The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-04-06
THE CHRISTIAN CITY
Noted and Inspiring Sermon De
livered by Phillips Brooks
Christianity and Charity Clasp Hands.
The Reality and Responsibility of a
Christian City-A City Capable Of
Truth, Righteousness and Charity.

Truth, Righteousness and Charity.
The Christian character of charity
is very apt to elude us. IL a Christian
man gives tins to a poor friend, il is
laid down to impulse; and if q
Christian city provides for its own sick
and needy and homeless, 1t is laid
down to economy. In either case the
connection Of the charitable act with
the Christian faith is lost. But this
is very shallow. You say it IS all
impulse when you give your money to
the poor; but what is the impulse2
Is there no Christianity in it? Is it
uniform? Is your impulse the same
as the saage's? Has Christianity
done nothing to keep down the
other impulses to harm, and
to strengthen this impulse TO help
your brethren? And so you say the
city's charity is all economy; her hos
pitfalls are merely expedients for saw
ing so much available human life. But
tell me, who taught her this economy?
Who old the city that a human life
was worth saving? If the hospital has
nothing too do with Christianity, but is
a mere e%Xpedient of organization, how
is it that the most highly organized
among un-ChriStian nations nave had
but the mereSt rudimentS of hospitals?
No! The charity of a city is a dis
tinct testimony to one thing which has
been wrought into the convictions of
that city. That ~ thing is-the value
of a man; and that conviction has
come out Of the Christian faith. The
city may lot know where it has come
from, as very few of us trace our
deepest convictions to their source; but
they have nOne the less sprung out
of that gospel which has proclaimed
for eighteen hundred years that man
is the child of God the Father, that he
has been redeemed by God the Son,
and that his body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost. A poor neglected creature
drops in the crowded street; a horse
strikes him, and the heavy wagon
brushes him as he lies; or in the blaz-
ing summer sun he is smitten to the
ground insensible. Instantly the city
not this plying man or that, but
the plying city-stOOps and gathers
him up tenderly, and carries him to
the hospital, which it has built. 1t
lays him on the bed which it has
spread for him; it the bes1
skill to set the broken bone or soothe
the feer; it watches by his sleep.
feeds him with dainties, finds out the
potent medicines, cares for him zen
derby until he goes out strong, or until
the weary frame finds rest in death.
Is there no Christ there? Is not this
a Christian charity? Is there no con-
nection between the strange devotion,
so impersOnal, yet so instinct with all
the love Of personality and the truth
which is in the city's heart and soul,
that that poor man, in virtue of his
humanity, is the child of God, the
fellOW-heir with Christ of Heaven
Once there was a city which, when
Christ came to it, hated and scOrned
Him; it seized him brutally, dragged
Him before the judgment-seat, and
crying Cruelty Him! Cruelty Him"
would not be satisfied until it had
nailed Him on the Cross and seen
Him die in agony. To-day here Is a
city which, if Christ came to it in per-
son, would go out and welcome him;
would call him Lord and Master. ana
hang upon His words n glory in the
privilege of giving Him it's best. In
that first city there was nc hospital;
h poor sick man dropped and perish
ed; the children's lives vanished, and
no man even counted them; the
wretched leper vas cast out to die
among the tombs. In this new city
the hospitals stand thick for every
kind of misery; the poor fall sick,
and the city's great hand is under
them. Is there no connection between
the rejection Of Christ and the rejec-
ton of His poor; between the accept
once Of Christ and the reception Of
His suffering brethren? Has not the
christian city a right to hear the
SaViOr'S words as if He spoke to her:
"Inasmuch as thou hast done it to
the least my brethren, thou hast done
it unto Me"
| know the ~perfunctOry and heart
less treatment with which occasion
ally the methods of u public charity
disown the spirit to which it owes its
birth; but that is rare. and still the
fact of the Christian city'S Christian
charity remains. Who doubts that If
the city were tenfold more Christian
than she is, if Christian truth and
Christian righteousness were tenfold
more the inspiration and law of her
life, the hospitals would be multiplied
and enriched till it should be an i'm
possibility for any sick man to be left
unhelped. Deepen the city's Christ
fanity and the city's charity must
deepen and widen too. If We could i'm
agine any poor, sick, weak man, still
sick and weak in the midst of the
o~ver-running health of Immortality,
finding his way into the heavenly city
of which we spoke, and sinking lame
and exhausted on the pavement Of the
New Jerusalem only think how the
faith and righteousness Of the celes-
tial community must leap into chart
ty, and the poor sufferer be borne 10
the banks of the river Of the water
of life, and tended to the softest cham
beers of the holy city, where God
I:-,co1f shall rr:nn MO oil Fnn~C