The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-06-04
stage breaches ON
FOREIGN MISSIONS
Strong Sermon at First Presby-
terrain Church Yesterday
APPEALS FOR DESTITUTE
Says 1t Is Duty of all to Respond to
the Call for Help and the Cry
for Bread of the Poor
People.

byterian church on foreign missions.
The text is found in a part of the
thirty-ffth verse Of the sixth chapter of
the gospel of John: And Jesus said
unto them, I am the bread of life.
If we were to take this country as an
index to the condition of the world we
would say, without any hesitation whatso-
ever, that his Is very rich world. II
we were to take this audience, assembled
here this morning, as an index of the
life of the city in which we live, We would
say that 1t is a city of comfortable homes,
where the people have an abundance Of
the things of this world. But, were we
to contrast this country with some other
country for instance, if we take the long,
bleak stretches of India, or if we take the
famine, devasted districts of Japan, and
contrast them with this land, the picture
is changed
If we move along the streets of this
city and see people who live in squalor
and want, see the poor man at his window
trying to get a breath of the fresh air
of heaven, then the picture IS changed
In its coloring and little by little we
come to the conviction that this is not
rich world. 1t is poor world. And then,
when we see the girl who walks the
streets and does the thing that her soul
despses, and learn that she does 1t for
the sake of bread; then we see that this
a poorer world than we ever thought it
was. When we learn that men commit
/ crimes. and women damn their souls for
bread, then bread takes its place in this
/ oil hp h1zZ Of
machinery. and all the plans that man
makes are for bread. That's why you
live; that's why you labor 1t is vulgar
estimate of human society, but it is the
correct estimate. Therefore, the most
awful thing we can imagine is starVa-
ton.
Nothing appeals to you like a hungry
man, if you know he is hungry. There
is not a man in all the world who would
be sent from his fellow mans door, who
came there and asked for bread If 1t
were known that bread was the thing he
needed.
We Live with Liars.
We live with humbugs, or, to put 1t
palmer, because the Saxon is the
strongest we live with liars; a man will
come and lie to you. You do not always
know that man is hungry, but that
does not affect the fact that hungry
man appeals to you, all of which means
this: that the great necessary of life is
bread and that Jesus, when He spake 10
man spake I'm words so large that they
will always remain so as to teach this
world Christianity. Preachers nave
spoken to the world in words of apology
1'hev have said to man, Wont you
] ra1ioiOnS tP1PhinQY' but
Christ dealt with man in way different
from that Jesus is not only tender
| Galilean peasant, but Jesurs Is the
,nightiest man that men have ever had
to deal with, and they must reckon with
him in all their systems OF thought
There have been schools OF men VINO
have deliberately concluded that because
they followed certain profession. they
could treat with contempt the Gallilean
Teacher of the world. But Jesus has
more and more occupied the thoughts of
men. until now the man is seen 10 be
a fool who undertakes to ignore His
teachings You may be different to Them
YOU may deliberately go to hell IL you
want to; tina. is n very different thing
from trying to ignore or trying to leave
out of court the testimony of the Son of
man.
Jesus said to man: Il am the bread
of life" AMI He intended that man should
make out of that all that could be made.
You canno. live without bread; that is
the first call of man, and He says: Il
must have bread" Jesus says, no more
can the coul live without me, except
we eat of my flesh and drink of my
blood you have no life in you" And the
Jews, a primitive race, said: How cdn
| that be? What nonsense for a man u
| say that he can 6iVe US Of his flesh
and blood" And Jesus said Except
yet eat of my flesh and d,ink of my
blood you have no life in you
The world must have bread; the soul
must have Jesus, ana when you look at
the world as Il whole It Is poor world
it is poorer world when you take it
in sections. 1t is rich mere In America;
it is poor now in aJpan; it is poorer still
| in Russia where there are millions of
people. more than we have in our whole
broad land, who hold their hands up to
the sky and ask God for their daily
bread, and in the evening take their
| hands down empty and go without their
daily bread.
| heard woman whose sons live in
| this very town, where we are today, say
that in the awful devastation of the civil
war, when she saw her little children
cry for bread, she fell upon her knees
| on tne front porch III S1Rnt OF the open
street and asked God for bread to put
into the mouths of hungry children.
The Cry for Bread.
There Is nothing like It in all the earth;
this cry for bread. When we contrast
| the world, 1t looks rich today where we
are. 1t is poor tomorrow, where the
| other man is, and yet 1t Is the richest
world that man can conceive Of But
| the way to make it rich Is by combina-
| ton. You take the United States and
carry them to Russia and Russia be-
comes rich. You take the corn fields Of
| the Mississippi valley and put them in
| Japan, and Japan's hunger is satisfied
| That Is what you are here for. That is
| why men build railroads. that is why we
| have cables across the sea; that Is why
| we have vast ships that ignore space
| that you may take the stuff you do nor
| need and carry it to the man who does
need It. And all the while God is making
the world richer by combination. You
take iron from these hills and carry 1t
! to the hill where there is none, and you
| bring back something from that hill to
| this place that makes this land of ours
! rich. i am in favor of making something
| out of everying that God has given us
right here. where we have 1t. No legisla-
| ton here or in Washington ought to in
| terfere with this If we can make iron
| cheaper here than anywhere else in the
| world, then do it. and make the man who
wants it pay for it.
| That is what God intends, and you
| must remember. that 1t is the bringing of