The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-10-15
Dr, Stagg'S Subject Yesterday Morning Was "Orphanhood"
MAKES A PLEA FOR 5000
Love Cannot Manifest Itself More Effectively Than in the Sacrifice 1t Makes in Order to
 Make Itself Felt.

First Presbyterian church yesterday morning on "orphanhoode He took his text from the thirty-seeond verse of the eighth chapter of Romans: He that spared not his son but delivereth him rh for us all. how shall he not with him also freely give us all things"
 Dr, stasg spoke in part as follows
 Nothing is ever accomplished anywhere without power. To understand by what force work Is done, therefore, is always of interest. When we speak of the all powerful God as He has manifested Him self in creation we understand fairly well what we mean by force. So, too, we, understand what power is. when it is get before us in d bannered army. but we hardly realize what force is in the subtle influence of heart, or in the still ness of frost, and yet, one greens the earth's surface with the harvest from which man gets his bread; and the other prepares the earth again for her seed tune.
 The Power of the Gospel
 In this scripture is set out the power Of God, which makes the Gospel story, fer love Is the greatest force in the world. Yet it is force just as truly as when God was at work creating the ma terial world, or when heat and cold do their work In obedience to natures laws. The power of the Gospel is not only when it tells Of the humiliation of Jesus, in taking the form of a man; nor is it the Cffect alone of a cross that suggests agony and pain The power of the Gospel is all back of these. and these enter into the story from the necessity arising from tl.e limitations on the part of man to appreciate what has been done for him, save as ne sees 1t in some form or through some object by which he meas ures his own willingness to do for others: but when once it is percieved we under stand how God lays His scheme to so influence bad men that they will love a Holy God and through the power of love will walk in his way In this we have the dynamic of the Gospel
 Why men were ever permitted to be Lad, I do not know, nor is it my bus mess to tell. That they are bad, their doings witness to over the wide world; tut to turn badness into goodness Is to se elk to know something of a power that, perehancc, exceeds all other ways in which God has manifested himself. The Apostle has apparently exhausted lan- suage in trying to describe what God Gas done in order to save. There is no
 
 the offering made for sin is sufficient for him, 1t certainly can be efficient for those only whom the power of love, as mani fested in the offering made for redemp- ton softens and brings back to God by faith
 There is nothing arbitrary in Gods method of saving men, but in Christ he has so appealed to all the faculties of the soul as to show a consideration for the nature of the creature. Love can not manifest itself more effectively than in the sacrifice it makes in order to make itself felt Men have dreamed that God loved them, but when He stands close to them In the person of his son ana endures for them, the penalties that belong to their own doing then men must know something of the power of God as manifested in Christ. This in a word makes the Gospel that God loved those who did not love Him, and the com ing of Jesus. that men might know it.
 Necessity of BrotherIy Love.
 The giving of himself in the carrying cf our burdens and the bearing of our sins is so characteristic of Christ. that it is absolutely impossible for Christian ity to propagate itself in any form sue cessfully, save as 1t manifest the spirit of its founder.
 Wise men have felt the necessity of teaching man great moral precepts: but they have largely consisted of what man should not do. There has always been consciousness that one being had no light to hurt a fellow being, and the teeth and clawo of men, in this partlcu- lar, hay, been attempted to be drawn in other teachings than those found in the Bible but Christ has taught men that they must not only not hurt one another but that they must do something more. they must bear one another's burden They arc so to learn from what God has done for them q consideration for their fellows, that men themselves, may be- come the power of God unto righteous ress. It is this In the end that must de- stroy hate in the individual and in tho nation, and if there ever comes a dis arment of the peoples of the earth, this must be the force that will bring 1t apout.
 The spirit of Jesus Is not that of q being hafmless and undefiled for no pur- Lose. He understood that man, in the end, was to be controlled by appealing 10 that which is most like God in him; therefore the Gospel does not seek to conquer the world by such forces as men ordinarily use in eonquerlng one another; but 1t seeks to woo him to that which is higher than animal passion, and so in the end make the works of the spirit de- stroy the works of the flesh
 The decalogue was all true before Moses gave the law It has always been recog- nized that we ought not to do the things we are told there not to do but Jesus has made the power of His story to com sst in doing those things that man never thought He was under obligation to do. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, in other words the rule of retail atlon has been characteristic of much of human life, but the incarnation Is a pro test to all this, and when man believes that while he was engaged in breaking :he law of God, God was engaged In manifesting himself in such way that he might know that love outruns malice, and is mightler than the power of de-