The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1905-03-24

4 SCHOLARLY SUNDAY SERMON BI
THE REV. HERBERT n. MOTT.

htOii was tOHtIlbulGu W LIE CuIlSlldl
Register by the Rev. Herbert II. Mott
1t is entitled Can Man Do as HI
LikesT and the text is: CHOOSE yol
this day who you will e."-Joshui
XIV. Is.
Can man do as he likes?
OF course not! you say. All sorts q
! barriers hedge him round. He woult
like to fly as the birds fly, but thu
weight Of his flesh and bones keeps
plodding along the ground. He is borr
poor or stupid; consequently he car
neither buy q 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 frock coat when he would
much prefer to go about in a golf cape
and 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 al
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 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 a mans alb
ject slavery in certain directions, is
there not some small srace 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, 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
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, and instead
of life, rather than yield, if need be,
we can always choose death.
This is the old doctrine, and. al
theWgh 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 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 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 our surroundings and those
of our ancestors make us. We are the
planes of outside conditions, past and
present.
Here is 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
a drunkard, his father was thief.
He was reared in the slums. What
can you expect? True, he has been to
4 reform school; true, he has been
helped and aided by various phiian-
thropic people whom he has merciless-
y 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
Dlack DOX, he turns out black. His
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 on him,
)r surrenders life itself in order to
save the lives of others. We are told |
he same story about the hero as about |
he thief. He is not brave or self-de- |
lying Of his own accord. He is heroic |
simply because the conditions in which |
he was brought up were favorable to
leroism, and so heroism grew out of |
lis soul, just as cabbages grow out of |
he soil when the soil contains the |
seeds of cabbages.
Goodness and badness, heroism and |
it is declared, do not re-
tide in us, but in our surroundings. |
We are mere massive 1umnS Of CLAW on |