Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1904-01-07
VARIOUS OPINIONS
OUR REGULAR SUNDAY SERMON

OUR REGULAR SUNDAY SERMON
The Question s What Think Ye OF
Christ ?" and the Variety of An
swers Thereto.
New YORK C1TY.-Dr. Charles TT. Park
hurst, pastor Of the Madison Square Pres
byterlan Church, preached Sunday morning
on What Think Ye of Christ? ?'' from the
words found in Mark viii:29: s.Whom say
ye that amp DR.. Parkhurst said among
other things:
Christ means to you something; what is
it?
Christ Himself asks this of His disciples.
1t Is the first Christian catechism. Brief,
but nevertheless it is catechism. and is
Gods warrant for our asking doctrinal
questions, and His warrant, too, for our
being prepared to frame some sort of an
answer to them.
Christ's inquiry here means that He ex-
poets His disciples to have convictions
convictions in regard to Himself at any
rate-and definite enough for them to be
able to state them. Such convictions may
be more correct, may be less so, but an i'm
perfect opinion is better than none, and no
opinion ends in being perfect that did not
begin by being imperfect, and sound con-
vlctlon is blunder convicted and converted
Everything human begins in mistake
Error is the loamy soil out Of which truth
philosophy, science and theology illustrates
this principle with distinct cogency that
is unanswerable. So that we need not be
too much afraid of being in error provided
only We cling to our error with a tenacity
that. is not simply tenacious, but that is
also honest and intelligent.
What think We OF Christ: His appeal
here is to man considered as an animal who
thinks, who has ideas, ideas Of his own,
takes Impressions from what is shown him,
told to him, acted out before him, and i'm
pressions that so groove themselves into
his substance as to take defined shape and
shape that is fairly permanent: just as
objects make an image of themselves in the
eye, so facts, events, truths, make an i'm
age of themselves in the mind-that is,
they do if the mind is an alert mind, sensi-
tive, responsive. A man can, of course,
look without seeing anything; SO he can
hear without learning anything; live in the
presence Of great realities and come away
from them without carrying upon his soul
any of their imprint. An OK can look to-
| ward the west at o'clock in the afternoon
without observing any sunset; there is a
| good deal Of the bovine still in most of us
| that call ourselves human, and that is why
| we behold so little of what is really visible
| and why we garner so little Of the fruit
| that falls into our laps. A duck can go
! through the water and still come out dry
| What think We of Christ? He wants to
| find out from His disciples, then, what i'm
preston Of Himself He has left with them,
| what stamp He has put upon them. What
they think of Him will be only another
name for the record of Himself that His
| teachings and demeanor have left printed
upon their intelligences. I am trying to
have you realize that their opinion of Him
that He was trying to get hold of was
something definitely traceable to the
| working influence upon them of His own
presence and activity. He is not interest
| ed to know what they imagine Him to be,
nor what they logically infer He may be,
| nor what some one has told them that He
| is. He has been for some time demonstrat-
spirit, and If they are not altogether like
the duck in the water or the or before the
sunset, as presumably they are not, this
demonstration Of Himself to them has in
some way told upon them, it has lodged
something within them, and He wants
them to give name to it. Their opinion
of Him was something that He had Him
self been the means Of making to grow up
| in them without their consciously having
any part in the matter themselves. It was
not something they had borrowed from
somewhere nor something that they had
personally striven to acquire.
| Opinion, then, if it is anything more
than mere quotation, copy of what some
one else has thought, is one of the things
that grows. The influence that starts the
conviction will, il. it continues to operate,
20 on adding to that convictions strength
and intensity. AS illustrative Of this com,
pare the feebleness and tlmorousness OF
the convictions of the disciples when they
began to believe in Jesus with what those
convictions were when at the end of their
course they laid down their, lives IN mar
tyrdom. That is the natural course ot
| ic at tn
tinue to grow if it stands in the same sun
shine and rain as that which first made il
, begin to grow If flower comes up out
of the ground, grows for a. day and then
suddenly stops growing and remains as II
is, you know something is the matter
; either there is worm at the root or the
air too cold or the soil too dry. 1t is moi
natural for it not to go on improving upor
{ itself, adding to itself.
:, Tt is sorry condition, then, that mar
is in. that Christian believer is in, wher
he says that he has the same opinion O.
| Christ that he had year ago. 1t tells {
sad story of the way the year has beer
passing with him. If the vine that is twin
ing itself around your trellis clothes itsel
, in no more leaves and puts forth no more
blossoms this summer than it did last. sum
mer, the season must have been an infelici
l tous one for plant life or there is some
thing serious the matter with the vine.
[ have in this been speaking broadly o
L conviction in general, but Of course tn
4 reference specifically intended is to relie
| ious conviction, and more specifically still
= to the conviction contemplated when tn
| question was asked, "What think ye o
! Christi" We doubtless all of us hay
some conviction respecting Him; that is
we all Of US possess among our other com
e ODDITIES and belongings either out on tn
. table or tucked away in some drawer o
closet or stored in the garret among othe
: disused furniture or obsolete bric-a-brac-
: something which we called land properl
f call) belief in Christ, an opinion abou
o Him, conviction concerning Him. W
. are willing to assume, too, that it may
I very valid conviction, sound, yea, thol
f oughly in the terms of Scripture. Yes, bu
granting all that, is there any of to-day
sap in It or is it an antiquity?
It means a great deal to say OF a man
e Christian conviction that it is living COZ
q viction, that it is going on to-day mali
4 tanning continuous life. freshly ministere
= : to and daily supplied by communication
from the same divine source that first in
/, I t;ated it. A dead convictien we have
j. lug around-a conviction that is alive taxi
: | us around It means a continuous sens
4 Of the reality of that to which our convi
q ton fastens. It brings everything dow
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