Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1907-06-06
The B8CC8IaUreafe Sermon.

The BaCC8IaGreafe Sermon.
Per announcement, Rev. S. A. Bender
delivered the baccalaureate sermon to
our high school graduating class of 1907
at the Methodist Episcopal church last
Sunday evening. Sermon is perfectly
proper in this instance From the well
chosen text, quoted below, Rev. Ben
der dealt out gospe! so pointedly and
forcibly as to impress every one of the
large concourse of hearers.
Honesty, self-sacrifice, MANHOOD,
were the grounded principles of his
theme, with Christ as the ideal. What
could be more appropriate for an occa-
sion of this kind? To these principles,
SO inseparable from a life of manhood,
the speaker chung tenaciously through
out his discourse with scholarly touch,
and if his efforts at directing the grad
yates Alright fail, then upon them, and
them alone, must rest the burden Of
the blame.
A newspapers attempt to convey the
sermon to the public, in the earnest and
emphatic expressions of the speaker,
would prove failure at best, therefore
deslstance on the part of the Tribune
should be accepted as pardonable. Fol-
lowing is the text with synopsis as
furnished by Rev. Bender:
For We both had compassion on them that
were in bonds and took joyfully the spelling
of your possessions, knowing that We have for
yourselves a better possession and an abiding
one. Heb. X:a-American Standard version.)
The text presents contrast. The
people to whom these words are adj
dressed have suffered great temporal
losses. The writer exhorts them to con-
tentment in the thought that though
they had lost material things they were
rich in the possession of themselves.
The worth Of manhood in comparison to
the perishable value of material things
is the thought of the text.
Jesus Christ places the highest en-
phasis on the worth of manhood. AL
though in self sacrifice he stands with
out a peer. In fact he taught that no
person can make a truly moral self-sac-
rifice who has not come to conscious
ness Of his own transcendant worth.
The ef-sacrifice of Jesus has world
value because it was based on recog-
milton of his infinite worth.
Manhood is of greater value than
state or church or creed-these have
value only as they subserve manhood s
interest. Jesus taught that the Sab
bath this one institution representa-
| tive of all institutions-wa made for
man, not man for the Sabbath. Manhood
is the greatest fact in the world; the Son
of Man sits on the throne of the Uni
verse. When men awake to this concep-
ton of their inalienable dignity, then
does manhood come to its kingdom.
Several principles current in the
worlds life to-day are subversive of
this conception of manhood's value:
/. The commercial spirit which
moulds our educational ideas is demand
ing that men be trained so as to sue
coed in the rivalry for material success;
rather than that they should be trained
in the moral virtues of duty and self
sacrifice. This culture gives as the mo-
tive of life, the lust of gain or the de-
sire to live luxuriously such culture
gradually weakens conscience, and de-
stroys the nobler susceptibilities of life.
So that the man who is controlled by
this ideal no longer treats his workman
or his employer, or his customer, as q
brother to be served, but as victim tC
be plundered.
That such conception Of life is prev
alent is shown by the discovery Of po
litical corruption in so many of oui
states. True manhood finds it's realiza
ton in the willingness of Abraham Lin
coin to forfeit from a sense Of duty the
chance Of an election to the United
States Senate, and Lincoln's manhood
so revealed was recognized by the ma
ton as worthy of the highest homo
: within the gift of the people.
. The highest realization of this man
, hood is in Jesus, whose purity Of hear
read the heart-life of all being an'
therefore he shrank from nothing, iron
sweat, nor CRIME, nor death. He wa
real in that he discerned that the Law
of self-sacrifce undergirds all being,
law expressing itself universally iron
the instructive sufferings of brut
mothers love, to human mothers vi
carious sufferings, and that He himsel
lived in a joyful harmony to this eter
nal law Of the worlds life. This 81