The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1905-03-01
THE PULPIT.
A SCHOLARLY SUNDAY SERMON BY
THE REV. HERBERT H. MOTT.
Snbiect: Can q Man Do as He Likes?

mon was contributed 10 LIE CuIlstleA
| Register by the Rev. Herbert H. Mott.
1t is entitled Can a Man Do as He
Likes?" and the text is: Choose you
this day who you will serTe."-Joshua
xiv, Is.
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
Flooding 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 so about in a golf cape
! and a shooting jacket. The force OF
public law compels him to u 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 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 abb
! 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-
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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, employe rs, claim u allegiance,
we can choose whom we will serve"
This is true, said our fathers, no mat
ter how sewers 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 n road rather
than the other. This, said u 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
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 n
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 yell
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 a 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 a thief.
He was reared in the slums. What
can you expect? True, he has been to
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 Profess
Sor 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 to
support some one dependent on him.
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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
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
c~riminality, it is declared, do not re-
side in US, but in our surroundings.
We are mere passive Jumps Of clay, on
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 IS we like. going our own
way, following our own wills, we are,
in reality, merely obeying the pressure
Of circumstance. We are under q 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 a number of
circumstances and conditions, working
on US and through US.