The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-11-23
DR. STAGG BREACHES ELOQUENT SERMON Continues His Series of Dis- courses to Young Men. SOME WISE COUNSEL GIVEN His Sermon DweIt on the Wisdom of Living an unspotted Life-Num-
 Der of soung Men lncreas-
 Ing at Each Meeting.
SOME WISE COUNSEL GIVEN

The Rev. Dr. John w. Stagg, the pas tor of the First Presbyterian church, was greeted by large congregation at the evening service yesterday. The sermon was one of the series that Dr. Stagg is preaching to young men. These sermons are attracting considerable attention, and l at each service the number of young men 1 in attendance Is increasing. The dis courses are replete with advice and coun- l sel to young men, and especially does Dr. l Stagg present the dangers that confront the young man who leaves his home in the country and comes to the city. The series will be continued all the winter.
 The theme of Dr. Staggs discourse last might was the religious life of young man. He said that to be Christian was to be Christlike or to keep unspotted from l the world.
 His text and sermon follows:
 And, to keep himself unspotted from | the world ,"-Jonas I-27.
 1 The context assumes the declaration of l this text to be one of the efforts of pure religion. If 1t is. we have a solution to the gravest problem men, and. especially young men. have to consider.
 It is not necessary that should define what is meant by the world" You know, from your own consciousness, what are those influences that pull you down and keep you from realizing your highest aims-and to you that is the l world-attachment to the outward, the transltory, the unreal. The sadness of it all is, how we begin with the conviction it Is possible to live pure, and then delb- erately conclude that 1t Is impossible. People hope their children will keep their 1 innocency, and when the boy takes on a badness they do not think is wholly from within, they conclude 1t has come from contact with the men and the things that go to make what is commonly called the world" And, so, the grown-up man comes to take 1t all as matter of course and business, and politics. and society be- come disassociated from religion-Chris- tianity becomes impractlcal,- one must either be spotted by the world or live apart from the activities of life.
 Against all this religion makes her protest and Christianity sites her first l Christian in the person of Jesus She shows the profound impression which Jesus made on the first generation of | disciples The words of Christ's followers breathe the realism of personal acquain- tance They do not enlarge upon what all knew, but they express very beauti- fully the sense of ineffable purity and holiness, of infinite moral superiority, | which the disciples receives from Him whose very presence had revealed a new and heavenly life. Out of Him, as they remembered Him. no harm ever proceed ed. No evil ever issued from act or word l of His. When one remembers how much l ones influence over another, and how much evil goes forth even from the best Of us, to counterbalance not a little of the good we do we shall appreciate the character of the one of whom 1t could be said by those who knew Him best. that
 He was, as He bade them to be, ''harm- | less as a dove" Thus does Christianity come to the first Christian for proof of the reasonableness of the command to keep oneself unspotted by the world.
 And that which strikes us first is the 1ntentness on the part of Christ to do the world good There is such a thing as being so determine to help others that you do not have to consider your own danger. Generally the man who makes a business of standing guard over his own virtues soon has no virtues to guard To try to keep from doing evil is an entirely dinerent thing from determining to do good. The victim of evil habit, unless he occupy himself with some new endeavor will surely find himself at his old prac- tices, through the very power that com pells him to do wrong in the first in- stance. For if our powers be trained in sin the debaucher will be so welded to his lust as at length to be incapable of chastity; the inebriate so facinated by his | cups as to be incapable of sobriety. the covetious man, so infatuated by his gains as to be incapable of generosity: the re- Vengeful man so much under the control l or his malignity as to be incapable of forgiveness. If on the other hand these powers be, by severe discipline. trained in symmetry and proportion there are form ed at length those intellectual and relig- | of the world
 The argument however ,ro,d against the Christ-life is that if ,s Zoo much or an appeal to the supernatural ana ignores the conditions in a world of sin Men say that God is too unreal to beln men In world where they are really peset by its influences and to accent the ooctrine or the Incarnation constitutes l an additional burden upon faith. a new stumbling-block to reason. The discov- cry or Copernfcus, 1t has been said. is | the death blow to Christianity: In other | words, the recognition by the human race or the insignificant past which they and their planet play in the cosmic drama renders the Incarnation intrinsicalIy in- l creuipe' what is man, that thou art mndtul or him: and the Son of man. that thou visitest him?" is a question charged Dy science with a weight of meaning far l beyond what 1t bore for the poet whose lips first uttered it. And thou whose studies bring perpetually to their remem-