Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1909-07-14
THE PJ]lIillPI I. ] II. I
A BRILLIANT SUNDAY SERMON BY
PROF. HENRY n Astl D. ID. i;
Theme: In COD j Likeness.

Brooklyn, N. !. Holy Trinity,
sunday morning, the Rev. Henry g.
Nash. ID. D.. of Cambridge, Mass,
was the preacher. Al very large con-
rregation was present Dr.. Nash's
subject was, 4In Gods Likeness.
The text was from Psalms l7:l5:
eWhen / awake In Thy likeness /
shall be satisfied = He said
1t seems to Inc that one of the
happy elements in the life OF our time
regarding spiritual questions Is this:
That so many honest, earnest men
and women ind ahenaselyes unable to,
believe in personal immortality. l
say that that to me is one OF the nope
full signs Of our generation, for now
ever deep may be our personal pity
for them, who through honest doubt
have lost that which means SO much
to us, yet as sign OF theEafmes 1t Is
sign of extreme hope because students
of church history cannot doubt for
moment that the belief in the world to
come has been -tragicaliy yulgarized.
that upon that belief In the life be-
yond the craft of priesthood has built
up an immense body of superstition
that appeals to. the very opposite in
the hearts and souls Of men, and who,
therefore, If he l>eIa student of his
tory, can doubt that God Himself, the
living God who holds in Fills hands the
reins of history, that itsSis the living
God Himself who inspire the honest,
earnest doubts and questionlngs OF
an increasing body Of honorable men
and women of our day touching the
belief of immortality, and the great
good He is teaching to the church Is
this: that God through that doubt is
bringing His church to book, and is
teaching His churcn to start where
the prophet started, and not to- put
the cart before the horse, and not to
argue for personal immortality before
they have laid the foundation upon
which that argument should be built.
And every Christian to-day who
thinks, and to whom personal immor-
tality is the very breath of his daily
life says to US, and every Christian
who thinks agrees with the meE and
women who doubt or deny personal
immortality, that here Is where we
all start, whether inside the church or
outside; here, I say, is where we
start; the one thing that We all hold
ourselves responsible for is good
housekeeping, good housekeeping
here upon earth, and in time, in
space. But what do we mean by
housekeeping? And the problem Is
how to keep ones loyalty to life Wig
orous, recreatiye and self-renewing
when life brings upon us increasing
burdens of responsibility and disap-
pointments and cares and pain and
death. How to be loyal to life! That
is the test, and by it the church OF
Christ is content to stand. By her
ability to answer that question she
would test her theology and her creed
and her sacraments.
Let us take parable from the apple
tree. The apple tree is waiting just
now confidently for the springtime.
We thoroughly doubt and deny that
old saying that "One swallow does not
make summer. The philosopher
and the man Of common sense have
always affirmed that as IL It were an
ultimate truth regarding life. What
wretched, narrow, perverted, strick-
en- world it would be IL the philos-
opher and the theologian controlled
this world; If there was not a poet
and a prophet in it! The apple tree
would say, IL it knew a little history,
swell, am inclined to think that the
agnostic and the infallible theologian
are twins And it is only because the
church has set up the infalli ihle theo-
slogiany as the teacher aof the world
that now the iayman is putting the
theologian into his place, that now
the layman's work has created the
dogma, of the agnostic in order to
counterweigh and overcome the dog
ma Of the infallible. I. know just a
very little about God, but without
that little could not live and with
out that little I could not look for
ward to comfortably standing on the
edge of spring, could not look for
ward confidently to my great task and
Joy and privilege to bud and leaf and
blossom ard fruit. And the parable
when we translate 1t into prose would
come down to this: how to be loyal
to life. First Of all, we must be un-
conquerably strong, strong.
And what shall the kind Of our
strength be? Two kinds - the
strength to DO and the strength to
bear. And os the two, the strength
to bear is the greater, because the
strength simply to do is always beset
by temptation/to vanity and to ego
tism.
A. preacher knows that he is never
in such deadly peril of egotism as
when he is preaching, the mere joy
Of preaching, of the utterance of ex-
preston.
The preacher who knows his own
conscience knows that he is never at
any time so near to the devil as when
he is in the pulpit, and all of us know
that if you take man of force, some
man who wields tremendous busi-
ness power, and If one dared to bet
on such a tragic thing one would
wager 100 to / that that man behind
his own door is a tyrant, a tyrant be-
cause the intoxication of power has
gone to his head.
But when it comes to strength In
bearing there is no allusion there.
When God has given us our burden
of pain, establishment and disap-
pointment, and when by His grace
and the sweet companionship2 of the
Saviour we have learned to so bear
our burdens that nobody but Gcd
ever knows what it is, to so bear it
that the burden in our hearts is
known only to God and not even to
our dearest friends and closest kin,
there is no illusion about that; no
egotiSm about that.