Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1910-01-20
DR.. M'CORMACK'S
FINAL SERMON

The Rev. William =. MCCORMACK,
pastor of the Grove Presbyterian
church for six years past, preached his
fiual sermon at that place of worship
Sunday morning. AT the close of
the service the puplit was formally de-
clared vacant.
The Rev. DR.. Mccormack has ac-
cepted call to the First Presbyterian
church at Lima, N. Y. Together with
his family he will leave Danville on
! Wednesday. Probably at no time i'll
the history of the Grove Presbyterian
church has there been pastor that
! has had a more firm hold on the affec-
tions of the people. The farewell SER
mon yesterday was listened to by a
large congregation. One heard many
! touching tributes to the ability, the
amiable qualities and the Christian
character of the retiring pastor, which
reflected the general high esteem in
which he is held.
DR.. Mccormack chose as his text,
Luke xiv, IS: II pray thee have me
excused. ="
After reviewing the great feast al
luded to in the text, the two-fold in
vitation extended and the different eX-
cuses offered by those who wished to
absent themselves the speaker proceed
ed to call attention to the fact that
there is something unnatural about
the parable. - 1t describes what would
never take place in actual life, and in
this respect it. is unlike the parable of
our Lord in general. You have only
to think of the parable of the prodigal
son or the Good Samaritan or the
Pharisee and the Publican to realize
how delightfully."- natural the parallels
of our Lord in general are.
They belong to the region of the inn
agination, but the meaning is never
| forced, the incidents are never arbitr-
airy. They are transcripts from real
life. You would never have heard of
all the people who were invited to
feast with one consent" making ex-
cuses. People are all anxious to go to
feast. Sometimes they will compass
land and see to get an invitation. But
this unnaturalness is the most marked
| feature of the truthfulness of the par
able. 1t brings out the fact that peo-
| pie who in the ordinary affairs of life
act with good sense in religion often
act as if they had parted with their
senses In ordinary affairs men look
| to their own interest and they are far
! sighted enough to see what will be to
their own advantage, but in religion
they are often blind, and, although
they know their eternal interests are
! involved, will not look in that direc-
| tion.
1t is to feast we are invited. God
is the entertainer. Christ will be there.
! Those who sit down at that supper
will sit down with Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob and the choicest spirits of
| humanity. Heaven will be the ban
! quoting hall. The feast will last for
ages, yet we hear the invitation as if
! it were of an entirely opposite char
acter, painful, melancholy, repellent.
None of the reasons which prevent
ed the invited from attending the
great supper were vicious, yet they
detained them from the great supper
just as effectually as they could have
done had they been the greatest
crimes. The preacher from the pulpit
nearly always speaks as if the people
were kept from Christ by sin, and,
therefore, he calls upon the drunkard
to give up his drinking, the thief to
give up his dishonesty, the liar his
falsehood No doubt people are kept
from Christ by sin. The bosom sin,
which he will not part with, shuts the
ears of many man to the gospel, yet
the thing which keeps men and wo-
men from Christ may not be of that
sort at all. 1t may be lawful, honor
able, beautiful. l presume that Jesus
intended the excuses which these three
men made to be typical of the hind
RANGES by which human beings are
kept from accepting the gospel. The
first was n land owner. He had attain
ed the serenity and dignity of opul-
ence, and he belonged to a class whose
place in this world is so pleasant that
they do not need to think of another
world. In the lap of opulence they
forget their eternal destiny. The Sec
ond man had bought yoke of oxen.
He on the contrary represents strug
gle; how often such men say they
have no time to give to religion. They
do not despise nor contradict it, but
they say it must wait. The third hind
ance is the love of home. Can these
sacred and silken bonds keep the soul
of man from Christ? Alas they can.
The intoxication of love may i'll itself
, be such a paradise that no other para
disc is thought of. Husband or wife
a may so fill the home with worldliness
{ that religion can find no entrance
: there.
< In his final remarks ON the parable,
=. DR.. Mccormack declared that every
;. one of these excuses was pretense.
r The land owner could have viewed hi.