Arizona republican., 1911-06-05
CROWD FILLS
 AUDITORIUM Bishop Atwood Breaches
 Sermon BaCCa|aureate TEMPE NORMAL STUDENTS
Hear Helpful Sermon on Text from Matthew - Ministers of City Take Part-Quartet Music I'm portant Part of Service.

The graduating class of the Tempe normal. with more than six hundred people of the city, heard Bishop J. w. Atwood preach the baccalaureGte ser mon last night in the new normal au- ditorium. IL is believed that Fever be- ! fore has a religious service drawn such crowd in Tempe as came to hear Bishop Atwood. Rev. NJ Thompson. of the Christian church. Rev Mir. Fisk of the Methodist Episcopal church, and Rev. MT. Hardin, of the Congregational church, took part in the service, and a number Of anthems were sung by d quartet made up of J. L. Johnson, Miss McNeill, Curt Miller and Miss Palmer ! Prominent in the audience was A J. Matthews, the president of the normal Bishop Atwood preached from the lteXt, taken from St Matthew. Yiii:2I-22 And another of His disciples said un- to Him. Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father, but Jesus said unto him, Follow me. and let the dead bury their dead"
 He said:
 The command of Jesus to His new disciple who asks for the privilege of burying his father before he takes up the new work to which he has been called sounds harsh and grating in our ears, in its outward expression. and demands some explanation Reverence for parents. love and obedience towards them ranked high among the virtues of the ancient world Absolute authori- ty was vested by the Roman law in the parent. The murder Of d father by Ihis son was so far unknown and even unthinkable that the Latins had no word for it. It was later age that in- troduced the word 'parricide" into our language
 The piOuS AeneaS refers not to what We would call piety. but simply to the reverence, affection and devotion that the hero of Virgil's great epic paid to his father. Among the Hebrews rever- ence. obedience, love to paren,s was a cardinal article of faith. as 1t is even today among their descendants. It was placed high up in the sacred decalOgue, and through all the Christian ages that have succeeded, Honor thy father and
 
 all the emphasis and clearness of a primeval and eternal law that was giv- en by God himself among the thun- ders of Mt. Sinai to the great law giver of his nation from whom the law mak- CTS of all later ages have drawn their inspiration and their power.
 Why. then. we ask. should Jesus him self, who came not to destroy but to fulfill the law. to sweep away the sub tie distractions and petty explanations that had grown up about the Mosaic law, and to interpret it with new free dom and meaning, why should he ap- parently come into conflict with this sacred command which finds it's justi- fication in the deepest instincts of the human heart. He himself showed that love and devotion to his human parent age when amid the awful suffering and pain of the cross. he commended his mother in unforgotten words to the care and protection of his dearest dis ciple. And, yet. at times. he showed that even a higher duty might come in conflict with this divine law. Was there not a rebuke to his mother in the great scene in the temple when the youthful Christ declared that he must be about his Fathers business, as there was later in his ministry when she sought to oppose the divine plan?
 The explanation is an easy one. In Gods kingdom. there can be no divided allegiance. no half-hearted service. You cannot serve two masters To the young nobleman. he gave the hard baf h. oh n1 -al all that he had and give to the poor. and then take up his cross and follow Him. This counsel. which was not giv- en to other rich men who became his disciples. but which was intended to test the spirit of this young man, who like most of us. was willing to make a certain sacrifice. but not to make the complete consecration of all that he was and all that he had, was too hard a saying for him to receive. and SD he turned sadly away and made what Dante has well called the great re- fusal'
 It was necessary indeed that Phillip, whom tradition says was the disciple in the present illustration of our text, and that the other disciples should learn this hard lesson. that the service of Christ. our Master. must be su- preme above all other service. If Oth CT laws. if other duties apparently come in conflict with it. then they must yield in submission to it. It is the call of service of duty, of honor, of truth. which cannot be disObeyed.
 But in these modern days. it has