The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-07-25
CHURCH OFFICERS
4 DULY INSTALLED
Elders and DeaconS of the First
Presbyterian Church
SERMON ON INDIVIDUALITY
The Rev. Or. Stage Delivers Force
full Discourse Full of Plth and
Practical Observations.
Mental Processes.
SERMON ON INDIVIDUALITY

At the First Presbyterian church yes
terday morning the following officers were
ordained and installed:
Elders-Dr. J. H. Phillips, f. w. Dixon,
t. M. Bradley, DR.. A. T. PRESLEY.
Deacons-H. M. McNutt Charles Plos-
ser. Gere King, George Steele. DR.. r. B.
Hardness, Henry Howe. Hugh Lee Nor
row.
w. d. Nesbitt and Charles Stillman
have been elected deacons, but have not
been installed
The Rev. DR.. John W. Stage delivered
a sermon on "Indvidualsm." His text
was from Cor. xv:1O-"But by the grace
of God am what am; labored more
abundantly than they all: Yet not l. but
the grace of God which was with me-"
DR.. Stage spoke as follows:
One day in Tarsus was born the man
who wrote the words of this text. Doubt
less his parents looked into his eyes and
wondered what he wouid be in the world
If they could have known what he was
they could have told what he would be.
provided the real self got the chance OF
assertion.
The ond Gift.
The one gift which every soul has in
trust for the world is its own Individual
ity. A baby's first knowledge Is that 1t
is not the things 1t sees and thus it
comes to know the being that has been
bort, with all its faculties and powers.
Men have enormously conceived of truth
as having its origin in an adjective
world. They have looked upon leduca-
ton as the process of imparting 1t to the
human mind, as If the mind were mere
receptivity.
Truth Is within us. knowledge is not
objective but subjective. Physical nature,
working out the thought and purpose of
an intelligent creator, evokes the truths
of science embryonic in every rational
soul. Every axiom and proposition and
every mathematical relation. is potential
in the infant mind. Truth is lodged alike
in all, the lowest as the highest. Some
slight film, the interposing bar which
binds a soul and makes the idiot, just as
it makes the sage the film removed, the
happy outlet whince truth issues proud
| ly."
The Nerve Force.
There is a nerve in man that runs out
to every room and realm in the universe.
A thousand forces come rushing in, re-
port themselves to the sensitive soul
center. Every fact and force outside
has desk inside man, where it makes
up its reports. The symphonies of Beeth-
oven. the art dreams of Raphael, the
sculptured forms of Phidias, the poetic
fancies of Homer and Keats. lie dormant
in the mind SO too the multifariousness
of Shakespeare, the austerity of Milton,
the sadness and madness of Byron are
first In the soul, and when the mind gets
the opportunity to manifest itself in its
works we have what Paul describes In the
text as the l. In other words we have
the individuality of a soul which may be
suppressed but never can be changed.
This is the primal power in man which
it is the business of education to find
and of society to develop. 1t is true,
however, that in the history of the race
education has made 1t its business to
hide and society has aimed to destroy It,
There is no tyranny like that which says
all men must be after definite pattern
and must say and do things a certain
way. 1t is only when individuality as
serts itself that we have the martyrs
stroke and then the saints liberty.
Some men have gone to their graves
without finding themselves, because the
world said they should not be known.
others have broken through the cob web
of an effete dogmatic teachings and have
aroused the world through the power of
"a God-builded-self taking hold of the
things gotten wrong and setting them
right.
Regeneration and Individuality.
We have way of feeling about all peo-
pie who profess to be Christians. that
somehow the l. the individuality, has been
DESTROYED, while the Apostle, In the text.
seems to Indicate that this is the some
thing that God wishes preserved be-
cause it is the something that is useful.
Our confusion here is due to what we
mean by regeneration. Regeneration does
not destroy the individuality. II Christ
be in you In an important sense, your
features are the same. your In elect is
the same, you are the same man still.
If cheerful you will still be cheerful. and
IL born with tendencies to melancholy.
you will still contend with the temptation
to dependency.
Some men have undertaken to show
that Christ selected the Apostles with the
4 view that their differences would put
them in pairs, and thus their mental lido
syncrasies would balance. / do not know
about offsetting the effect of one by the
influence of another but / do know that
he did not destroy that in anyone that
gave him his individuality before he call
ed him and set him to work.
Peter was Peter to the last. The same
vehemency that Paul the prosecutor ex-
hibited was shown In Paul the Apostle.
God has use for all these traits in hui
man services, as he has utilized every
variety of color, form and sound in ma
ture. Sometimes one gets the notion that
God can't use good, neaithy, strong
man who knows how TO do things, for
getting that IL you would go down town
forms Of devilment, with will strong
enough and a zeal capable of keeping
him at white heat you would find an
Individual with Just the characteristics
that God would use, after they were re-
generated. to accomplish great good with
rf1A M ~