The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-03-23
STUDY OF JESUS CHRIST
REV. j. CUMMING SMITHS SERMON
AT THE TABERNACLE.
Jesus COmprehended the Physical as
Well ms the Intellectual Side
Of Human Life.

Rev. ]. Cumming Smith, pastor of Taber-
nacle Church, preached yesterday morning
fgrom the text, Himself carried our sick
nesses," Matthew, viii, II. He said: After
the sermon on the mount, where Jesus
stood as teacher of the centuries. we find
chapter Of miracles where Jesus was a
doctor treating the bodies of the diseased.
In the first He was the intellectual light
of the world, robing old truth in a fresh
garb or pushing aside the screen to let
new and unentered chambers of truth
come to the world. If He had remained but
an intellectual seer the world would be
in debt to His genius. But He was far
more. He must have been far more to
enthrall the worlds deeper life as He has
done. Intellect, however respondent, does
not exhaust our equipment. There are
deeper regions in us. Jesus appreciated
the social and physical side Of our many
sided nature. Hence, while He was original
in piercing and simplifying mysteries to
the mind He plunged into life as it was
and heard the mute unvoiced woes of the
heart and felt every pang that tore our
frame.
Some people merely skate over the icy
surface of life dip even foot
into the sweeping tides that rush under
| meath. Some are IN politics without ever
STOPPING to bear the burdens of the COM
mon people. Some are mothers, who never
waste deep self-sacrificing thought
the Sar City OF Childhood. Some go to col
| lege, not to master science, but to pass an
| examination and earn diploma. Some are
| in church, not to acquire sainthOod but
| to get responsibility. Everywhere there
are the shallow men who sport on the
surface and the earnest men who fathom
realities
PHYSICAL PART OF LIFE.
"Jesus said that the physical part of life
| must be reckoned with in order to clear
| some loftier problems. You can rescue ILL
| fated passengers on a raft or in lifeboat,
| even while the ship is burning to the wa
| ter's edge. But you can scarcely redeem a
mans soul while his body is neglected or
abused. For the forces of the body reach
into and infect the life of the soul. Con-
slider for a moment how much crimlnality
| there is in our world. Consider the tax
upon government to curb the lawless and
| restrain the riotous. Whence all this
| crime? Ask the abstract divine and he
| finds the source in the will. Men choose
to go wrong is his curt answer. But it
1 is only half an answer. Ask science and it
| says: Crime springs from nerves. from
heredity, from environment and thou
| sand circumstances that drive man be-
a curt answer. The fact is that you reach
truth if you blend both answers in one
| Certainly there is choice of wrong. Deny
| this and We deny freedom. But the ele-
ment of the physical side of our life must
enter in. We will not say that sin springs
from nerves, but We do say that physical
If his will Is weak 1t will swing him off his
feet. Half of our crime finds its secret in
the half-starved or disorganized physical
the guests slyly slip pill or two, with pit
| iful grimaces. as they swallow. Watch on
the street the people turn their backs to
escape detection as they swallow liquid.
| We are all sick and half sick The unfor-
| Inmates in our hospitals. with white-capped
nurses tiptoeing to soothe every wound
half so much to be pitied as the miserable
wretches who must work or starve, and
who drag to their work bodies that are
dumb pain. There is pathos in such facts.
Men are in bondage to their bodies. Some
are born mangled, some are reared inn
freedom from ache and grinding distress.
| Now, how can you expect virtue and re-
ligious ecstasy from the victims of wheel
ing asthma? How can you wonder If in
temperance often begins with desire to
queil such pain by quafnng the deadenins
cup? How can you expect high religious
| Now, Jesus saw deep into life and the
sources of those sins that drain life of its
power. He carried our sicknesses He
measured our sorrow In profound sense
and therefore was qualified to be COM
plete Savior.
when the train speeds through short
tunnels the passengers in the coach notice
nothing but the series of temporary glooms
But when the train dives down into a low
| long subterranean passage then the smoke
oozes In at the windows and even the clam
my feeling of dripping walls of rock pierces
| through into the To some sorrows
come only at long intervals and only for a
moment close out the warm sun. To Others
of sympathetic construction, to Jesus SUI
premely, life was a low. long subterranear
passage full of secret strength and divine
10y that came from an insight into mems
discovery of the birth and growth of Grim,
from the wreck OF nerves. Not altogether
but in most cases.
PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES.
IF this doctrine be true some practica
consequences follow. First of all it incul
Gates charity. We begin life with scathinl
and wholesale condemnation of our neigh
Dor found in error. We often invent tn,
error. AS we mellow we cease our fiuen
sarcasms and trace facts to their du
: cause And old people ripe with wisdom
are apt to wonder that there is so littl,
crime considering the million chances TO b.
| entrapped.
| | can never be complete spiritual emancipa
, ton unless the lower part of our being 4
set free Hence the medicine and the pull
pit should work hand in hand. Hence tn
2 | notable service Of the Salvation Army look
ing into haunts of sin, even while IL pray
, | a trembling debaunchee into the kingdom
Prayer and practice must evermore com
I bine.
D | Isaiah denouncing liquor, his swift and al
) most cutting retort was: What did Isaial
r know about it?' Now. the lawyer has
: OF the greatest prophet but he simpl
4 | wished to repress his impatience with an