Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1905-02-09
CAN AMAN DO AS HE LIKES?
An Eloquent Sunday Discourse By Rev.
Herbert Il. Mott.
Every Man Exists Under Set Of Compnlsious
Tho Old Doctrlue.

Boston, Mass. - The following ser.
mon was contributed to The Christian
Register by the Rev. Herbert H. Mott.
1t is entitled "Can Man Do as lie
Likes?" and the text is: CHOOSE you
this day who you will serve."-Joshua
yxiv., 15.
Can man do as he likes?
OF course not! you say. All sorts OF
barriers hedge him round He would
like to fly as the birds fly, but the
weight of his flesh and bones keeps
plodding along the ground. He is born
poor or stupid; consequently he can
seither buy a steam yacht nor set the
Thames on fire, though he would like
| dearly to do both. The force of public
opinion compels him to don a tall silk
hat and n frock coat when he would
much prefer to go about in golf cape
and A shooting jacket. The force OF
public law compels him to run his auto
at ten miles an hour when he very
much wishes to spin along joyously at
the rate Of thirty. Every man exists
under a set of c0mpus0ns. He is
obliged to submit to many limitations,
natural and artificial. and he Is COM
! PEELED, by pushes and pulls and press
! ures he is unable to resist, to do many
! things he doesn't want to do.
Nevertheless, in spite of mans alb.
jeCt slavery i'll certain directions, is
there not some small space, some littlc
area, in which, instead Of being
slave. he is actually and truly free?
department Of life and conduct in
which Ire can do as he likes?
! The old doctrine-the doctrine be-
Iicved by our fathers, and by nearly
! the whole of humanity. civilized and
uncivilized, in every part Of the world,
| from the beginning of recorded time
was that there is such department OF
| life and conduct; that in all vital mat
ters. in all matters that have to do
with the moral quality Of life, Il man
can do as he likes. Our fathers held
| that, whenever we stand at point
Wlcre two roads diverge, we are able
! to choose, select. determine, which
road TO pursue. In such a situation
the casting vote remains with us.
! Whenever two or more governments.
| leaders, employers, claim our allegiance.
we can "chooSe whom we will serve"
This Is true said our fathers, no mat
ter how severe the pressure. The
!
stances, may be so great as to resem-
! bic compulsion. 1t appears as If we
were obliged to take one road rather
than the other. This. said our fathers.
Is appearance only. In reality. when
ever two or more alternatives pre-
sent themselves, whenever two roads
open before us, the decision remains
with us. 1t is with us to say yes or
-. lvt, b., tn
take the left or the right. No matter
how great the pressure brought to
bear on us, in the last resort we can
always choose poverty instead of
riches, captivity instead of freedom,
suffering instead of ease. aud instead
of life. rather than yield, If need be,
we can always choose death,
This is the old doctrine. and, al
though it has stood both the test OF
time and the test Of experience. there
appears to be, in these days, a widely
spread tendency to ignore it. No one
denies that circumstances exercise IL
powerful influence over our lives. but
the tendency nowadays is to aScribe
everything TO circumstances,
1t is related that the eminent natur-
alist, Professor Boulton. placed the
eggs Of Catcrpllars in differently col
ored boxes. and left them there to
hatch out with the remarkable result
that the eggs in the blue box hatched
out into blue caterpillars, those in the
red box into red and those in the vel.
low box into yellow caterpllars. They
were. You see. the. product of their
surroundings, they were what the tint
o. their surroundings made them, And
50, ii is declared. are you and |. We
Hre what our surroundings and those
of our ancestors make us. We are the
planes Of outside conditions, past and
present
Here is n man who is an enemy of
society. He preys upon his kind. His
career Is divided between debauchery
and other crimes. He is the victim
the helpless victim. of outward circum-
stances. we are told. His mother was
n drunkard. his father was thief
He was reared in the slums. What
can YOU expect? True, he has been to
Il reform school: true, he has been
helped and aided by various phiian.
thropic people whom he has merciess-
~ deceived But he. poor fellow.
could not help himself. Like Profes
sor Boulton's caterpillarS. he took on
the tint of his environment. Born in
black box he turns out black. His
surroundings were evil, therefore he
is evil
Or, again. there is the hero whO like
Charles Lamb, gives UP all. in order to
support some one dependent Oh him,
or snrrendcrs life itself in order to
save the lives of others. We are told
the same story about the hero as about
the thief. He is not brave or self-de.
nying of his own accord. He is heroic
simply because the conditions in which
he was brought UP were favorable to
herosnl, and so herOism grew out OF
his soul. just as cabbages grow ont of
the soil when the soil contains the
seeds of cabbages.
Goodness and badness heroism and
criminality, it Is declared, do not re.
side in us. but in Odr surroundings,
We are mere passive Jumps of clay. on
which our surroundings stamp what
ever is in them. We are the slaves and
victims of the conditions in the midst
of which we are. When we fancy we
are doing as we like, going our own
way. following our own wills, we are,
in reality, merely obeying the pressure
of circumstance. We are under rigid
law Of necessity all the time. Even
when we stand where two roads di-
verge, and think that we ourselves
choose to take the left hand or the
right hand road, it is not really we our
selves who choose, but number of
circumstances and conditions, working
on us and through us.
This doctrine, that we are creatures
of circumstance and cannot help what
we do, Is a misleading one. 1t tends to
seif-deception. 1t makes us imagine
ourselves better than we are. When
we do wrong, this doctrine offers
the temptation to us to say: III
xyas NOT nv farlt 1t was the