The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-19
.DOBBS TAXES TEXT
 FROM SAINT JOHN The Men Who Think and the
 Men Who Act KNOWLEDGE NOT ENOUGH Jesus Offers Greatest Ideal of Knowl- edge and Activity-WorId Waiting Today Rather for "opportuni-
 tyv Than for "charity"
 
KNOWLEDGE NOT ENOUGH

"If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do. them," taken from John 13, r, was the text of a sermon yesterday morning at the Five Points Methodist church by the pastor, the Rev. Hoyt Dobbs. The sermon in part was as fol- lows
 tThese are the words of person to persons-they are personal words. Cut them and they will bleed.' The religion of Jesus Christ Is a personal religion as we'll ae the religion of a person. Jesus was and is yet the sum total of the worlds best and highest ideals. Ideals in religion in life, in art and in eduea- ton are more powerfully communicated through personality than through any other agency or medium. Personality has never been defined. It defies alike the test-tube, rle alpel, and the X-ray Yet every man possesses that imponderable clement known to Us as personality. We may characterize portray or describe, but we cannot define that which for lack of better analysis Is said to consist of character, consciousness and will power. lulluslple ilhu inponuSrdple dS IL IIlay seem, however. l. Is convertible, but not transferable Eljahs mantle fell upon Elisha, but Elisha was Elisha still. The robe changed neither his name nor his age. Yet he obtained a double portion of the spirit of the ancient prophets-sym- bolized by the sacred garment which fell upon his shoulders as he turned again Ia a,,Ire rFf ,l.,
 "EliJah and Elisha, Socrates and Plato, Jesus and John, Paul and Timothy-adown the centuries they have come as age and youth, master and disciple, teacher and pupil, father and son in the spirit affording the truest illustrations of the self-perpetuating power of personality in life, in love and in heroism.
 Preaching is the communication of truth through personality said Phillips Brooks. And the greatest thing a per sonality can communicate Is a high and worthy ideal This Jesus did in an unique way with unique power. His one aim and ideal seems to have been not to get but to give, not to be pleased but to please. not to be served but to serve. h. stead of stopping to conquer He stopped to serve and to save. The words least last and lost were continually on His lips. Happiness with Him was incidental but not essential. Happiness with Him consisted in conformity to this new ideal which He gave His followers around the table at the Last Supper
 Men have ever fallen into two classes
 xul1 think fhOSA who anf those who theorize and those who prac- tice, those who dream anG those who do. The two poles of thought seem to be subjective and objective, abstract and concrete, ideal and real. They repre- sent the termini of two opposing lines of life But Jesus thought and Jesus acted, He idealized, but He also realized. The tragedy of Jerusalem was the outcome. He anticipated 1t, but did not shun 1t.
 At three cardinal points He has touched the life of men. He has touched and fired the intellect as none other. Knowledge of these things was neces- sary He has touched human life again through the affections and the emotions happy are ye.' Lastly, He has touched the life of man through the will. With the intellect we must Know these things With the will we must do these things Knowledge. happiness and aetivity-al corresponding to intellect, sensibility and will.
 '"This ideal of Jesus collided with the ideals of His and every preceding age and burst them Into flying fragments. He broke the cake of custom and shattered the crust of caste. Babylon had said that a mans life consisted in the abund- ance of the things which he possessed but history answers with Nebuchad- nezzar and Belshazzer weighed in the balance and found wanting. They would not do these things even though they knew them. Greece had said that mans life consisted in that which he knew but history answers with the ruins of the Parthenon and the remains of re- public sacrificed upon the altars of self seeking and selfish cities ruled by men made effeminate by luxury, idleness and dissipation. Rome had said that night made night, and upon that dictum thought she was building an eternal city but history has since confirmed the Christ and outlawed the iniquitous Nero. A wandering Jew, a tent-maklng laborer, an imprisoned apostle, turned that Ro- man world upside down and has out lived the City of the Seven Hills.
 Tn our own time there are some parlor prophets with soft hands and perfumed raiment, who teach that non-resistance is better than resistance, that selfishness must be renounced in order that self may reap enhanced and multiplied returns, and that knowledge Is salvation. But Socrates drank the cup, having scaled the Alps of the human intellect, and called back to those who stood on the shores of the river of death that he was taking a leap in the dark and that he knew not what God was. Knowledge is power, but knowledge is not salvation. The world has always known the right from the wrong, the true from the false, but the need Is how to put into effect it's knowledge of these things Fog banks of darkness and of doubt settle down over the .traredy of