The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-10-15

the First Baptist church Sunday eve
ing Here are some sharp and rath
pointed extracts from the sermon
be:
Is there devil? Emphatically
no. If by devil is meant per-
sonage with hoof and horns and
spine ending in a curved tail.
A person clad in long red cloak,
knee trousers, long stockings,
buckled shoes, carrying in his long
bony fingers a long sharp stick
with which to prod his unhappy
victims.
Such conception of the devil
is not only unscientific but wholly
unbiblieal. There is not a single
passage of scripture to warrant
such ridiculous description or
conception.
The popular conception of his
satanic majesty is due to the per-
sistance OF popular error and to
woeful wholesale ignorance of the
bible.
The current conception of the
devil is derived very largely from
such writer's as Milton, Dante and
Goethe.
This grotesque conception is en-
tirely unworthy OF religion as
refined as is Christianity.
Sin An Awful Reality.
Men do not need to be so much
concerned about the origin OF the
devil as with the fact that there
is devil, not so much concerned
about the origin of sin as that
there is sin and that men are
sinners.
1t is not so important to know
whether men sin because Adam
sinned as it is for them TO realize
that they actually sin.
The new theology is teaching
that sin is selfishness, sin is al
ways a blunder." This view of
sin may do for minds that are
feeding on the milk of life but
for men feeding on the strong
meat and bread of daily experience
the unadulterated teaching of the
word of God is more beneficial.
1t is far better and wiser to
give heed to STERN experience than
to the non-sensical, mystical teach
ing of some cult when attempts
TO affirm that sin is not real
ity.
An person fit to be outside of
an insane asylum or school for
the feeble minded knows that at
times he does wrong, is tempted
to he mean and ugly, is tempted
to sin, the actually sins.
Object of Series.
On object of the present series
of sermons is to rake off a few
barnacles from the theological
ship, TO remove some driftwood
from the theological sea of think
ing, to clear away some spray of
mist that befogs the spiritual
vision.
Another object is to help peo-
pie TO come To a fuller and clearer
view of eternal truths Not to
shatter tottering faith but to boil
ster faith in the verities. To aid
men TO know what the Bible
teaches about right living and
high thinking.
The greatest force in the worlds
progress-past or presents Chris
tianity and the best history of
Christianity is the Old Book. The
Bible should be carefully read and
thoroughly studied.
Two Dangerous Men.
Today there two dangerous
men to bible study and the accep-
lance of the Christian faith.
The one is the ante-dated, moss
covered, ossified pious conservative
who believes in plenary inspired,
inerrant bible. A bible to be men,
tally swallowed as whole in
Guiding the six day-of twenty-four
hours each account of creation and
the Jonah whale swallowed story.
The other equally dangerous
man is the unreasonable, shallow
minded bigotr-and none Are so
bigoted as the self-styled liberal
ists-narrow browed, peaked skulled
materialistic evolutionist who great
ly agitated what little grey mat
ter he possesses in trying to make
himself and others believe that the
world was made by nothing from
nothing. that mans ancestors
scratched each others skulls,
climbed trees and cracked cocoa
nuts.
This fellow teaches that Chris
tianity is a myth or mere dog
ma, that there is no God, no
future. no rewards or punishments.
He leaves man to walk between
the two eternities on rope OF
sand.
Men Are Still Religious.
The church of today must listen
to modern scholarship. She has
absolutely nothing to fear at the
hands of sane, ripe scholarship.
Education is the hand maid of the
church.
The church is founded on truth
and truth is eternal.
Men are not less religious, or
less Christian because they are
active in new forms of social and