The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1907-01-02
Subject. Loyalty to the Truth.

Brooklyn. n. Y.-Preaching at the
Irving Square Presbyterian Church
on the theme. 10y altyto the Truth"
the Rev. !. w. Henderson, pastor,
took rs his text l. Kings 22:14:
And Micaiah said, as the Lord liv-
eth, what the Lord saith unto me,
that will l speak" He said:
The four hundred false prophets
were mere flatterers. They inter-
preted and delivered the oracles to
suit the kings whim. They paid
small attention to the measure of
truth that their Judgment contained.
If they discovered wrong, they kept
quiet about it. II they foresaw evil,
they were equally silent. To be OPP
timiStic was to be popular. Self-in-
terest dictated that they should re-
turn to the king good omens or none.
Pessimistio prophesies landed a man
in prison; and since Ahab wanted to
be coddled and cajoled and flattered,
they humored him to the best of their
ability and to his full capacity. They
were optimistic patriots. Therefore
they were favorites at court.
Ahab hated Micaiah because he
spoke the truth as it came to him
direct from God. The monarch dis
liked premonitions of future evil and
demonstrations of existing sin. He
preferred a fancied security to def
mite knowledge of conditions as they
we're. AS Ahab complained to Je-
h~oshaphat, Micaiah prophesied not
good, but evil; and for that reason he
was heartily happy to jail him.
Micaiah might easily have taken
the advice of the kings officer and
become one of the lying multitude.
He might, with profit to himself in
the eyes of Ahab, have reiterated in
earnest, rather than in sarcasm as
he did, the prophecy of the falsiiers.
Self-preservation and the hope of
self-advancement might, imaginably,
! have led him to have given the king
/ just the answer for which his heart
yearned. The profit from the kings
pleasure was at hand and within
sight, the Lord would forgive him
quicker than the monarch. Many a
man has argued that way. But to
Micaiah the truth was o precious
than the benedictions Of his ruler,
the favor of Jehovah was more salts
flying than we're the praises of any
man. "As the Lord liyeth, what the
Lord saith unto me, that will /
speak," he says; and his words s-e
an inspiration to the men OF America
as they mark out the strict line of
duty we should follow in our time.
Too many Of us lack the fidelity
Of Micaiah because we fear unpopu-
larity. Cowardice supplants courage
in no few hearts that are aglow with
d vision of the truth because men
dare not defy the disfavor Of the
Ahabs of to-day. Snug self-satisfac-
ton cries down the leader who would
point the wrong; and above all. right
it. Optimistic patriots in the church
and out of it, with no eye save for
the glowing, lustrous surface which
hides a central life bitten deep with
sin, decry as pessimistic the man who
paints the evil as it is.
Standardization is easier than
self-eXaminatiOn. There is more
pleasure for the crowd in recounting
their achievements than in clarifying
the central springs of life, and in
a~nalyZing the depth and the conse-
quences of their iniquity. 1t takes
less brains to state the achievements
already accomplished than it does to
investigate and determine the sure
ness and stability of the foundations
upon which success is built. 1t is
easier upon the head to relate blithe-
~ the uneXampled progress Of your
country or your church or your fam
lily or yourself in the attainment OF
material advantages, than it is to de-
eide whether or 20 the gain was made
rightcously and in the fear of God,
and whether or no it will result in
future happiness and helpfulness for
all concerned. 1t is far more salts
factory, from the point Of view Of
the opportuniSt, to take things as
they are and to make the best of
them. No man really likes to unearth
sin; it isn't nice work and it is
/ dirty. But to bury the victims doesn't
stop the epidemic. To congratulate
oneself upon the amount of water in
the reservoir, and upon the power
and efficiency of the pumps at the
water works, in no way diminishes
the heat of the fever. In these days
we want and hail men of mind and
of action who will look for the hid
den germs of disease. Then, in our
desire to acclaim them we forget the
days when, in spite of the ~self-satis-
fed, the ignorant, the careless, the
wicked, they proclaimed the certainty
of u distress and disease; then We
forget that those men whom we re-
viled as pessimists are our saviors;
then we forget the years of research
and Of patient study into conditions
as they were, We forget the premon-
ishments of III fools grow wise, in
II anguish at the situation as it is.
/ say we forget. l may be wrong.
Perhaps We only then remember.
We must have Micaiahs, men of
loyalty to the truth at all hazards
and at any cost, no less to-day than
in the year that Ahab and Jehosha-
| PLAT went against the Arameans at
Ramoth-Gilead. Our age, our coun-
try, the church has need, and a great
need, for men who will speak forth
what the Lord saith unto them. To
be sure those who are folding their
arms in selfish ease" will declare
them. as they did the Garrisons, the
Phillipses of the sixties, anarchists
and fit subjects for the gallows. The
MAJ who would battle with the social
evil to the death and declare the
wisdom and the truth of God unto a
white life for two sexes will find
d%etractors and enemies on every
hand. He who will annihilate the
monster of intemperanreand of legal
irnl iOiuuitV will am murh nor