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THE PULPIT.
i'll
A SCHOLARLY SUNDAY SERMON BV
DR. W. L. DAVISON.
Theme: Christ’s Way.
Brooklyn, N. Y.—Sunday morning
the new pastor of the Fleet Street M.
E. Church, the Rev. Dr. William L.
Davison, began his ministry there.
He was appointed from Jamaica to
replace the Rev. E. G. Richardson,
who went to Bristol, Conn. He was
cordially received. The subiect of
his sermon was “Christ’s Way.” The
text was taken from John 14: G: “I
am the way, the truth and the life.”
Dr. Davison said:
These words were spoken to
Thomas. This man stands in the
eyes of many as the New Testament
type of the honest doubter. As to
his doubt or his real desire to be
sure- that is a matter of viewpoint
and interpretation. This, however, is
true—he was not of that Old Testa
ment type represented as the fool,
saying: “There is no God!” There is
a vast difference between the man
who, in his heart, gives utterance to
such blasphemy and the man who
desires to have unimpeachable evi
dence. The one would be glad to
have Deity blotted out. The existence
of a holy God who cannot look upon
evil with any degree of allowance is
a constant reproach to his evil heart
and way, and a menace to his man
ner of life. He, therefore, would
shout for joy if omnipotent justice
could be obliterated.
Thomas, on the other hand, repre
sents that resplendent type of intel
lectual manhood that really desires
to find solution for the fondest wish
of his heart. Therefore, when he
comes to Jesus with his questionings
he comes as the type of questioner
who really wishes a solution of his
intellectual and spiritual problem.
And so I bring this text as an answer
to the man who is a seeker of the
true way of life —as to the axiom of
truth and as to the solution of any
life’s problems that may confront
his progress.
Now, we are perfectly familiar
with what Jesus meant when He said:
“I am the life.” We may not under
stand precisely the process of that
life that comes from Him; it is the
mystery of mysteries; it is the entire
outgiving of the regenerating life of
God, and who can enter into the
deeper counsels of the Most High?
Nicodemus desired to know how these
things could be —he a master in Is
rael and leader of the Jewish faith —
yet Jesus Christ gave him no satis
faction. Perhaps it was because of
the limitation and poverty of the hu
man intellect.
We know something of what Jesus
meant when He said,“lam the truth.”
There must be some standard, some
infallible court of appeals by which
men may judge the varying hypo
theses that have been exploited by
the human intellect. When we come
to Jesus Christ we realize that He
Himself is the last solution ef the
vexing and changing problems of all
time. So I say, we have some con
ception of this aspect of the text.
But what did the Christ mean
when He said “I am the way?” It is
here that we must recall those un
translatable terms of Scripture, terms
that baffle the student of language as
he attempts to bring over the full
meaning of one language to another.
For example, the Scriptures contain
words that cannot be perfectly ren
dered in our English tongue. When,
on the morning cf the resurrection,
Jesus said to Mary Magdalene. “Kab
boni,” we must understand its his
torical setting in order to even faintly
grasp its meaning, and the translators
bring over the word bodily into our
English version.
When Jesus, in the garden, uttered
that word “Abba,” the nearest ap
proach we have to its pathos cf mean,
ing is our tender expression “papa,”
and here again we have the word in
the original. The same is true ot
that form of divine despair, “Eloi,
Eloi, lama sabachthani.” One of tho
great works on the third person of
the blessed Trinity is entitled tho
“Paraclete,” and so in this category
■we place this word “the way” a.id
might show by numerous Scriptural
citations that it is not our English
term of the manner or direction of
one’s going.
In our ordinary life we say of a
man his way is attractive or repul
sive. We cannot further define this
attraction or repulsion. It is simply
that there is a somewhat about his
personality that is either good or evil
in our sight. It is not what we do, it
is not what we say, it is what we are
that counts mightily in our relation
to mankind. In our religious life we
are coming to the place where the
phraseology of religious expression
is a matter of very small moment; it
is not creed but character that counts.
Indeed, I believe that this is but a
reversion of type, for the early Chris
tians, the primitive followers of the
Christ, were known as “those of the
way,” and Scripture gives us numer
ous expressions that might shed some
light on certain aspects of the impor
tant truth contained in this term.
