The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-07-09
BISHOP MORRISON FILLS THE PULPIT Breaches at First Methodist on Spiritual Merchandise MEN SAVED BY EFFORT Every Man is Guided and Makes His Own Salvation Actual and Real
 By His Own
 Effort.

 audience yesterday morning at the First Methodist church on Spiritual Merchan- dise.' He took his text from the thir- teenth chapter of St. Matthew, the forty fourth and forty-fifth verses:
 Again. the kingdom of heaven Is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when man hath found he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he Iiath and buyeth that field.
 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls"
 Bishop Morrison spoke in part as fol- lows:
 The parables present the several sides of gospel truth. They are the windows letting in the light upon the storehouse of divine grace. These two present the ac cesiblity of the gospel to all classes, the high and the low. There are kingdoms to which only the favorites of fortune have access, but the kingdom of heaven is open and accessible alike to all.
 The Men In Opposition.
 The men in opposition are representative men. The one bronze drowned and bony- handed toiler. The other a dealer in cost. ly pearls. They represent the two great factors in our advancing civilization. labor and capital The one represents the mil lions in the mass who create wealth. The other represents the millionaire class who own and control 1t. Both these men were successful. The one found the treasure and the other secured the pearl Labor
 ffn1 fF1 afx economy and each may have, and should have, the divine approval and blessing. And they will have this so long as they maintain the right relation to each other but when they get out of the right rela- ton anarchy and ruin are the result
 But what Is their right relation? They are the same in relation as parent and child. Labor Is the parent and capital the offspring of labor And this parental and fllial relation is the basis of prosperity and peace in every nation But let labor become extravagant and exacting in It's demands or capital become tyrannical and forget it's due relation; or like Abso- lom essay to take the kingdom from it's father, and you have wreck and ruin while all go down in one general de- struction.
 The Ideal Government.
 We hear political economy much dis cussed. Men argue that to haze a strong government we must have mucu of the military. strong standing army and moro men of war in the navy, moro police. While that truth is so established in his tory those nations who have had most of the military power are most thoroughly extinct and most nearly forgotten. "rhey that take the sword shall perish by the sword.'
 The secrets and philosophy of strong government do not lie in the material, not in the munitions of war nos Tn the cannon, not in the powder and Dolls, nor in the fearful machinery of destruction, not in the material anywhere. But tue strength of the government lies in the re- lation between the governing and tho gov erned. Let President and people, King and subject. be linked in heart as by hooKs of steel Let the representative be ready, if need be, to die for his people anu his neople ready to die for him and you can do little with such people. I remeber in my childhood l saw a picture of Washington on his way to be inaugurated first President of the United | States He was not in Pullman palace nor in A special of his own. He never saw A railroad or heard of one. But he | was on horseback and the fair hands of inc American women were strewing flow | ers on the highway before him. We were 1 hut 100000 strong then but we were | incinclble Show me a nation strewlng flowers in the pathway of it's ruler; and vou do well to let that people alone. But | show me a nation guarding its chief | ruler to save him from his own people l and that nation is on the brink of de- | cay.
 The Divine Regime. God Almighty does not control in his | government by arbitrary force. His is not a government of divine military power. But He governs by power in- l fnitely greater than volcanic force of cvclonic vengeance Greater than earth ouake terror or the devastation of fire | and flood He may use these things to | destroy but not to govern He employs hut the one force; the invincible and in- finite power of love. God so loved the world" as to redeem and to govern and gain 1t. His only remedy for the malady ! of sin is redeeming love.