Los Angeles herald., 1906-02-26
ON THRESHOLD Of
LENTEN SEASON
REV. DR.. WILKINS SPEAKS OF
SOCIAL REPENTANCE"
Interesting, Instructive and Mastery
+ sermon--Makes clear the Real
Purposes Of Time Of
Fasting 'r'Y

"Social Repentance" was the subject
OF the sermon preached by Rev. Dr.. j.
j. wilkins, dean of st Paurs pro-ca-
thedral, yesterday mornpg lie said
in part ,,. ,oa,.
pie, on the threshold of another dear
feast of Lent 1t is a season that be-
comes dearer to us with the passage
of years. It's saddened tones call to
penitence and it's thoughts of the
darker side of life impress us more and
more as we draw near the eventide.
Z "And yet the first sound of the Len
ten voices brings to some of us feelings
of unreallty and insincerty. We can
not force ourselves into a state of sad
ness and sorrow for sin. There is no
particular reason, so far as we can see,
why we should be glad on one day and
sad on the next.
1--WE do not quite believe that we are
vile earth and miserable sinners
There Is something about those express
sions of the book of common prayer,
and those hymns and thoughts of SER
mons which speak of the bitterness of
repentance of the intolerable burden of
sin, that does not ring quite true.
But the fact is that Lent is a call
to societies, no less than to individuals.
These notes of penitence in the prayer
book are not intended to express mere
personal feeling. 1t is a book of per-
sonal devotion in only a secondary
sense. 1t is essentially as its name inn
plies, a book of common prayer and
the voices of penitence in it, and the
tones of contrition and humiliation
which breathe through its Lenten
prayers speak the feelings of a COM
munity rather than an individual.
Means a Call to the Nation
at is far more clearly and definitely
a call to a nation, a people and to us
as mebers of the church.
"Why is it that l came into this
world with certain tendencies and lines
OF character already traced for me?
From whence do they come? How is
it that we speak of one child as being
good tempered and another as being
sulen?
"How is it one man has particular
tendency to evil. strongly marked
upon the character with which he is
endowed at birth. These are phe-
nomena which can be accounted for
only by the language of holy scrip
ture, when it says, The sins of the
fathers shall be visited upon the chill
dren.
Think of this in a personal way.
A member of your family has dis
graced himself. You are as clear of
stain as the driven snow; you had no
part in his sin. And yet you feel
sort of reflected disgrace from it,
why? Because you know that the
same blood flows in your veins that
flows in his. and you know that you
share the characteristics that bear such
bitter fruits in him. In just such a
way we have a share in one another's
sins. in the faults and failings of our
brother men; and it this that we recog-
nize in our Lenten acknowledgements
and confessions.
Sin Makes Misery of the World
at may be true that we are not mis-
cradle because we are sinners. But
when we think of our share in the
tremendous sins and immoralities of
America; of the horrible sins of Los
Angeles, and the affairs erected to
Venus and Bacchus upon which victims
are daily offered: of our share of the
vice and corruption, fostered and prac-
ticed by Christian municipality: and
when we face the fact that it is sin
which makes the misery of the world.
then indeed we may truthfully say. the
remembrance of it is grievous unto
u.s. and we may well cry Have mercy
upon us, miserable sinners
THAT is the voice which breathes
through our Lenten service. and which
utters its wall through our nAournful
HYMNS