The Penn's Grove record., 1905-02-10

A SCHOLARLY SUNDAY SERMON BY
THE REV. HERBERT H. MOTT.
Subject: Can a Man Do as He Likesg

Register by the Rev. Herbert H. Mott.
1t is entitled "Can a Man Do as He
NikeS?" and the text is: "Choose you
this day who you will erve."-Joshua
xiv, 10.
Can a 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
neither 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 a frock coat when he would
much prefer to go about in a 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 compulsions. He is
obliged to submit to many limitations,
natural and artificial, and he is CON-
PEELED, by pushes and pulls and press
ures he is unable to resist, to do many
things he doesn't want to do.
N6NcL lAelSon, III spite Ol d mdI , dD-
ject slavery in certain directions, is
there not some small space, some little
area, in which, instead of being a
slave, he is actually and truly free? a
department of life and conduct in
which he can do as he likes?
The old doctrine-the doctrine be-
lieved 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 a department of
life and conduct; that in all vital mat
tiers, in all matters that have to do
with the moral quality of life, a man
can do as he likes. Our fathers held
that, whenever we stand at a point
where 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
temptation, urgency, force Of circum-
stances, may be so great as to resem-
BILE 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
no, to lift the latch or not to lift it, to
take the left or the right. No matter
hnUy oYsaa+ %hn nvaEcIrn hyornh% 70
bear on US, in the last resort we can
always choose poverty instead of
riches, captivity instead of freedom,
suffering instead of ease, and 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 a
powerful influence owe u 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 caterpillars in differently col.
ored boxes, and left them there to
hatch out, with the remarkable result
that the eggs in the blue box Matched
out into blue caterpillars, those in the
red box into red, and those in the vel
low box into yellow caterpillars. They
were, you see, the product of their
surroundings, they were what the tint
of their surroundings made them. And
so, it is declared, are you and I; we
are what u surroundings and those
of our ancestors make US. We are the
planes of outside conditions, past and
present.
Here is a man who is an enemy oil
society. He preys upon his kind. Hi;
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
a drunkard, his father was a thief
He was reared in the slums. What
can you expect? True, he has been tC
a reform school; true, he has been
helped and aided by various phiian'
thropic people whom he has merciless
ly deceived. But he, poor fellow
could not help himself. Like Profes
SCR Boulton's caterpillars, he took on
the tint of his environment. Born in
a 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 tt
support some n dependent on him
or surrenders life itself in order tt
ave 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 t.
herOism, and so heroism grew out OF
his soul, just as cabbages grow out 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 our surroundings
We are mere passive Jumps of clay, or
which u 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 OWL
way, following our own wills, we are,
in reality, merely Obeying the pressure
of circumstance. We are under a rigid
Jaw VI ACNCSSAby aA NAC LIZ v
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 a 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
self-deception. 1t makes us imagine
ourselves better than we are. When
we do wrong, this doctrine offers
the temptation to US to say: I'll
was not my fault. 1t was the
fault of my education and sur,
roundings." And this will lead to-
day. as it has always done in the past
to a general laxity with regard to
wrong doing-to a habit of thinking
lightly of the exceeding Sinfulness of
sin.
This evil doctrine is the more diff
cult TO combat because there is an ele-