The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1903-09-17
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE ENTITLED
t.DUAL MlNpEDNESS OF CHRIST"

AN ELO0OENi DISCOUHSE EN- LEI
"DUAL MINpEDNESS OF CHRIST"
Impression With a Message Suggested
, by tho Eighth Chapter Of Romans
Mind of Flesh and Mind of Spirit.
WEsTFIELD, N. 1.-THE Rev. G. J. Green
wood, pastor of the First Baptist Church
here, who. recently came from Meriden,
Conn.,, and is making a deep impression,
preached Sunday morning on "The Dual
Mindedness of Man." The text was chosen
from Romans, viii:6: ''For the mind of the
flesh is death; but the mind of the spirit
is life and peace" Mr.. Greenwood said:
The eighth chapter of Romans is full of
startling statements and convincing eli
makes. 1t is the great assurance chapter,
ending with mo separation" 1t is re-
liable thermometer with which to take
ones spiritual temperature. 1t is a splen-
did excitant and tonic for spiritual heart
failure. If taken in sufficient doses at fire.
quent intervals, it will relieve that tired
feeling which comes over so many of US
during the summer months, when the hour
tor the Sunday service arrives. We espe-
the Christian on his annual outing. It is
a wholesale message to proclaim in these
days when so much is being said about the
atrophy of the spiritual nerve and the de-
cine OF religious conviction.
Robert Louis Stevenson's great story of
Or. Jekyll and Mr.. Hyde" is, after all,
but an elaborate working out of the state
ment made by Paul in the text. A strange
book IS this story of Stevenson's, and
stranger still the two minds that struggle
for the control Of the man. Mr.. Henry
Hyde represents the mind of the flesh
tie is a sinister selfish, sensuous, murder
Gus character, more demon than human.
DR.. Henry Jekyll represents the mind of
the spirit. He is a generous, gentlemanly,
KIND, conslderate man. The two minds of
one individual have nothing in common
A bitter hatred exists between them, and
fierce war that wages hotter and hotter
to the end goes on in the battlefield of the
soul. Gradually DIR. Jekyll becomes de-
spondent, sickens, and the inhuman HYDE.
that ..'insurgent horror Gagged in flesh"
prevails over him and brushes out his life
In the Redemption of David Corson"
we have the same contest between the two
charlottesville mind of the flesh and the
mind of the spirit, with the result reversed.
In the person of the hero. Corson, Hyde
and Jekyll find field for conflict. In this
story the mind of the flesh triumphs over
the mind of the spirit, but the victory is
not decisive. Jdzyll is sorely wounded. but
not slain. From the crimson field, with
uniform soiled and tattered, he rises, like
Jacob from wrestling with the angel, to
find Hyde mertally wounded and himself
same truth has been Illustrated in the
scientific world by grating the pupa of a
spider upon the pupa of fly. The result
of the vivisector's skill is a monster within
whose violated organism struggle two IT.
reconcilable. impulses. The one is saw
age of the jungle with an abnormal appe-
tite for blood; the other is an innocent
creature with passion for the sunshine.
Ip the ordinary mortal death is repuls-
i've and life is pleasing. We adopt the
grim skull and cross bones as the symbol
OF our loathing for the former, and show
our love for the latter by filling the inches
OF our art temples with Venus de Milos
and Apollo Belvideres. There is nothing
particularly fascinating about the dead
stump of tree or the verdureless sands
OF desert. No one but the grave robber
or medical student is supposed to be in
terested IN corpses. A morgue is the last
place you would visit unless compelled by
necessity. On the other hand there is
nothing that will awaken greater interest
than life. To the Alpine traveller, the blue
gentlan is a welcome sight, as it opens its
petals in the realm Of perpetual SHOWS
Sweet is the oasis with its shady palms
and solitary fountain to the caravan creep.
ing across the hot wastes of sand. Beau
tiful to the eye of the child is the butterfly
as 1t spreads its wings of gauze and voy
ages through the empyrean blue. The
| fisherman delights to watch the speckled
| trout as he rushes for cover, or the gray
ling as he leaps from the swirling pool
One cannot watch the antlered deer bound
through the forest glades and climb the
rocky steep; or follow the fight of the
eagle as he circles toward the sun, without
| feeling his nerves tlngle and the blood rush
| through the arteries. While reading "The
Cruise of the Cachalot," became SO in
terested that ! wanted to join in the ex
citing chase of the great sperm whale as
he charged through the waters in his rapid
us, Stir, snap, speech are the things that
catch the eye. That is why the cry is fol
speedler autos and swifter Shamrocks.
but the common conception of life is
false. The vast majority of people are
laboring under delusion. You stand
where the tides of humanity roll swift ant
strong-you see men accommodating colossal
fortunes at bound and living in dazzline
/ splendor; you notice the sleek, fat anc
/ pleasure-loving epicureans at the clut
| houses; the coarse amorous Falstaffs al
| the social functions; the Cleopatras, tht
Salomes and society queens whose studied
grace and wine flushed cheeks entrance
but to destroy and, and you say ''This i
| hfe-hfe at high noon and high midnight
of the twentieth century,"
Christianity comes to us and says: "Thi
is not life. This is DEATH" And a recen
utterance of DR.. Hills furnishes a spien
did ritual for the committal service of tn,
modern preacher: Here we commit hi
body to the dust, his stomach to STALLED
OK, his palate to spiced wines, dust tt
dust, tongue to terrapin, while the spiri
returns to the animal and the beasts tina
fed with it." Because a thing is dressed
IN tailor-madc suit and moves about, i
IS not necessarily alive. Thunder ant
smoke are not always indications of life
Ihe meteor that comes plunging down tn
sky with roar and trail of light i
del. The heavenly bodies use it for
football and toss it through space. Becaus
a man walks about on two legs, winks will
two eyes, listens with two ears and wag
his tongue, he may not be alive accordin,
the PauPs theology. Let me illustrate
| Here is man whose occupation is sucl
that the world derives no benefit from it
Rather, his business exerts a baleful ant
| blghting influence upon his fellows. TIL
business smirches character, DESTROYS bod,
and soul, and the outcome is wreck cas-
upon. the sands of lfe's great ocean t.
/ bleach and rot. He conducts a physical
intellectual and moral slaughter house TO
a monetary consideration. He knows tina
/ his business is damnahle in the Sicht n