grown-up Millions have been
heard from" Easy to say. difficult to prove
and eminentlv improbable. Of hundred
kernels OF wheat scarce one ever fulfills
the destiny marked for it in its own constl-.
tuition, but the nnety-lline that are ground
I'D in the mil are each as full of the pos.
sibilities of "blade, ear and full corn in the
ear" as the one that happens to be
dropped into the furrow. A tropical Lalnl
will still be nothing less than a palm even
though grown in northern latitude, but
however abounding may be it's native ener-
gies and vital forces it will be uneuuaf to
the encouragement of short days and early
frosts.
The apostle Peter has become great
power in the history of the church and of
Christian civilization, but if on the day
that Jesus went strolling along the beach,
gathering up disciples, Peter had been out
at sea fishing instead of inshore mending
his nets it is not probable he would ever
have been heard from. 1t is rather impor-
tant to be somewhere near the track when
the train of opportunity goes by: There
is undoubtedly a providence in things, but
at the same time there is an accident in
things in the sense in which that word ac-
cident can be properly used by US. You
will recall the incident which, st: John
relates as occurring at the pool OF Beth
esda There was some medicinal property
in the waters of the pool perhaps, at any,
into the pool and troubled the water and
the one who was fortunate enough to be
the first to get into the water after it was
troubled was healed of any infrmity from
which he might be suffering. That ls, the
man who CHANGED to be closest to the track
when the train of opportunity went by
could 90 aboard and arrive.
In Macaulay's essay on history there oc-
ours this illustration, which, without any
straining, lends itself to the matter we are
now considering. "At Lincoln Cathedral
there is a beautiful painted window which
was made by an apprentice out of the
pieces of glass which had been rejected and
thrown away by his master. 1t is so far
superior to every other in the church that,
according to tradition, the vanquished art;
list killed himself from mor.ifica tion."
Which means that the finest window in the
entire ediice was made out of glass that to
an inappreciative and unsympathetic eye
was good for nothing and cast out as sheer
refuse The miracle of the feeding of the
5000 lets lis see among other things that
Christ had very distinct regard for what
the disicn'es probably thought, were, mere
i - = ~ bo