The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-06-08
THE PULPIT.
A BRILLIANT SUNDAY SERMON BY
DR.. WILLIAM T. PATCHELL.
Thcme: Testimony of a Man.

F1rSC COnSreSdtlOnai CHURCH NeFeI
preached on THE Testimony of a
Man" The text was from Isaiah
40:9-11. DR.. Patched said:
So far as man is concerned, the
master problem is the question OF
his place or standing in the universe.
He wants to know whether he is a
machine or a god. Is he a cunningly
contrived piece of mechanism, assem-
bled by the four winds and organized
by the sun, or Is he a free creative
personality? His conquest of the
soil, his control of the great nature
forces, his adaptation and adjust
ments, his analysis and synthesis, wit
ness his oneness with the physical
universe; but he handles it rather as
a creator, as a god, and his very sue
cess sets him apart from that he con-
trolls. So, too, when he investigates
and Classics the forms of life, he
discovers that he is, and is not, one
with that he reveals.
We read: And the man gave
names to all cattle, andNto the birds
of the heavens, and to every beast
of the field; but for man there WAS
not found a helpmeet for him" To
have such lightning utterance blaze
out of the dim past end take its place
at the head Of our proud modern SCI
ence is significant and tremendously
interesting, for it states as a fact
that which our science is rapidly veri-
flying, that by way of knowledge man
does but isolate himself. He tells the
stars, but himself he cannot tell.
He Classics all forms of being except
himself. He generalizes everything
but that which ~generalizes. The
greater his knowledge, the darker
the problem he himself becomes, for
cit is evident that he is excepted who
did subject all things unto him" He
isolates himself. He is dark with eX-
cess of light. He is escaped from a
universe to which he is organically
and vitality related, for to his confu-
sion he learns that in all the wide
ranges of creation there is mot found
a helpmeet for him; that this uni
verse of life and matter duplicates
a deeper undiscovered universe to
which something within himself re-
acts; that except he discover and re-
late this unknown within himself to
this unknown without himself, he
must surely die. And henceforth his
quest is become the mad search for
that which shall be "bone Of his bone,
flesh of his flesh" He must find an
other being like himself If yer he is
to discover himself, for he must de-
termine and define himself in terms
of another.
The challenge is imperious, and SO
terrible that he can find no rest. He
must go forth! To it he will sacri-
flee every interest and subordinate
every desire. His own body he
pierces; his first born he Stays. In
darkness, in cold, in pain, in wild Joy,
he seeks to liberate this awful pas
sion which smolders in his bones like
fre-ne must find another being like
unto himself-one compacted of his
own u~nrevealed being-and his lone
ly cry, What am II" leaps across
the abyss. He searches the spaces
for God.
This need he call spiritual. He
declares that within himself lie GER
tain imperious qualities and energies;
love, joy, truth, peace; that these
must discover and relate to another.
spirit, else life shall turn to ashes.
So we witness in the long process Of
development that man, every man in
some measure, tries to interpret the
secret of his spiritual. being. The
philosopher, the artist, the statesman,
the poet, the scientist, the theologlan
these are the outstanding one who
have given themselves to the utter
most in this mad quest.
For the analysis Of star-dust, the
classification of fishes, the Iliad, the
Parthenon, the proposed Rockefeller
Charter, Stanford University, the
Constitution, Mrs. Wigs, Hull
House. the altar, the ritual, the sacri-
flee, what are these but the far-fung
challenge to the universe?
: Out from these many striVings and
groupings energies one unique and sig
nifcant figure, which by it's persist
ency witnesses above all others to
the solidity and strength of the spir-
it's need. 1t is the speaking-prophet,
whose conventional expression IN
modern life is the man in the pulpit.
When we go to church Sunday
morning we accept the pulpit as we
accept most things-without much
thought. If we give it thought, we
see at once that back of the pulpit
stands the church. Were we to ques-
ton the presence of this church and
pulpit very likely we would say that
we wanted a church and then built It;
that we decided to organize, to build,
to have a choir. a j%anitor, perhaps a
ventilating system, ushers, a Bible
school, a prayer meeting, Sunday SER
vices, a pulpit, a preacher.
But this is not true. Back OF q
church lies a long historic process,
without which no church could be
organized to-day. Out of the clash
of innumerable interests the church
emerges, not as an arbitrary creation
but by way Of a selective process.
BY selection and rejection it bears
witness to certain powerful and per-
sistent human meanings. 1t sums up
a history; it becomes at last a SYM
Dol.
The organized universe as man sees
it is very transitory. Like clouds in
the air, the systems take shape and
disappear. Nothing is stable, nothing
remains. You recall that only the
other night We were reused from
early sleep by the house rocking on
its foundation. I leaped to the floor
only to find it twisting horribly under
my feet. Even as I called to the dear
ones, and CROPPED my way through the
Keeling building, I had a vision in the
darkness of some vast unhuman being
of orothnr nrnnfinn rhn hn1 ctr0 tynH