The Penn's Grove record., 1908-09-18
THE PULPIT.
AN ELOQUENT SUNDAY SERMON BY
PROFESSOR HUGH BLACK
Theme: Shame of Detection.

81 W
Brooklyn, N. Y.-The baccalaureate
sermon of the Packer Collegiate In
stitute was delivered by Professor
E-ugh Black, M. A., of Union Thee
logical Seminary. The service was
held in the chapel of the institute,
and was presided over by Professor
Black. Mr.. Black, as the Scripture
lesson, read the fiftieth Psalm. Pro-
lessor Black spoke or THE Shame of
Detection selecting as his theme
jeremiah 1926: "As the thief is
ashamed when he is found out, so is
the house Of Israel ashamed" In
the course of his sermon, Professor
Black said:
The prophet is accusing the nation
of a%postasy, of unfaitnfulness to her
true spouse. To awaken repentance
he points to the base ingratitude
which could forget the early days of
their history when God espoused
them, in love and favor brought them
up out of the land of Egypt, led them
through the wilderness and brought
them into a plentiful country. He
points next to the willful and wicked
obstinacy which made them forsake
God and choose the lower worship
and the lower moral practice of
h~eathenism. And here he points to
the folly of it. Besides it's ingrati-
tude and its wickedness, it is also un-
speakably foolish, ar insensate stu
pidity at which the heavens might
we'll be astonished, not only that a
nation should change it's God who had
taken them by the arms and in end
less love and pity taught them to
walk, but that it should change Him
for such other gods-that Israel
should have given Jehovah such pitt
full rivals. This is the folly at which
the heavens may be amazed, that My
people have forsaken Ne, the foun-
tain Of living waters, and hewed them
out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can
hold no water" To a monotheist who
had g"asped the principle of the One
God, and who had experience OF spir-
itual communion, polytheism with its
lords many and gods many must have
seemed a system almost beneath con-
tempt. Intellectually, it introduced
confusion instead of order; morally.
IL meant that life would be lived on
a much lower plane; religiously, it
was the degradation of the pure spir-
ltual worship to which the prophets
pointed the people.
Ih1s is why the prophets always
speak OF the shame of idoiatry. 1t
seemed incredible that men in their
senses should prefer what appeared
to them to be brutism superstition.
Both Intellectually and morally it was
a dlsgrace. Especially the prophets
OF the exile and after it, who had
come into close connection with
neathen idolatry, mad this sense of
superiority, and withered the stupid
lty OF p~olytheism with their most
mordant irony. 1t was a shame. at
winch they blushed, to think of Jews
descending tosuch puerile worship and
practices. 1t was folly for the heather
VINO new no better; it was shame
Tor lsraelites to grove before a stock
or stone. The prophets confidently
predicted that experience would prove
the FOLLY and vanity of idolatry
Ihey shall be turned back" says the
prophet of the exile; "they shall be
greatly ashamed that trust in craven
images, that say to the molten i'm
ages Ye are our gods" The proph-
Gus with their spiritual insight al
rea9y saw the disgrace and vanity of
sucn worship; but the people who
were seduced by the lower and mora
sensuous rites of idolatry would have
TO learn their folly by bitter exneri-
ence. When the pinch came. when
the needs of life drove them iita
sheep, when in the face of the great
aecessitles, they would find out how
tu!lie a been their faith. @As the
thief is ashamed when he is found
OUT, so the house of Israel will be
ashamed; they. their kings, their
princes, and their priests and their
prophets, saying to a stock. Thou
ART my father; and to stone. Thou
mast brought me forth; but in the
time OF their trouble they will saw,
ARISE n save us. But where are
my gods that thou hast made tbe.9
Let them arise if they can save thee
IN the time of thy trouble"
An, in the time of trouble they
would ind out their folly: n the
vanity of their trust in idols wonld he
found out! They should feel already
the disgrace; but, though they are m.
sensible to that now, they will vet he
convicted and the hot blush of shame
Will cover them with confusion of
They are not ashamed of tho
ingratltude and ~wickedness and folIv
oI their conduct, but their sin will
Anu tnem out, and then surely the
convection of their foloishness and
guiit VIII abash them, and then at
last lhey Will know the sense of
~radat and self-contempt which
shouio De theirs now. "As the thiaf
IS ashamed when he is found ont 81
inc mouse OF Israel will be ashamed. y
same dullness of mind and
d~arKening of heart and o-btuseness of
conscience can be paralleled amono-
ourselves. Is it not true hat ;1
social ethics the unpardonahle Gin ~
10 be found out? In many cases -
is not the thing itself that mon foar
ana condemn and are ashamed 81
but anything like exposure NJ -
There is a keen enough sensibiIitv ~
usslace, put not for the thing itself
things with an easy conscienoa ~
they were found out. Onr morai
JuuSHlGuL is SO much iy1ct
.na. vi the community. Our con-
science is largely a social conscience
merely; not individual and personal
n vital, but imposed upon us hv
society, a code of manners and rules
winch we must not transgress. It is
mo exaggeration to say that we live
more cy TINS code, by the customs and
restraints OF society, than by the holy
law OF God as a light to our feet and =
lamp to our path. Much of this is
GOOD, and represents the accumulated
gains OF the past, a certain ri
OF living below which men are not az
pee.ea TO fall, a moral and even a
christian atmosphere which affects nc
all and which is responsible for mncb
Or the good that is in us. One onlv
Feeds to live for a little in a nagan
~confTrnity to realize how much we
owe to the general Christian standard
odr country, such as it is. At the
came Time we mI1Sf con 49,