Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1915-08-26
ATROPHY OF SOUL
is TOPICS TOPIC
Local Pastor Delivers Stirring Ad-
dress to Gathering at Milan
Camp Meeting.
sAMs0S's FAILURE TYPICAL
Old Testament Hero An Example Of
How Powers are Lost II They
are Unused.

stirring sermon delivered in the at
teTnoon by Rev ". ri. Tope, pastor Of
the Spencer Memorial church of this
city The subject OF the sermon was
The Atrophy Of the Sour and was
based on the story OF Samson's. fail
ure as summed up in Judges 1920,
He tSams0n) knew not that Cod had
departed from him. and a new tesla
ment parallel text, Matt. 6.23, IF the
light that IS IN thee be darkness, how
great is that darkness The speaker
said in part:
Il wonder If we realize what sol
emn facts are wrapped up il these
texts one the inspired utterance of an
os& testament saint The other falling
from the lips Of the blessed Christ
himself, centuries intervening: one the
voice Of God. the other the experience
Of man, but the truth they contain is a
universal Law. Samson was the Othel-
10 OF his age. the Hercules Of sacred
literature. In fact the story of the
Grecian Hercules may have had its
origin in the historical Samson Of the
bible. Samson lived in a time when
among men, when might made right
and every man did that which was
right in his own right. Like all men
God had given him a mission FL the
work and had equipped him for the
fulfilImeut of that mission He was
to deliver Israel and defeat the Phil
istines and for this task God had en-
d0wed him with supernatural strength
Secret Of Strength.
THE secret of any strong mans
strength is in his relation to God. We
see Samson going out Gods man with
the seal Of the Eternal upon him. the
pride of the army, the idol OF the ma
ton, and the trusted messenger Of
I God God is with him, every day and
he rules his own people for 20 years
bur suddenly his powers begin to
wane. his strength fails. the light of
his soul gives out and he is left with
out God and knows 1t not. His fall
was not sudden but very gradual He
never intended to reveal the secret Of
his strength and break his covenant
with God but he did. Possessed of an
unholy ambition and being by nature
a thirty-third degree sport be began
to trife with sacred things ana was
lured on step by step until at last ne
went out from DeliIsb's presence a
ruined man, yet he said, this is moth
ing, I only have to shake myself and
my strength will return hut God was
gone from him and the sad thing about
/ it was he knew It not
Samson was blind but Milton has
we'll said, An inner blindness had gone
before his outer blindness ana left his
soul in darkness"
An Important Spiritual Law.
In making the application of the
story. Rev Tope said. The experience
Of Samson reveals to MS an important
spiritual law. The powers ana facuI-
/ ties Of the soul unused. atrophy and
! decay and we lose the power to use
them. In nature the wheat uuculHvated
! reverts to the wild rice and the beau
tifuI rose to the single wild variety. the
arm or eye unused soon loses its power
TO be used This law also applies to
our mental and spiritual nature.
/ Charles Darwin and George Eliot were
rated as agnostics; they were not the
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