Crittenden record=press. [volume] (Marion, Ky.) 1907-1909, 1908-04-02
An Interesting Poem.
(By T. NJ. Hurst.)

J
ern town to preach two or three weeks
and the first thing | was told when |
got there was. "this is a bad town, :"
with "set' of agnostics who always
"pique the preacher. a few days
after | reached the town a Thanks
giving service was held in one Of the
central churces at which | preached
sermon, that was published by one
Of the local papers next day. After
reading it one of the preachers critics
said to me, | thought the literary
style of your sermon was unexcelled,
and of course | thanked him, and
doubted his sincerely but this was
an introduction and then the man
said, | object to what preachers say
in the pulpit because it is one sided.
| asked him if that were not true of
everything he heard and he agreed
that in a sense 1t was. One of the
United States Senators from his state
had spoken in the town a few days
before and ! asked this man il his
friend, the Senator, had presented
the good points of the opposite party
and he said that he had not. And
SO our acquaintance grew. He ask
ed me if | had read Swedenborg, and
Gibbon and Hume and Voltaire and
Paine and Ingersol and others and
told him that | had sketched most of
them In kind of superficial way and
then | asked him if he read the bible
and he said he did not. Then | said
said you will allow me to object to
pour theology for the same reason
you object to mine. 1t is one sided
SO We became friends and the next
day he took me out behind a pair of
bays that he said cost him $1,000,
and Re asked me to read and review,
in writing, a certain book with per-
mission TO have my review read before
his club and | consented with the
proviso that he and his friends come
to hear me preach at least half doz-
en- times. He agreed to this but
made me promise not to insist on the
miraculous conception and birth Of
Christ, nor on the inspiration or in
errancy of the scriptures, nor to rely
on the prophecies or the parallels OF
the miracles to support any argument
might make. In other words !
was to close the Bible and preach
without it, but might have a text
from it. / selected the last sentence
in verse 81 Mathew %; Truly this
was the Son of God," and preached
from this every day for week, start
ing with the proposition that this is
the deliberate judgement of disbe-
lever who saw the trial and crucifix-
ION of Jesus of Nazareth. As a GEN.
trail thought in all the sermons held
to the proposition that Jesus Is as
much fact of history as Alexander,
and Napoleon aid Washington are
and that We must recognize that fact
and consider the influence of that
character on history and civilization
and culture and after looking over it
all we must then make up our judg-
ment just as the centurion made up
his. In one of the sermons | insist
ed that no critic or disbeliever had
ever attacked the literary style of
Jesus. though he was an uneducated
young man from the country and that
no one had ever found flaw in the
morals Of bis teachings or discovered
contradiction er technical mistake in
anything he said, aud that this is
not true of any other character in
history. BY way of illustration |
mentioned inaccuracies In Shakes
speares and SCOTS and Coleridges
sayings and in various others, includ-
ing Edgar Allen Poe in his Raven,
where be yet the bird upon the bust
above the chamber door, with the
lampliget streaming Ger and the
shadow on the floor, which is scien.
tiffc imposioility, and not allowable
even by poetic license and this
led to another interesting incident.