The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-04-11

FaIIacy strswn on the Pathway of TIms-Hope for the LowIy and Poor.
 Good Friday union services of tie Congregational churches of this city were held in the United church yester- day morning at Il o'clock. The sermon was by Rev. Watson l.. Phillips, D. D., pastor of the Church of the Redeemer. He emphasized the power of the law of love. His text was:
 John 14:6. Jesus saith unto him. am the way. and the truth and the life"
 Following is the sermon in full:
 It was that last sad night in the up- per room when. supper being ended, Jesus, girded with a towel, a basin of water in his hand, taught the humility of real diseipleship by washing the feet of his astonished followers. The devil having put it into the heart of Judas Simon's son, to betray his Master, he had gone out to arrange the sale. Then Jesus, strangely affected by the ] atmosphere Of pure friendliness, in- dulges in that familiar talk about what is to be, of which John gives us the fullest and freest report.
 At first his words concern the future blessedness and their hope of reunion with himself after their mission to men is accomplished. Let not your heart be troubled" he says, believe in God, believe also in Me. I go to prepare a place for you: I come again and will receive you unto Myself; that where am, there ye may be also" Then he startles them by adding, "Whither I go, ye know the way" Thomas ex- presses the feeling of them all when he breaks in with, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; how know we the way?"-so soon had they forgotten that He said, T came forth from the Fath- CT, and I return to the Father" The simple, patient answer to this question is. ''the way is through me; ye know because ye have known Me; you will find blessedness by keeping my words and emulating my example, Then the talk drifts back to the earth life before them, it's trials and prosecutions, it's great ministry and abundant recom- pense; and the pregnant thought under 1t all is. you are to come to the F'ath- er's house by becoming fit for it; you will gain heaven by becoming heaven 1y; you will see God by becoming God like; you will find Me again by living My life and growing into My likeness,
 It is proposition whose audacity is appalling: "I, who am about to suffer death at the hands of men, announce Myself the way to life-to life eternal, whose infinite stretches through unend- ing cycles, but whose beginnings are here and now in the midst of the ig- norsnce and squalor and sin of mans earthly estate, declare that no man conaeth unto the Father but by Me; am the way, not one way among many, the only way to all that man needs and hopes to attain in this or any other world" It is an utterance whose dar- ing is unparalleled in history! On any other lips it would be evidence of hope less insanity or insufferable egotism; but looking into the calm face of the speaker we are neither surprised nor offended; we have learned to take Je- sus Himself as the sufficient interpreta- ton of all His teachings.
 Probing these words to the bottom, you find in them this claim: T am the way to all man needs and hopes to at tain as an individual and as society,"" Regarding the first part of the claim-T am the way to all man needs or hopes to attain as an individual--it would not be difficult to show that the sort of man Jesus has put before the world has become the worlds ideal that the conception of and the inspiration to reach those qualities which men are holding essential to the perfect life have their source in what He said and in what He was, and that thus He is making good His assertion, T am the way; in proportion as men personally and vitally know Me do they know the way" To-day I wish to consider that part of the proposition which pertains to society. T am the way to all man needs or hopes to attain as a society; because ye have known Me, yet know the way"
 First of all let us assure ourselves that this is not dangerous inquiry, as if 1t were some internal machine need- ing only the touch of careless or hos tile finger to blow the whole social structure into chaos. The policy of si- lence and ignorment has already quite exhausted whatever of value it may once have possessed, And whether it be dangerous or not, here is one of the questions that must be handled. What Jesus said and what He did has SC fired the in1aginations and influenced the thinking of all classes of men that you cannot any longer silence them by force of arms or spacious philosophies- the day of a bloodless political econo- my of merely selfish social and indus trial theories has gone by never to re- turn; the demand is for something warm, humane and brotherly, for Gal ilean ethics worked out in the lives of consecrated men. There never has been ali hour since the Reformation when the true church has had such a chance of universal moral leadership If she has the faith and love to seize the situation and the courage to put into life the theories she blazons on her banners, then the day is near when s'the gentiles shall come to her light and kings to the brightness of her ris- ing; they that dispised her shall bow themselves down to the soles of her feet and they shall call her 'The City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel" Is. 60:14.)
 How has Jesus affected the social