For example, “There is a way that
seemeth right unto a man. It is
possible for us, though we may not
fully portray the majesty of meaning
contained in this title word to em
phasize certain aspects and ideals
of Him who said, “I am the way.”
Thus by studying the Christ we may
affirm that Christ’s way is a pleasant
way. I shrink not from saying that
the fundamental craving of the hu
man heart is for pleasure. Not that
pleasure that, tendeth unto % ice.
Christ’s way, if be God’s wav, must
be a way that is pleasant. It is true
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that He was a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief, but this is
only the half truth, and the other
aspect of this way is recorded in
that Scripture, “In Thy presence is
fullness of joy, at Thy right hand are
pleasures for evermore.” We may
have much tribulation, we may be
born to trouble, we may confront an
tagonism and temptations severe, but
underneath all and above all is that
consciousness, that serenity of spirit,
that will glory in tribulation and
count it all joy when we are led into
divers temptations.
Did not our Saviour say in that
matchless allegory of the vine, “These
things have I spoken unto you that
My joy might remain in you and that
your joy might be full?” It is per
fectly apparent also that this way is.
an attractive one. All the virtues of
human experience are here found.
The blossoms and perfumes of the
best life here abound. The glorious
foliage of human heroism and kind
ness that make beautiful the history
of the race is here discovered in pro
fusion. Here are the philanthropies,
here are the deeds of service and sac
rifice, that gladden the heart of man
and relieve it from selfish paganism,
so that even a follower of Charles
Darwin, because of intellectual diffi
culties of creedal statement upon
leaving the organized institutions of
Christianity, said: "I am sorry to gc ”
Wherever this way is paramount,
the deserts of human baseness speed
ily blossom as the rose.
We also say that this way is a way
of solid satisfaction. There are no
dissatisfied ones here. Any man who
looks and listens will discover a great
deal of dissatisfaction in this world.
The numberless suicides, the thwart
ed ambitions, the shattered hopes,
reiterate the experience of one of old,
“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
But, on the other hand, the devout
follower of the Christ utters no wail
of complaint. He exclaims in a shout
of triumph, “The path of the just is
a shining light that shineth more and
more unto the perfect day.”
Once again, let me say that this
way of our Christ is a reasonable
way. It is not true that we must bid
farewell to reason and violate the hu
man intellect when we become fol
lowers of the Christ. Ever since the
Wise Men of old brought the gifts of
gold and frankincense and myrrh to
the feet of the infant Christ, the in
tellectual aristocracy of the centuries
has been bringing its choicest produc
tions into His service. The intellect
may be transcended. It is never
transgressed. We oftentimes come to
the border land where reason ends
and faith takes the torch to its ulti
mate goal; but never is it necessarv
to violate the God-given blessing of
the human mind in order to become
a consistent follower of the Man of
Galilee.
And now I might emphasize other
aspects of this way in that it is the
way of safety for the individual as
well as for organized society. If we
are standing upon the immutable
truths of the Christ, w T e may exclaim:
“The eternal God is our refuge and
underneath us are the everlasting
Arms!” It is the way of life and not
the way of death, and blessed be
God, this way of pleasure and attract
iveness and satisfaction and reason
and safety and life is accessible —not
upon the ground of any patent of hu
man nobility, not upon the basis of
material possession, but upon the
broad and gracious invitation of Him
who not only said: “I am the way.”
but who also said: “Come unto Me
all ye that labor and are heavy laden
and I will'give you rest.”
And so we bring our questioning,
with Thomas, to the Christ and find
in Him a solution and an answer,
and we get some faint conception of
the commanding spiritual eminence
occupied by St. Paul when he said:
“For me to live is Christ.”
Persifiage and its Reward.
The farmer's wife frowned at the
hip young vagabond.
"You seem remarkably fresh.” she
ssaid.
'“Yes’m,” re replied, “I’m just out
of cold storage.”
Whereupon she gave him a bowl or
dematured mincemeat.
London, in monetary value, is
worth two, and half times as much as
Paris.
Something New.
"The stomach is not a vital organ,”
said a doctor at an inquest. “A per
son can get on quite well without
one.”
