The Penn's Grove record., 1908-05-08
THE PULPIT.
A BRILLIANT SUNDAY SERMON BY
THE REV. LEWIS T. REED.
Theme: Suggestive Therapeutics.

Theme: suggestive
Brooklyn, N. Yin the Flatbush
Congregational Church the pastor,
the Rev. Lewis T. Reed, preached a
sermon on "The Theory and Practice
of Suggestive Therapeutics" The
text was from Matthew S:13: "And
Jesus said to the centurion, Go thy
way, and as thou hast believed, so be
it done unto thee. And his servant
was healed in the selfsame hour"
Mr.. Reed said:
In this theme of "The Theory and
Practice of Suggestive Therapeutics"
it is not my purpose to expound nov
elites or to satisfy curiosity, but to
assist ali of you who worship here to
lay hold of some of the great princi-
pies within this movement by which
1t will be possible for you to live con-
fidently and joyfully. l should be
glad to make all of you practitioners
of the art of suggestive therapeutics.
There are a few great principles
which it is essential you should honor
and obey. First-the power of sug-
gestion. We have been wont to be
optimistic about everythfngthat takes
place in our lives, provided nothing
evil appears at once on the surface.
We have proceeded ON the faith that
the psychical system could take up
and dispose successfully of every sug-
gestion made to it. Evil thoughts,
envy, anger, greed, concupiscence,
gluttony-all the vices abhorred by
st. Paul might present their vile pic
lures to the mind, and as long as we
did not act on their suggestion, we
still preserved our character. We de-
luded ourselves with a hope that we
were what we appeared to be. And
now we have had to learn afresh the
truth of that Scripture: "As a man
thinketh in his heart, SO is he." I
know of no process in mans life more
calculated to give him serious
thought than this function of the
subconsciousness of storing up the
suggestions that the outer life brings.
Day by day as we touch the world,
and get our own reactions Of courage
or cowardice, of self-control or self
defeat, of purity or selfishness, of
love or hate, we are continually drop
ping, dropping these suggestions into
the reservoir of this subconscious self,
to come forth some day to bless Or
curse. Abraham Lincoln lives day by
day the sacrificial life of the burden
bearer of this people. Day by day,
hour by hour, he gives himself the
suggestion of devotion, sacrifice and
faith; and then, when the hour for
utterance has come, takes up his pen
and writes on a few scattered sheets
the supreme English masterpiece of
half a century. Benedict Arnold was
always passionate and r~evengeful.
Day after day, year after year, the re-
action of life on him resulted in sug-
costing to his deeper self hate, envy,
pride, and self-will. When his hour
for expression came, he took I'D his
pen to sign his name to the betrayal
of his trust. There is nothing in the
process of the soul that needs to
cause us more of joy and more of
fear than this amenability of the soul
to suggestion.
Secondly, you must come to a new
realization of the supreme place of
the will. Heredity must have some
place in the formation of character,
although that place is not yet very
clearly determiEed-but the most
weighty discovery of the present day
seems to me this rediscovery of the
regal power of the will to do right;
These psychologists, and hypnotists,
in their Investigations into the unex
plored tracts of personality have come
across not only a God-like aspiration
after virtue in every soul, but also
an unlimited power for the attain
ment of that aspiration. Just as the
Master of Life stopped over the Grip
pie, saying, Arise and walk" and
knew that within that stricken form
there was the ability to rise and
walk; so modern psychology stoops
over every sinful soul and repeats the
Scripture command, BE We there
fore perfect" for We are in the image
of your Father in Heaven, who is
perfect. This is a tremendous doc
trine of individual responsibility. 1t
is an old Scriptural doctrine, but it
gains a new force when, by the mod
ern hypnotists' appeal to the soul of
goodness in a man, you see the drunk
ard go forth a new man, the spend
thrift reformed and the invalid made
we'll. If there are in us those pos
sibilities of virtue, there is no escape
for US from the responsibility of at
tanning that for which we were Gre
ated. There has come to us the con-
viction that inspired jeremiah: an
those days they shall say no more.
The fathers have eaten sour grapes
and the children's teeth are set on
edge. But every one shall die for his
own iniquity; every man that eateth
the sour grapes his teeth shall be set
on edge" There is no more proper
incentive to earnest living than the
realization of the fact that God has
intended life to be perfect for every
creature; and that if it is otherwise.
the fault is in ourselves.
Dark is the world to thee; thyself
art the eason why" Whoever would
possess the reality of the Christian
life must achieve the victory owe his
moods; and the most heartening mes
sage of this or any age is that by our
God-given endowment of the will it is
possible for us to give to the deeper
life of the soul the suggestions of
courage and faith and patience and
strength, which altogether mean
eternal life.
In the third place, you will have to
form for yourself very likely a new,
and very stern, doctrine of sin and
virtue. The old doctrine of a forensic
justification before God was an adj
mlraDle thing to look at, but it did
not work very we'll either for the
Justified or for his family. Those who
deemed themselves saved" very
often failed to possess the homely vir-
tues of cheerfulness, kindness, cour-
age and forgiveness; while many who
were obviously good" were not con-
scious of salvation. The religion of
Today gives the genuinely good"
lnan his due, and placards in their
proper place these hateful sins of un-
kindness, intolerance, moodiness,
worry and hardness of heart. It is a
great service that any sect bestows
when that body of people stands forth
10 proclaim that the ills of the flesh
have an origin in the ills of the mind.
and that the thoughts that issue in
these bodily ills are sins against the
High and Holy One. From whatever