The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1906-05-03
THE PULPIT.
AN EkOQUENT SUNDAY SERMON 81
THE REV. HOWARD MELlsH.
Subject Repentance."

Church, Sunday morning. the rector.
the Rev. Howard Melish, preached
from the text. From that time Jesus
began to preach and to say, Repent :"
st. Matthew iv:17. He said:
I heard one Of the ablest men IN
America, man who had studied the
popular mind carefully and observed 1t
most keenly, say not long ago, that II
he were young again the one message
he would endeavor to bring home to his
countrymen is-spirit, soul. manhood
make conditions. not conditions men.
Three forces are producing the oppo-
ste view. The first is materialsm.
Saterialism as philosophy is discred-
ited. Twenty-Five years ago it received
tremendous Importance through the
formulation of a doctrine of evolution
by natural selection. To-day it is not
taught in single university chair.
But materialism. as popular concep-
ton of the world, is more generally
needed than ever before. In it God is
identified with His universe. His Eame
is Force. His law is to be found not in
the Bible, but in the latest text books
on physics. Man is an animal which
thinks. He is a creature Of his en-
vironment. When he dies he is dead
as every other beast Of the field.
The second is the teaching of some
socialists. There is socialism and there
is Christian socialism. Christian social
ism endeavorS to make place in So
cialism for Christianity's emphasis on
the individual. Socialism is concerned
with the economic and industrial reor-
ganization of society. AS interpreted
by some of its eXpounders it is telling
men that they can't be just or right or
pure or honest OF humane under the
competitive system. 10 talk about eth
ical standards so long as men must
compete to live is child's play. The
Sermon on the Mount is impracticable:
let man obey its precepts and he is
sure to be thrown by the current OF
life on to the bank as wreckage. What
is needed to make men is a different
order of society. Such teachings. such
feeling, foc it has become more feel
ing than a clearly articulated system.
has weakened the sense Of individual
responsibility. I can't be pure living
under tenement house conditions. l
can't speak the truth in modern pull
pit or modern newspaper, therefore
Il an1 not responsible for impurity, dis
honesty, lying.
S The third force, laying stress on con-
ditions instead Of wilS and so weaken
ing Individual conscience, is Christian
Science. At first thought this may
seem an utterly inconsistent statement.
Does not Christian Science lay all the
emphasis on the individual-his atti-
tude Of mind, his thought? Not at all.
What. it emphasizes is conditions OF
thought. By methods which rival the
methods Of Hypatia and the Neo-P!a-
tonists. they endeavor to work your
mind into a state where nothing eX-
ternal to your mind has any reality.
Sin does not exist. The suffering of
little children in the Home of st. Giles
the Cripple is mere thought. The
dishonesty of business has no reality.
The tragedy Of much Of our tenement
house life, with its starvation, unem-
ployment, fwarfed lives, OF the sinful
luxurieusness of much of the Fifth
avenue" life are mere thoughts. Jesus
on His cross was only acting part.
Such teaching has no social mes
sage. Christian Science has pro-
duced some beautiful characters, ''Is-
raelites in whom there is no guile"
who recognize in Jesus, as did Ma
thaniel. ''the Son Of God," brit it has.
not and cannot produce a social re-
former 10 60 into a black slum and
stay there, working and dying for the
Kingdom of God, because it. has no
message to the conscience, individual
or social.
Over against these three forces which
weaken individual responsibility l
would put the one truth Of repentance.
It is an. old word with long record.
The vocabulary of some nations does
not know it. And those nations have
died. Wealth corrupted them, power
made them arrogant, and arrogancy led
to NATIONAL madness and ruin. They
had voices which criticized and COM
planned, which ridiculed and despaired,
but no voice with thunder and light
ming in its tone to cry "Repent!' But
one nation developed q race o. men
whom we call prophets. They were
men who spoke for God. The word Of
the Legd came to tssm: Id they
SPOKE IudC NOrU 10 Tue CUIlSSleACe " !
their nation. They made men feel
guilt, they pointed out the right way,
and they inspired men to walk in it.
And this is repentance. In circum-
stances when other nations have dis
appeared, as in transplantation and
captivity, this nation was kept alive
because of it's sense Of responsibility
for its own deeds, past and future.
:, That nation in the fIlness of time
=. birth to Christianity. Its immc-
diate fcrerunner was John the Baptist.
What lie taught is summed up III the
one word-repent. The rich man with
self-sufIiciency. the powerful man with
his arroganoy are to be leveled down
like the mountains; the poor man with
his patience is to be filed up like the
valleys. Start now; for the Ak is laid
to the root of your tree and down yo:
wilF come if you don't lave fruit.
Share your abundance with those who
have nothing; cease to squander your
money on clothes and food when men
are naked and children are hungry.
Stop levying unjust taxes on the poor.
Abide by the law and speak the truth.
Take what you earn and nothing more.
Jesus caught up that message and