The Parisian. (Paris, Tenn.) 1907-1962, 1920-09-24
DIR. GARLAND SAYS
NO CHRISTIANITY
PLACE FOR "SELF"
Evangelist At First Baptist Church
Calls Self -Centered Christians
To Task.
CAPACITY AUDIENCES ARE
ATTENDING BIG MEETINGS
Certain To Be Blessing To Town;
All Churches Contributing To
Revival Meeting.

Christianity is the mott practical
thing on the face of the GLOBE de-
clared DR. R E Garland, in his open
ing remarks Sunday morning at the
beginning of the series of revival
services now attracting large and in
terested audiences to both n orning
and evening services at the church.
DR. Garland is Virginian, with
truly attractive Southern personality
and impresses his hearers with
deep Christian sincerity. Ills meet
ing is certain to be blessing of the
town, if as he said on Sunday morn
ing, it receives the support of the
people. He asked that the people
cooperate with their attendance at
the services, with their earnest pray
ers and with talking up the servi-
ces."
"Any six persons can talk this
meeting out of town." said the evan
gelist, "and unless the Christians of
this church and community pray
honestly and faithfullv for the meet
ing's success, we had as well sing
the doxology now and be dismissed"
DR. Garland insisted that he did
not deal in personalities, but that
if ga rock hit anyone, to remember
that it was Gods rock, and that
Gods rocks never swerved." He
took for the subject of his initial SER
mon, Practical Christianity" His
Biblical text was from 2 Cor. 500.
Fn Christ's Stead" The beautiful
spirit of his talk was that, "Faith
without Works is dead" In begin
ming he said that big trouble with
Christianity today was, that it was
not made practical, that Christ's re-
ligion was seven eighths practical.
A strong point brought out was
that "Christ did not prove Gods love
and its wonderful POWER by preach
ing, teaching or profession, but by
deeds and acts" and the speaker
plainly demonstrated that love of God
and the Christian spirit were made
manifest through works; that doing
something for another, helping an
other, was practical Christianity.
"a Christian is representative,
an ambassador of Gods government.
God reveals his love thru man. The
ungodly man does not see the hand
of God, the hand of love in creation.
God does not reve al himself to- the
unrighteous. In the Old Testament
before the coming of Christ, the "be-
loved" Som of God it was all "thou
shalt not" but following Christ, the
Spirit of Christianity became, 1--WE
love Him. because He first loved rs"
affirmed DR. Garland.
"You say you are a Christian"
continued he, "God says prove it by
your acts, deeds, charity. The heart
touch of love can heal the most mis-
cradle soul leprosv. Sympathize
with the sorrowing; help the suffer
ing; brighten the world around you
by carrying sunshine and joy where
you CO." Truly beautiful doctrine
that DIR Garland expounds! His
words were interspersed with graphic
and appealing incidents of Gods
love revealed through deeds. He
cited several miracles in this connec-
tion-the healing of the leper, the
raising of the widows boy, and the
feeding of the five thousand-ail po-
tent proofs of Gods great love and
sympathy for humanity.
In closing, DR. Garland said that all
God required Of anyone was to do the
best he could; that God didn't ask
for what one didn't have, or for
what one couldn't do, that the results
for faithfulness followed Gods
glorious thought, "Do the best you
camp He explained that to meet
this responsibility a person must
get away from self. that God couldn't
use to the full, a self conferred Chris
tian; that the Christianity that was
bigger than self, was bigger than
the Christ who brought it, and that
self had NO place in Christianity.