The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-01-29
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE BY DR.
CHARLES n. PARKHURST.
Subject OF the Distinguished Now York
Clergyman's Sermon, "What Think
Re of Christ :"--Why So Many People
Get Tired of Being Christians,

Get Tired of Being Christians.
New YORK CITY.-Dr. Charles H. Park
hurst, pastor of the Madison Square Pres
byterian Church, preached Sunday morning
on What Think Ye of Christ% from the
words found in Mark viii:29: "Whom say
We, that | ann" 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.
| Chrst'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-
viction is blunder convicted and converted.
Everything human begins in a mistake.
Error is the loamy soil out of which truth
vegetables and blossoms. The history of
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? Ills 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 6 o'clock in the afternoon
without observing any sunset; there is
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.
A boy can go through college without any
of the college going through him. Judas
walked three years with Jesus and finished
by being devil.
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. | 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
nd iuit 1Io &c into
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-
ing Himself to them by word, act and
spirit and if they are not altogether like
the duck in the water or the OK before the
sunset, as PRESUMABLY they are 1x not, this
sSmsS Tng t 2p upon then nd IL SaHi
81 Him Vas 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. 1t 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, if it continues to operate,
go on adding to that convictions strength
ard intensity. As illustrative Of this com
pare the feebleness and timorousness 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 of
things. It is natural for a flower to con-
tinue to grow if it stands in the same sun
shine and rain as that which first made it
begin to grow. If flower comes up out
of the ground, grows for day and then
suddenly stops growing and remains as it
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 not
natural for it not to go on improving upon
itself, adding to itself.
1t is sorry condition, then, that man
Is in, that Christian believer is in, when
he says that he has the same opinion of
Christ that he had a year ago. 1t tells a |
sad story of the way the year has been
passing with him. If the vine that is twin.
ing itself around your trellis clothes itself
in no more leaves and puts forth no more
blossoms this summer than it did last sum-
mer, the season must have been an intellect
tous one for plant life or there is some
thing serious the matter with the vine.
l have In this been speaking broadly of
conviction in general. but of course the |
reference specifically intended is to relig- |
ious conviction, and more specifically still
to the conviction contemplated when the |
question was asked, what think we of /
Christ" We doubtless all of us have
some conviction respecting Him; that is, |
we an of us possess among our other com
odlties and belongings-ether out on the !
table or tucked away in some drawer or
closet or stored in the garrett among other
disused furniture or obsolete brc-a.brac- |
something which we called land properly
CALI belief in Christ, an opinion about |