The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-01-19
GOD GIVES MAN \ BREADTH OF CHOICE Discourse on the Path of Un-
 derStanding LAWS THAT WILL LIBERIA 1E The Rev. U. D. Mooney Discusses the True Way and the Way That
 Leads to Spiritual
 Death.
LAWS THAT WILL LIBtRATE

Second Presbyterian church, preached to large congregation yesterday morning. the theme of his sermon being "The Path of Understanding. The music rendered by the choir was exceptionally good at the morning service.
 The text. found in Proverbs 21-1S, was "The man that wandereth from the path of understanding shall remain in the con gregahon of the dead" MT Mooney said
 This is a solemn picture that God flashes before the humaan soul-solemn enough to cause any man to halt, to come face to face with his experience, and in the deepest sense discover where he stands in the world of the spiritual We are given very large choice in the mat ter. We may wander we may not, and yet the result of wandering is inevitable.
 In all the varied experience of life God gives the same width of choice. God is sovereign; man is free. The words enun- ciate principle as imperishable as God Himself. Browning paid tribute to the sovereignty of God when he said: Gods in His heaven, alls well with the world. And Shakespeare through his Hamlet speaks of mans free agency when he says: ITO be or not to be-" leaving the choice with the human will. And so God in this instance points to a pathway of understanding It Is a path that leads to the largest life, that winds to the very heights and summits of existence; but God will compel no man to walk in it. He may induce, or persuade, but He will never compel or coerce.
 In Proverbs 27:22 we have these words: "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord" What does that mean? It means that every man has God in his life and that the deepest craving of mans heart is for God. It means, beyond that, that every man who comes in contact with Gods revelation knows he has God in his life. He knows what God wants him to be and to do And so the way of under standing Is the way that God points out, along which He leads, and to the future, towards which he beckons us.
 Every man who reads Gods Bible knows that He wants to bring into his life all the might and love and glory and power that he can. To walk in the path where this wish and purpose of God can be realized is to walk in pathways of under standing-to disobey is to wander away.
 From a Consciousness of God.
 To wander away from the path of un- derstanding is to wander away from consciousness of God. The deepest and most complete life Is the life that lives and moves and has its being in God, and does this consciously. We are all willing to admit this fact when asked about it, but we want to have vital consciousness of Gods presence in our lives, moment by moment, and day by day. When a man begins to wander away from a daily realization of God in his life as part of his experience and his eXistance, that man Is wandering away from the path of understanding towards the congregation of the dead.
 As long as Adam in the garden of Eden had a vital consciousness of Gods immediate presence his life was full and complete, and all the highest power of his manhood held sway. but when he for got Gods eye was him to the extent of dsobedience he began to wander away from the path of understanding. And this wandering led him from an innocent Eden into a sin-cursed earth.
 To realize that God is over us and in us, and that our lives are in His hands; to feel His conscious presence in weak ness and in temptation, in burden and in
 ( mit-thls is to walk in the pathway of understanding. On the other hand to lead lives of practical atheism as so many of us are doing, this is to wander away.
 Away from the Path.
 The man of deepest spiritual under standing is the man who knows Gods will is best, and therefore the man who tries as best he can to walk In the path of Gods commandments. It may seem strange, startling, a parodox, but the man who makes deepest surrender to Gods will is the freest, most liberated man. The man who makes 1t his purpose to submit to Gods principle and Gods laws, is the freest man in the universe And why? Because these laws in them selves liberate his manhood. The more he obeys them, the more he finds himself un- trammeled, unfettered and free. God never makes demands arbitrarily, but for your best interest and mine.
 The requirements of God are life's disci- pline. They teach self-restraint, reliance control over the human life. Every organ ization has it's laws and its principles Mo- body can stand without them. Neither can Gods government exist without laws and principles of control. The man who free man; he is an outlaw. Neither is the man who lives in defiance of Gods law a free man; he Is q spiritual outlaw. To be blind and deaf to Gods commands is to wander out of the path of understanding towards the congregation of the dead
 To Wander from Higher Usefulness.
 The man of enlightened experience knows that no man liveth to himself and that no man dieth to himself. He knows it takes a great many men to make a world, a community, church, and every man bears a relation to another. The man that walks in the way of under standing can never be selfish man. He is the man who knows that the highest satisfaction in life comes from the most unselfish usefulness. The men who have been greatest in the worlds life, who have stood upon the very pinnocles of glory. have been the men who were use- full; who have bestowed upon the world
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