The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1907-03-08
A GREAT SERMON.

one he delivered on SunGay night was
an extraordinary one and was one of
the finest sermons that he has deliv-
cred since coming 10 Ocala and the
favorable comment it aroused was uni
lversal.
Mr.. AtkissOn took for his text the
Goth verse of the 2Sth chapter of Isa-
liah, which reads as follows: For the
bed is shorter than that a man can
stretch himself on it: and the cover
ms narrower than that he can w:ap
himself in it
The text is rather an extraordinary
one and many in the congregation eX
pected to hear a sermon along sensa-
tOnal lines but instead the sermon
was purely along devoutly religious
lines.
The eminent divine said that the
text was peculiarly fitted to the times
in which il was written and reached
down 10 our times but was more ap-
lplicable in the recent past than at the
present moment for happily denomi-
national lines are fast disappearing.
IN the more recent past he said theo-
lugians and SeCtarian preachers Occu-
pied very narrow beds and very Scant
coverings and refused TO believe that
their deuOminatiOnal brethren occu.
pied any bed at all and were beyond
the pale of religious brotherhood. The
Methodist and other denominations
believed. for instance. that the Bap-
lriSt occupied a bed altogether too mar
TO be drowned. That the Presbyter-
ians slept on a bed not only too mar
row but too hard and that the Episco-
pelians and Catholics slept on beds
too rich and ornate in their furnish
ings and others thought that the Meth
odist bed was too not and primitive
for their contemporaries.
Happily. said Mr.. AtllissOn. religious
beds ore gradually growing wider and
! longer and the coverings more elastic
| Denominations DO not now as they
once did, 50 quickly consign a man TO
eternal torment unless he believed as
they thought he ought to believe.
/ Mr.. AtkissOn said the world is made
up of many millions of human beings
end a. each man and woman is Great
ed with different physical features
so as each man and woman is Great
/ ed with different minds and no man 5
conception of these things are identi-
/ cally alike any more than they are
alike i'll other things. He said that
we all have different conceptions of
the great and marvellous mysteries
OF creation and different members of
! the same church may have different
ideas and different conceptions OF
some Of the phases OF the creed of
his own church and yet be a strong
I believer and q good churchman and
hat holding to different ideas in for
mer times lila le skeptics where there
should have been nCnc.
/ The preacher said that whatever a
mans notions were of the divinity of
Christ and the insDiration of the scrip.
lures all men recognized wrong from
right and that there was a path if fol-
lowed that would lead to virtue and
morality and another path, which it
followed would lead TO vice and de-
structior That AT one time the great
Horace Bushnell led himself 10 ne
ieve that the creation was the result
of force and not Of a personal God ard
If there were no personal God prayers
were unnecessary but he said TO him
self there is virtue and ability and
love and SentlenCSS over against vice
limpurltv and immortality and he 'ed
himself along virtues paths and grad
iually the divine light penetrated 10
his soul and became larger and bright.
er as he worshipped at the shrine OF
THE nobler conceptions and il was not
long before the truth of religion en-
Shrouded him entirely.
Mr.. AtkissOn in his theological de-
auctions occupies very wide bed
and is tolerant of the theological no
ltions of all other denominations, is
tolerant and compassionate Of those
outside the pale of the church and
his sermons are calculated 10 do i'm
imense sood among those where good
is mostly needed and he is doing an
excellent work in Ocala and is bcCOm
ing more and moro popular and his
congregations are growing larger.
His sermons always give food fol
intellectual thought and meditation.
Mr. Maurice Richie, OF Havana. Gu
ba. has been in Ocala for the past sew