Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1907-06-06
SERMON TO CLASS OF 1907
Preached by Rev. 5. A. Bender at
the NJ. L. Church on Sunday
Evening, June 2.

the NJ. Z. Church on Sunday
Evening, June 2.
On last Sunday evening Rev. S. A.
Bender delivered an excellent sermon
to the graduating class from the Min
eraI Point high school. His words
we're able and true, and a pleasant
and forcible delivery added greatly to
their power for good. A very large
congregation was present. Below is
given a condensation of the sermon:
For ye both had compassion on them that
were in bonds and took joyfulIy the spelling
Of your possessions, knowing that ye have for
yourselves better possession and an abiding
one. Heb. x:3l-American Standard version0
The text presents a contrast. The
people to whom these words are ad
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 perishabIe 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 seIf-sacrifice he stands with
out a peer. In facl he taught that no
person can make a truly moral self-sac-
rifce who has not come to a conscious
ness of his own transcendant worth.
The self-sacrifice Of Jesus has world
value because it was based on a 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 inalienabIe dignity, then
does manhood come to it's kingdom.
Several principles current in the
worlds life to-day are subversive of
this conception Of manhood's value:
1. The commercial spirit which
moulds our educational ideas is demand
ing that men be trained 50 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 a 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 a
brother to be served, but as a victim to
be plundered.
That such a conception of life is prev
alent is shown by the discovery of po-
lltical corruption, in so many of our
states. True manhood finds it's realiza-
ton in the willingness of Abraham Lin
coin to forfeit from 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 honor
within the gift Of the people.
The highest realization of this man
hood is in Jesus, whose purity of heart
read the heart-Iife of all being and
therefore he shrank from nothing, from
sweat, nor Crime, nor death. He was
real in that he discerned that the law
of seIf-sacritice undergirds all being,
law expressing itself universally from
the instructive sufferings of brute
mothers love, to a human mothers vi
cariOus sutferings, and that He himself
lived in joyful harmony to this eter-
nal law of the worlds life. This su-
preme reality of Jesus gives him his
mighty power in a world that is be-
coming tired of shams and things arti-
fetal.
2. In quest for manhood the soul
must face the seductive temptation of
the sensuOus presented in the guise of
the beautiful. Oscar Wilde left Oxford
University with the fascination of the
beautiful upon him. In his devotion to
the beautiful he felt no need of the dis
cipline of the sternly moral. He affirmed:
In dreams of art
And loftieSt culture would stand apart,
Neither for God or for his enemies"