Norwich bulletin., 1909-11-29
The Grace of Tenaoity Subject of Rev. c. H. Ricketts, Able Sermon Sunday Morning-FuneraI of Former Resi- dent-Local Mention.

An unusually powerful sermon was delivered before a large congregation by Rev. Charles H. Ricketts at the Greeneville Congregational church, Sunday morning. The subject was The Grace of Tenacity, and the text First Thes. 5:21, Hold fast that which is good.
 In substance Rev. MT. Ricketts said: This chapter is one of the big para graphs of the Bible. Every word seems to Quiver with nervous power. The greatness of this chapter consists in it's extreme simplicity. In this short and soulful feelings of a great spirit we get something that throbs and beats in unison with our own desires and spiritual passions. Remember, says Paul. that you have great spir- itual gifts and that it is your duty to strike out boldly into this great stream of human passion and work and strug- gle and prove your spiritual gifts by constant and strenuous service, and after you have proved them, then hold fast with all the tenacity of death.
 Paul was fully assured that the Christians greatest danger was right here. There was perhaps little prob ability that a person in whom the spir- it of God had worked nightly would switch off again into rank organism, or again become a gutter drunkard, a robber or libertine; but there was great danger that under the strain of disappointment, or sorrow, or strug- gle in a thousand ways, the hand might grow nerveless and palsied, and lose it's grip upon the eternal realities. In place of a strong and vital faith that tells men that they must work out their salvation there has been substi- tuted in many instances in our churches a sort of namy-pambyism that is a travesty on the doctrine of the Garden and the Cross. Without a shadow of a doubt our failure to hold up before strong men vital gospel that demands a moral heroism to the last atom of our strength is one of the potent reasons why so many have set their faces in disgust away from the churches.
 The plain fact is, as individuals and as churches, we have loosened our grasp of the eternal verities, and we are paying the penalty. To ease up our consciences we have substituted a sickly sentimentalism in the place of love as the Bible reveals it. We have made a feeble old grandmother of the Supreme Being who rules the world in justice and love. detest the spirit that seeks to find in the
 
 that will compromise guilty con- sciences at the expense of the truth Let us have the truth if it cuts to the bone.
 The Christian life with its direct ap- peal to hardship, sacrifice and self-de- nial is exactly what Paul refers to as "the good" The apostle Paul ran the whole gamut of human suffering for the sake of Christ. There are few greater names in all history than Mar tin Luther's, and his tenaeity of pur- pose was because he believed in the truthfulness of the cry that was go- ing throughout all Germany, 'The just shall live by faith.'
 But I think we see this tenacity oi purpose iE the common ranks of life Men and women in countless numbers by their daily living are proving al things. and are holding fast that whicf is good.
 In the evening Rev. MT. Rickettt spoke on Religion Tested by Proof from the text, Prove all things, Firs Thes. 5:21.