The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-05-04
THE PULPIT.
AN ELOQUENT SUNDAY SERMON BY
REV. WALDO ADAMS AMOS.
Theme: Giants.

Rev. Waldo Adams Amos, associate
rector of the Church of the Holy
| Trinity, preached on Giants" The
text was from Genesis ga: 'There
were giants in the earth in o
| days" Mr.. Amos said:
There is a story by William Allen
White, a charming, picturesque story
of a young Ohio farmer and his bride,
who gathered together all their sub
stance and Jared forth into the great
West, seeking a new home and a
larger life in the land Of the setting
! sun. They acquire a farm IN Kansas
and here they establish their little
homestead, and through long years OF
toll and hardship they struggle on,
finding their Joy and consolation In
those stalwart boys and girls that
Providence has sent to bless their
| household. But through all these
| years the memory of the old home IN
the East never fades. When the days
work Is done and they sit around the
great, cracking log fire, then the
farmer and his wife wander back IN
fancy to those olden days and to that
fair State where they had lived long
wears ago. The farmers face lights
up as he tells the boys and girls OF
the rich, luscious fruit that grew in
the orchard, Of the myriad ears or
corn that were gathered from one
acre, and a eloquent as he tells
of the vast fields Of waving grain;
and then of the house Of his boyhood,
with it's great, spacious rooms and its
| ~far-reaching halls, with all its COM
forts and luxuries. Truly, twas a
wonderful country, that land where
we lived when we were young AS
the years go on they prosper, n
when the boys and girls are full
grown, the farmer and his wife de-
eide to go back and visit once again
the fair land of their youth. But, ah,
what a change time has wrought!
The old homestead seems small and
dingy and cramped. The vast orchard
of days gone by has become a wretch
ed dooryard and the fruit Is poor and
tasteless. The fields of waving grain
have become a market garden, and
before a week has passed the farmer
and his wife hasten back to the great
West, where they can breathe full
and deep and free.
I tell this story because 1t Illus
trates a common mental attitude.
There is an instinct in us humans
which prompts us to idealize the
past. We look back on the days gone
by, and our memory casts a halo
about them. We remember how, in
our boyhood years, the SNOW was
often ten feet deep and how 1t lay
upon the ground from November un-
til late in March. We remember how
life in those days was replete with
interest, how it was rich and deep and
full, and when we bark back to those
halcyon days of our youth, how dull
! and commonplace becomes the pres
ent day. The days of long ago be-
come to our fancy a golden age.
There were giants in the earth IN
those days.
This Is a universal human tendency.
The person who first conceived the
Garden of Eden story was simply CIV
f6g expression to this human inclina-
ton to idealize the past, to look back
to the dawn of human history and re-
gard - as a golden age. Milton rep
resents Adam as sitting in a leafy
bower making pretty speeches to his
fair consort, whereas in reality the
first man was probably a shaggy say
age, living in a den and giving eX-
pEession t % his wishes by means OF a
few elementary and i~narticulate
grunts. The same common impulse
of humankind to a lalo about
the past prompts the writer Of the
early chapters of Genesis to conclude
that there were giants in those days.
1t is particularly in the field of
things religious, in the realm OF
things spiritual, that we meet with
this tendency to idealize the past and
it's logical accompaniment, the ten
dency to disparage the present. We
hear people talking about the good
old times and then they go on to be-
wall the degeneracy of these days. ]
heard an address recently in which
the speaker contrasted this benighted
age with the days Of his youth. He
told Of the waning influence OF the
Sunday-school, of the secular school
which was every day becoming more
detached from things religious, Of
church doctrines and the catechism,
which had been relegated to the limbo
Of obscurity, and altogether things
were in a sorry plight. Our society
and our nation were drifting toward
the treacherous shoals Of modernism
and unless we revived the spirit of
eye olden time" we were doomed to
certain destruction. The speaker was
a fine, scholarly man and, so far as
he went, he read the signs Of the
times Alright, but he did not go far
enough. Church doctrines and cate
chisms have been relegated to the
limbo of %obscurity, and that is where
most of them belong. The secular
school is ceasing to give any religious
instruction, and, considering the great
diversity Of religious views repre-
scented by the pupils, that is as it
should be. But the trouble is that
the speaker who was deploring the
decline of religion and the lack of
dealism in our day was incapable of
p%erceiving any religion orany idealism
save that which manifested itself in
the same old way to which he had al
way been accustomed. If the giants
of to-day do not dress in exactly the
same way that giants used to dress
in the days of his youth, he Is dis
posed to deny that they are giants.
If we believe in a living God, and If
we believe that His eternal purpose
cannot fail, then our faith is too SUI
preme for us to admit that the world
of to-day is less religious than the
world Of our forefathers. Pure re-
1ioion and undef1ed ia this tO visit