The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-06-20
LIE WITHOUT GOD
 IS 4 LONELY LIFE Rev. U. D. Mooney Breaches to
 Large Congregation A PRACTICAL DISCOURSE
Preacher Compares the Natural and the Spiritual World-Companlon- ship Is Necessary to Healthy
 Lifeline Great Prophet.

eloquent sermon to large congrega- ton at the morning service yesterday. His theme was. The Great Prophet. His text was taken from Luke seventh chapter and sixteenth verse. "A great prophet is risen up among you"
 He said in part:
 The life without God is the ioneliest in all the world And when we speak of being without God we mean not in the sense of disbelief alone, but of not pos sessing God as the souls very own. Bet | ter far, to have the God of the Creek | of the pagan, of the savage, than to be l in fellowship with none at all Such l life Is without the companionship of any | spirit in the world without and is pos sessor of the lonelieness that leads to death.
 l Companionship in the natural world IS necessary to a normal, healthy life. The man exiled on the lonely isle is ever in danger of losing his natural reason, be- cause of the prolonged loneliness. In the spiritual world the principle is the same; the spirit that is never brought Into com- panionship with the spirit that gave 1t being and sustains It's life is ever in dan ger of having It's spiritual reason de- ranged. and its spiritual vision distorted. | Loneliness leads to death
 Before Christ.
 In the period just preceding the life or Christ, there had been for three or four hundred years a feeling or comparative spiritual loneliness in the heart of hu- manitv. There had beeE no towering form speaking to the people for God. The echo of the last voice had died away. In our lesson for today the people of Nain were aroused over the grief of widowed mother, and they were lonely in the face of this great sorrow And 1t is In the very presence of this feeling of isolation amid human sorrow, that the Son of God looms up beside the bier of death as the prophet of God. In the presence Of this prophet Christ, who nlds them ''Weep no more," the people recog- nize the voice of God, that voice has brought God and humanity together lone liness gives away to fellowship, fellow shin with God in the shadow of A great affliction.
 Tn a larger sense than ever can we say today that a great prophet has risen among us. because Christ has been com ing closer to humanity all during the succeeding years. Christ has a message for every man in every experience and at just the time the message is needed, and it is by these messages to the soul that he brings you and me and God to- gether.
 For the Man Who Is Down. | Christ the Prophet of God has mes sage for the man that is down. Every man is prone now and then to make false step, to fall beneath the pressure of some evil or the sweep of some fierce temptation. Now the national tendency is to become discouraged by such a fall' and to feel more or less unwilling to take m the service again. We feel somehow or other as if we should be deemed hvnoeritieal to push ahead in the light of the past sin Now Jesus Christ has a message for the man in this condition You remember on one occasion Peter was the man who was down, Peter the boast full. impulsive. loyal discipie; when the hour arrived in which Peter should be tested that hour found Peter liar, blasphemer, and a traitor to .his Master. l And vet as soon as Christ had risen. the | first message he sent to mortal man | was a message to Peter, meT5age Of wonderful patience, long suffering and forgiyeness And so Christ stands today hv the bier of all the dead hopes of the man that is down, and beckons him to new endeavor in striving for eternal life. | i= tn such a soul together that He nay bring about the companlonship that leads to victory and avoid the loneliness that leads to defeat.
 To the Man of the World.
 Christ, as the prophet of God, speaks message to the man of the world, to the man whose eyes never look beyond the grayeline, and whose ideas cluster around things that are only temporal. We know men of this kind; we see them every day They are our friends often, they are the men who are giving every energy and every activity for that which in its nature is only worldly. The thing sought may be social position, promi- nence wealth, power; it doesn't matter, these things control the soul, and that is enough. His message to these men Is the message He gave to the foolish rich man: This night shall thy soul be re- ouIred of thee" The purpose of Christ as Gods prophet is ever to bring the man of the world and God together, so l that he may see life as God sees it. that he may see it's marvellous stretch and not a fragment of it. and that he may know as God knows that mans lifa consisteth not in the things that he possesses.
 To the Man Who Doubts.
 There are many men who have honest doubts about spiritual things; correct men they are. It does not do to meet this l class of men with impatience or with | fretted mein, Christ did not meet them tthat way, He had a message for them. Thomas was a doubter, he doubted Christ's resurrection. Jesus said to him: Place your finger in My side.' Nicodemus said: How can these things be?" Jesus said: Believe and you will see" John said: Are you Christ? or do we look for an- other" Jesus said: "Tell John the deaf speak, and the sick are healed, and the poor are hearing the gospel.' Christ met the doubter not with argument, but with experience. His purpose Is to draw the doubter and God so close together that