The Penn's Grove record., 1915-09-10
TO HEAL The SOUL
Impossible to Misunderstood the
Purpose for Which Jesus
Came to Earth.

After all, u Lords supreme pur-
pose was to be a healer of souls. Had
the Pharisees understood that he was
a healer, they would not have been
surprised to find him among publicans
and sinners. But they judged Jesus
by themselves. They expected him
to have the same p~rejudices, the same
narrowness and the same contempt
for the socially and morally degraded.
Men are apt to make their own feel
ings the standard of moral judgment.
We common people have eternal rea-
sons for thankfulness that Jesus Christ
did not come as a priest, or a philoso-
pher, with the proud, narrow contempt
often characteristic of those who bear
these titles; but that he came as a
healer of souls, with broad, warm SYM
pathies and with an abiding faith in
all classes of men. This exposed him
to the censure of his contemporaries,
but has earned for him the gratitude
and love of all later ages.
That Christ came into the world as
a healer of souls has many lessons
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that Christianity is before all things a
religion of redemption. Its proper
vocation Is to lift the low. to raise the
fallen, to teach the ignorant the way
Of life, to set free those bound by SUI
perstition, to cleanse the moral leper
and to heal those who are spiritually
sick.
There Is In the natural heart of man
a terrible sel1shness and cruelty
which causes men to thrust the weak
to the wall, and often to trample
savagely on the fallen. Hounds bite
their sick brother in the kennel, and
the wolves tear the wounded n Of
the pack. Among savage tribes the
aged, the sick and the injured were
often killed or left to die. In polished
Greece and imperial Rome children
were exposed and slaves were merci-
lessly tortured. Christ taught the
world that this cruelty and hardness
of heart we're earthly and devilish. He
taught US once and for all the sacred
ness, not only of fine gifts and brilliant
intellects, but the sacredness of man
as man. He saw the soul of beauty
in things ugly, and the possible good
ness in things evil.
Few That Are Whole.
"They that are whole need not a
whole? We find many people who,
like the Pharisees, consider themselves
whole and certainly not in need Of a
physician. Perhaps you and l count
ourselves among the number who
need no help, who are perfectly salts
fed with u own morality. But the
day will come when we stand revealed
to our own sight in all our unworthi-
ness, and we realize that the cancer
Of sin has been eating at u very
heart. Some day we will understand
what Christ told the Pharisees, that
God will have mercy and not sacri-
fee.
Since Christ's supreme purpose in
coming was to heal souls, then it fol-
lows that his place was among the
publicans and sinners. They sneered
at him that day because he sat down
at table in Matthew's house with those
who were socially o~stracized and NOR
ally tainted. But if the Gospel of Je-
sus Christ is a saving gospel, then it
must go where it finds those who need
1t the most. When the church forgets
that, it ceases to be the true church
of the Good Physician. There is some
truth in the reproach which has been
directed at the church at different
times, that it has catered to the well
and the well to do. But I believe that
that time has to a great extent passed,
and that of late years the church has
been entering into a fuller apprecia-
ton of the spirit of the Master who
ministered into the worlds leprosy,
who healed the lame, the halt and the
blind spiritually as well as physically,
and who preached the Gospel unto the
poor.
Love Always First.
In this story Of the Good Physician
there is a great comfort for us all.
Christ's way with sinners was to
love them and to believe in their re-
coverability. He went among the out
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be to us an object lesson in the possi-
bility Of a restored humanity. When
we preach the Gospel to men, we there
by our faith in the Divine
something in them which will respond
to the Divine message which we bring
them. That is why Christianity is al
ways optimistic, and that is why the
church should always be optimistic.
having an abiding faith in the prog
ress and power of the Gospel. Jesus
said, 10, 1 am with you Away" and
is his love any less than when he
walked the earth, and is his power any
less than when he healed the sinners
of Palestine?
Cleanse thou me from secret
faults" was the cry of David of old.
He knew the heart of man, and he
knew his own heart. This prayer finds