Norwich bulletin., 1918-03-18
HONORS MEMORY pr sT. PATRICK
Rev. Charles H. Ricketts Breaches Appropriate Sermon at Greenevile Congregational Ch.rch-Says Great Irish Leader Has Just Claim Upon Admiration of the Ages.

Sunday morning at the Greeneville Congregational church, Rev. c. H.
 Ricketts preached on The Immortality lcf a Great Life-St. Patrick taking
 his text from the S7th Psalm. 2sd verse: The steps of good man are ordered of the Lord.
 Mir. Ricketts said:
 l Tu see clearly what St. Patrick was and did. we must know something of the age in which he lived If we sfudy him rem the modern viewpoint we
 shall fail to gauge rightly how the conditions of his age, his hardships and the struggles contributed to his immortality. If his fame rests chief ly in the triumph of his great spirit our obstacles that were seemingly in- Isuperable. We must know something of those obstables. Things that make
 man great in given age oftentimes
 pass away with that age, but the in uer impulses which urge a man to clear away the barriers which lie in 1 his path to success are seen today as ] truly as ever. The manner in which Largon and Caesar fought for world dominion differed from the kaiser's, !, but the cruel spirit to crush humanity | Ky brute force is the same with the znodern Hun as it was with the ancient I Roman. It is only the form of pagan i ism that dies, it's spirit lives. So it 1 is in spiritual warfare. The methods
 used by St. Patrick to bring his peo- l pie into the marvellous light of the Christ were not those used by Beecher l and other modern apostles, but the earnest spirit on the part of both to
 bring man back to fellowship with
 God which he lost through sin is the same.
 Tlk s.1~r 4sO,z period of the worlds history; when a
 great personality was needed to give direction to both the material and spiritual interests of men. His whole career emphasizes the fact that when
 the Almighty has a big thing toedo He
 raises up man big enough to do it, and sometimes it is the weak things of the earth-humanly speaking-that confound the mighty. Human history fairly gleams with radiant spirits who seem to have been born for special Emergencies. Moses. clad with the wrath of God. was raised up to snaite the cruel hand that strangled his un- fortunate people: but he was also the great constructive agent who gave. to his fellows laws and freedom after they had been reeking for four hundred 1 years in the foul atmosphere of slavery and ignorance. David was, called up-
 on to. put the Hebrew people on to a firmer national basis. and he was so successful to coordinating moral and
 religious forces that his work became the basis sof the subsequent throne of ] great, David's Greater Son" The throne has not yet departed from Ju- dah.
 Order Out of Confusion. In like manner it can be shown that
 at every crisis of human history some great spirit has been. forthcoming big enough, under Gods guidance, to
 bring order out of confusion. Perhaps in our own troublous times, when all the forces of hell seem to be in the ascendant, it may be that the Lord ot All has in training some great soul who will be strong enough to crush the savagery of the Huns. The Mittel Re public of God must overcome the Nit tel Europa scheme.
 Such spirit as this conceive St
 Patrick to have been. Brought inte
 the world atsa time when mankind re- 1 fused to be any longer, throttled b!
 the arrogance of pagan Rome. he did
 his share in bringing darkened Ireland | into the light of Christian truth. St 1 Patricl stands before the world pre- eminertly as g. Christian apostle: 2 inlember of ttat shining band of dis