This suggestion for anew opera
tion comes just at the right moment.
Society was getting tired of having
its appendix removed.
An aeroplane in which seamless
steel tubing takes the place of wood
or bamboo in the frames and planes
has proved a success in Germany.
FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION.
11. . i
Ld' laii
—Cartoon by C. R. Macauley, in the New York World.
ASSERTS NO CITY CAN BE “CLOSED.”
Mayor Whitlock, of Toledo, in Remarkable Letter, Discusses Lav/ Em
forcement—He Answers Church Inquiry About Laws.
Toledo, Ohio.—Contending that
practically all crime is the result of
involuntary poverty and that the en
forcement of laws not backed up by
public sentiment is little short of im
possible, Mayor Brand Whitlock, in a
letter to several representatives of the
Federation of Churches, defends his
administration in this city. He as
serts that no city can be really “closed
up.” Although the Mayor’s defense
is in epistolary form, it is in reality
an elaborate essay in which the his
tory of human institutions has been
traced to earliest days and for which
has been assimilated the wisdom of
Cato, Demosthenes, Kant, Jeremy,
Bentham, Savigny, Blackstone, Ralph
Waldo Emerson and William Dean
Howells.
Mayor Whitlock tells why he be
lieves the poor people are driven by
economic pressure to “shatter to bits
everywhere the little minor laws re
stricting their enjoyments on Sun
days;” he tells why “women are
driven on to the street and into
dives;” he tells why “gambling in sa
loons will always persist while bridge
whist parties flourish in other quar
ters,” and while stock gambling, too,
“is practiced so brazenly everywhere
in the country;” he tells why people,
tired after a long week’s work,,“have
a right to their entertainment at the
theatre and at the ball game on Sun
day,” and he even tells why saloons
are permitted to operate on Sunday,
quietly and behind curtains, so as
not to offend those otherwise inclined.
He asks what he is to do with the
women on the streets, and answers
his own question with two more—are
they to be driven into the brothel or
into the river, or out of this town into
another, cr will the good people who
want them chastened and driven out
and punished take them into their
own homes, or actually do something
to help them? Mayor Whitlock seem
ingly is satisfied that there women
will not reform or go to work unless
society, which condemns them, is will
ing to help them. He asks what right
Toledo has to foist its bad people on
its sister cities.
Enforcement of those laws dealing
with acts that are wrong merely be
cause prohibited and which do not
offend the universal conscience, Mr.
Whitlock says, involves disorder —
even riot—and begets bitter hatreds.
Gambling will go on in saloons and
other resorts, he asserts, while bridge
whist is permitted in society. There
will be drinking over bars as long as
wine is served in the homes of the
rich. There will be Sunday baseball
and other forms of outdoor sport as
long as those who assail them most
bitterly themselves demand and con
nive at such violation of Sunday labor
and other laws that serve their own
selfish purposes. Unfortunate women
will flock the streets of the cities,
the Mayor believes, as long as they
are barred from honest means of live
lihood —in fact, as long as women are
kept in a state of economic depend
ence upon man.
Hits “City Slanderers.”
Among the most evil forces in a
city Mayor Whitlock places the “cow
ardly and indiscriminate” slanderers
of a city’s good name. He asserts
that in Toledo certain classes which
have feared the loss of unjust privi
leges have tried to darken the issue
by charging that the city was “wide
open” and that vice here was on the
increase. This is denied in almost
the same breath in which it is as
serted that neither this city nor any
other, cn this side of the millennium,
ever will attain the purity and excel
lence the academic reformers demand.
“A Mayor is not a beadle, nor a
public mentor, nor a censor of the
morals, acts and opinions of others,”
says Mr. Whitlock. “Nor is he to
constitute himself a spy and go peep
ing and prying about violations of
the law.” The administration is not
for the best people alone, he says,
nor for the wisest, but for good, bad
and indifferent, whose wishes are
crystallized in what is called public
sentiment.
