The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-05-25
DR.. CODY DELIVERS
A GREAT SERMON
breaches to the Students OF
Howard College
THE SECRET OF SUCCESS
Pastor Of the Church at GreenVilIe in
Powerful Words Shows Young
Men Now Entering World of
Business the Proper Path.

In the presence of a great concourse of
people that filled to overlooking the
Ruhama Baptist church of East Lake
on Sunday morning, May "a, the Rev.
DR.. u T. Cody, pastor of the First
Baptist church of Greenville, S. c., a
leader among the distinguished ministry
Of that denomination, preached a great
sermon, clear, simple, powerful, the
baccalaureate sermon of Howard col
lege. He held the close attention of the
large congregation many of whom
crowded around him after the services
to meet and thank him for the splendid
discourse. Just before the benediction
the president of the college, on behalf of
the corporation, the faculty and the stu
dents, thanked the minister for his
great sermon.
DR.. Cody Will remain in East Lake I'M
til Monday night the guest of DR.. and
Mrs Montague and of Rev. and Mrs. j.
M Shelburne.
The pastor, Rev. Mr. Shelburne, pre-
sided at the church services.
DR.. Cody's sermon follows in part:
The Secret of Success.
a.. But refuse profane profane and
old wives fables; and exercise myself
unto goodness; for bodily exercise is
profitable for a little; but godliness is
profitable for all things, having promise
of the life which now is and of that
which Is to GOMEZ Tim. All, g.
There was in our Savior's life nothing
more beautiful than the care with which
He preserved godliness. All His public
life He was in a warfare with a false
religion; He was destroying an organ
lied hypocrisy. But He destroyed only
what was false; He carefully preserved
what was true. He cut out only the
gangrene. When the battle was over
with the work of destruction was seen
on all hands; but those who followed
Him reverenced the Bible, the religion
and the God of the Jews more than ever
they did before This was remarkable
because the hypocrisy He hated and de-
stroyed had interviewer itself with this
very religion He rescued. He often
nearly always-spoke off-hand and in
moments when crowds were fiercely
aroused; but no excitement ever caused
Him to speak one syllable that injured
truth, as no fear ever caused Him to
spare any phase of hypocrisy. In this re-
spect He stands alone among reformers.
And His example commends to us the
priceless gem OF life.
Goodness Defined.
What is goodness? I trust there will
be no waste If l devote at least half of
my time to answering this question.
There Is one thing very evident; what
| ever goodness is 1t IS not something
naturally or easily attained. Exercise
myself" AS you perhaps know the word
rendered, Exercise is the one from
which we get our words gymnastics,
gymnasium. The exercise was that by
which a clumsy boy becomes trained,
powerful athlete. The Germans have
- 1,afr ooh
naseums. Truly, it takes exercise to dis
cipline the mind and perfect 1t for the
arduous, delicate, nimble work of life.
Now If men attain to goodness 1t is not
done by thoughtless, by perfunctory
reading of the Word, by sleepy prayers
They will not grow naturally into 1t.
Our Savior said "Agonize to enter into
the straight gate" and 1.-THE kingdom of
heaven suffereth violence and the violent
take It by storm" And l suspect that
He himself gained the clear light of God
by eighteen years of profound medita-
ton and by prayers that robbed the
night of its rest. We can settle 1t that
if this is the secret of life, 1t is not one
found by a man that does not ask and
seek and knick, and seek to gain by I'M
portunity what friendship seems to with
hold.
Godliness is. to define It most simply,
feelings of awe; reverential feelings. But
to be goodness of the N. T. type these
feelings must be true and sincere. That
is, they must be the produce of truth.
| and they must be genuine. real sincere
| feelings And this means that both our
thinking and our conduct has to do With
| goodness.
Goodness in Our intellectual Lives.
Error and falsehood are no parts of
| real godliness. They are no support to
godliness Paul says: Refuse profane
bles.' Sometimes men have thought
that ancient religious errors are essential
to the reverence. of the people Gibbon,
speaking of the gods in the time OF the
Antonnes, says that the people believed
they were all equally true; the phiioso-
piers believed that they were all equally
false; and the magistrates believed that
they were all equally useful" There are
vet some magistrates in many ranks of
life. Now error Is not useful. False re-
iigions have maintained reverence, but the
people did not know they were false.
When we know thing to be false, how
ever venerable, 1t should be righted.
Education Is the friend of religion
Whatever, in any religion. that can't
stand light. let it go to the realm of dark
ness where 1t belongs. 1t is not danger
Gus to know too much but 1t is dangerous
to know too little.
The race has had a fatal inclination to
get a knowledge that robbed man of the
presence of his God You remember that
first story of the human race. They got
knowledge but they lost God. And that
thing has been kept up ever since. Men
have sought knowledge In such a way as
to iniure and sometimes destroy religion.
You remember the work of Voltair. You
see what has been going on in our own
day. AS we have increased in the knowl-
edge of science we have converted each
new principle of knowledge Into an engine
of destruction for our Bible and our doc
trines. Now the very essence of goodness
is Notwithstanding of Gods truth; but
such a growth as not to lose God or injure
reverence or destroy faith; but 1t is such
an advance that as we rise to more light
we increase lowliness before Christ
But godiness Is also matter of con-
duct. The feelings of reverence are MAIN
tanned or destroyed by ones course of life.
% And let ii be said that goodness has
no need of any touch of either hypocrisy
or fanaticism. All that 1t needs or asks
is perfect sincerity and common sense.
Sincerity in the tone of voice. in the ex-
preston of countenance, sincerity In
words, and especially those words that
give utterance to our religious feeling.
All 1t needs and all 1t asks is good COM
mon sense. The type of religion that does
not go at common things as all other
common sense men do, is not according
to goodness.
Force of the Bible.
One of the chief characteristics of the