The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1908-10-07
THE PULPIT.
~ ELOQUENT SUNDAY SERMON BY
PROFESSOR HUGH BLACK
Theme: Shame of Detection.

Brooklyn, N. Y.-The baccalaureate
S. rmon of the Packer Collegiate In
stitute was delivered by Professor
Hugh Black. M. A., of Union Theo-
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 fftieth Psalm. Pro-
fessor Black spoke on "The Shame of
Detection" selecting as his theme
jeremiah 2:26: LAS 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 apostasy, of unfaithfulness 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
heathenism. And here he points to
the folly of it. Besides its ingrati-
tude and its wickedness, it is also I'M
speakably foolish, az 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 Me, the foun-
tain Of living waters, and hewed them
out c%isterns, broken cisterns, that can
hold no water" TO a monotheist who
had grasped 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,
1t meant that life would be lived on
a much lower plane; religiously, it
was the degradation Of the pure spir-
itual worship to which the prophets
pointed the people.
This is why the prophets always
speak of the shame Of idciatry. 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 disgrace. Especially the prophets
Of the exile and after it, who had
come into close connection with
heather idolatry, had this sense of
superiority, and withered the stupid
,ity Of polytheism with their most
mordant irony. 1t was a shame, at
which they blushed. to think of Jews
descending tosuch puerile worship and
practices. 1t was folly for the heather
who knew no, better; it was shame
for Israelites to grove. before a stock
or stone. The prophets confidently
predicted that experience would prove
the folly and vanity OF idolatry.
They 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
bges, Ye are Dur gods" The proph-
Sts with their spiritual insight al
ready saw the disgrace and vanity of
such worship; but the people who
were seduced by the lower and more
5ensuous rites of idolatry would have
to learn their folly by bitter expert
ence When the pinch came, when
the needs of life drove them like
sheep, when in the face of the great
necessities, they would find out how
futile had been their faith. "As the
thief Is ashamed when he is found
out, sc 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
hast brought me forth; but in the
time of their trouble they will say,
Arise and save US. But where are
thy gods that thou hast made thee?
Let them arise if they can save thee
In the time Of thy trouble"
All, in the time Of trouble they
would find out their folly; and the
vanity Of their trust in idols would be
found out! They should feel already
the disgrace; but, though they are m
sensible to that now, they will yet be
convicted and the hot blush of shame
will cover them with confusion of
face. They are not ashamed Of the
ingratitude and wickedness and folly
of their conduct, but their sin will
find them out, and then surely the
conviction Of their foloishness and
guilt will abash them, and then at
last they will know the sense of
degradation and self-contempt which
should be theirs now. "As the thief
Is ashamed when he is found out, SO
the house of Israel will be ashamed"
The same dullness of mind and
d%arkening of heart and obtuseness OF
conscience can be paralleled among
ourselves. Is it not true that in
social ethics the objectionable sin is
to be found out? In many cases it
is not the thing itself that men fear
and condemn and are ashamed of.
but anything like exposure of it.
There is a keen enough s~ensibility to
disgrace, but not for the thing itself
which is the disgrace. Men will do
things with an easy conscience for
which they would be ashemed-if
they were found out. Our moral
standard of judgment is so much lust
that of the community. Our con-
science is largely a social conscience
merely; not individual and personal
and vital, but imposed upon US by
society, a code Of manners and rules
which We must not transgress. 1t is
no ~exaggeration to say that we live
more by this code, by the customs and
restraints of society, than by the holy
law of God as a light to our feet and a
lamp to Our path. Mich of this ic