St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1913-05-07
MORAL CONDITIONS
Rev. Paul D. Moody Gives Strong
Picture of What Churches Should
Do In This Community.


that awakened much interest and
presented a plain picture of some
things that should not be on Sun
day, April 81. The comment on it
seemed to warrant a wider hear
ing than it received and at
the editors request Mr.. Moody
furnished a copy of his ser
mon that such parts of it as we
desired might be published. We
fuller reproduction of it. He took as
his text the parable of the Good Sa-
maritan and said in part:
The Priest, The Levite and the
Samaritan
But notice this-the priest and
the Levite passed by. They were as
| they went good men. They were the
leaders of the people in things re-
ligiOus. But they were concerned
with other matters One was, it
has ben said, on his way to a relig-
ious convention to read a paper on
How to reach the masses" The
other was upon some errand of duty,
perhaps to rebuke a man for vio-
lation of the Sabbath or raise his
subscription for an addition to the
Temple. So they passed by the
wounded man in the gutter-each
thinking how lamentable it was
that such conditions existed in St.
JOhnsbury, Jericho 1 mean, and that
they ought to report the matter to
the proper authorities and some one
ought to do something about it. They
hoped so. 1t was a very terrible
thing to see. So they went on. Then
| 1r1f nd hn
didn't seem to have any plans in his
head. He didn't seem to see that
he was really encouraging the rob-
bers to rob men or foolish men to
go down over this some road.
snow said Jesus in con-
Guiding this story who was neigh
Dor to this mani"
What he wants us to see from this
story is simply this,-who our
Fneighbor is, that we have respon-
sibility, for the man upon whom the
robbers have fallen and have left
terrible sight by the side of the
road. Who is our neighbor, we
ask, and Jesus tells US that it is
really more to the point to ask who
isn't our neighbor. Dismiss then
from your mind the idea that this
story is told primarily as a working
plan of charitable behavior. 1t is
not 1t is only an answer to ques-
ton of who is the neighbor. A
clearer, palmer answer 1 do not
think it would be possible to find.
Lack of Brotherhood
Now the present-day tendency is
to deny this quite vigorously. We
say every man lives for himself; we
are free moral agents; we may
have a certain degree of benevolent
feeling toward mankind but do not
feel personally responsible. II am
not keeping books for you" man
replies. 1 am not responsible for
the conduct of this or that man and
the parable of the good Samaritan
was told just to- show the utter
incorrectness of this position. You
are responsible.
All men are brothers and the hor-
rible part about it is that we have
limited our conception of brother
hood to those people we are pleased
to consider good according to our
own miserable and narrow stand
ards. The first words recorded of
the first man born are these Gam 1
my brothers keeper" and when
we like Cain commence to question
this fact, we become his murderer.
1t is because there is murder in our
heart that we challenge this very
fact
Failure of the Churches
Now this fact more than anything
else accounts for these things
the condition which exists in st.
Johnsbury, the powerlessness of the
churches to cope with them, and
the indifference to the churches on
the one hand and that on the
churches, part to the unsaved on
the other. Jesus Christ has said
to us Love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, mind, strength and
soul and thy neighbor" and we have
started out to, but our conception
of our neighbor has been so limited
that we haven't loved him raising
the foolish question, WHO lis our
neighbor. And not loving our
neighbor we have been cold in our
love of God. And the evil has acted
and reacted until things are where
they are religiously and, while we
hear of conversions elsewhere, we
are untouched here, and while we
hear of showers of blessings, we are
dry and unwatered here. And, the
> consequence is, from our famine
we cry More love to Thee, more
love to Thee, oh Cod" and we do
not cry more love to our neighbors,
men and women who pass under
, the shadow of our steeple, but who
are untouched by the utterances OF
Christ or his church in their daily
lives and who, in a Christian town
I with noble traditions, live and die
like dumb beasts.
Conditions at Home
would like to speak of some OF
these conditions. Here is one. There
was needed only 46 votes last
March to swing this town to the Ii
cense column. And we should re-
: member that while many did not
vote at all, there we're many whose
I presence at the town meeting was
due to the peculiar interest attach
| ing to the school building vote at
| that time. That is significant and