“Crusades” against violators of un
popular laws have always failed, says
Toledo’s Mayor. In proof of this he
cites as one historical example in the
United States the operations of the
“underground railroad” before the
Civil War, by means of which and in
defiance of the fugitive slave law
thousands of bondmen were smuggled
from the South to Canada by anti
slavery workers, to whom principle
formed a higher law than mere statu
tory enactment.
In his letter Mr. Whitlock speaks
sadly of the women of the streets,
pointing out that the problem is as
old as humanity, as old as sin. “They
cannot be driven into the river,” he
says, “or put to death at least any
faster than society itself drives them
into the river and puts them to
death.”
Gambling and Speculation.
As to the prevalence of gambling,
the Mayor says:
“Gambling, which is just one ex
pression of the spirit of speculation
that is rife in our land, is not a vice
of those who live off t.he labor of oth
ers, those who are engaged in produc
tive toil. It is indulged in rather by
those who do not earn money, but
merely gather or appropriate, often
by the subtle processes of the law, the
money that has been earned by oth
ers. Gambling is essentially a vice
of the idle.
“This spirit leads a certain few to
imagine that government Is made for
them and their personal interest, and
that it should give them the privilege
to exploit the labor of the many—to
take from them what they produce.
It expresses itself in speculative op
erations in stocks and bonds, and in
grain and produce, just as it ex
presses itself in the gambling that
goes cn in the clubs, in private homes,
at the whist table, at the poker table
and on the Stock Exchange.
“All of these forms of gambling
are abhorrent to me as they are to
you, and I am trying as best I can to
do away with them all by seeing to it
that the law shall cease giving privi
leges to the few in the way of fran
chises for street railways, gas com
panies, electric light companies, ex
orbitant tariffs, exemptions and the
like. These processes represent
gambling on an immense and sinister
scale, and are far more dangerous
than any other kind.”
Attacks the Pharisee.
In closing his letter, Mr. Whitlock
says:
“What I am trying to make clear
is that a statute cannot be fully en
forced in a community where the
public sentiment is opposed to it and
that where it is attempted to enforce
it there oftentimes results more evil
than good, more harm than benefit,
and that all kinds of disorders and
difficulties are brought upon us by
that attempt. ‘Law and order’ Is a
fine phrase, beloved by the pharisee;
law and order indeed are loving sis
ters who present a beautiful specta
cle of harmony, but statute and order
are not always synonymous, nor in
deed compatible. The law in any
community is the will of that com
munity, and according to my reason
and conscience and my principles I
deem it my duty to be guided by the
will of the people whom I represent.”
Members of the Church Federation
who signed the 'communication to
which the Mayer’s letter was a reply
say they have learned much as to the
history, theory and purposes of law.
Actors’ Fair Opened.
President Taft opened the Actors’
Fund Fair in New York City and then
went to Passaic, N. J., where he spoke
at the Board of Trade dinner, out
lining the legislation he expects Con
gress to pass.
EOCENE ANDERSON.
President Ga.-Ala Bu*ines College. Macon. G*.
Piohop O. K. Noltnn. of Oporglu. wril* from At
lanta. da.. April IK WO. a. follow.:
"I with tn rnl'licly viprowi m> appreciation or too
work a t the Georgia Alabama Bnal College.
Macon. Gi.. from which inrt tatlon two of ourroong
woman from tha Appleton Church Home. at Macor•
hare recently bean etjnlpped for an honorable ana
(Miccottaftil livelihood, and where we now hare “<*“•
er We hare found thia college mod generou. in Its
dealing", and I am convinced that it* work i
thorough.** _
DESERTS EGGS FOR KITTENS.
Miss Minnie Thayer, of Clifford,
Tnd., owns a hen which deserted a set
ting of high priced eggs and gave her
entire time and attention to caring for
three kittens that were in a box near
her nest. The hen can not be induced
to return to the nest. The mother cat
and hen get along well together and
divide the time between them of
caring for the kittens.
The practical joker is the man who
marries on the first of April.
A GRATEFUL WOMAN.
Has Only One Kidney, But is Sound
and Well.
Mrs. L. Wick, 257 Dewey Ave.,
Plttrfield, Mass., says: "I ran down
in health until I only weighed 95
e pounds. Finally a
consultation of
doctors was held.
They decided I had
a fibroid kidney
and said it must
be removed. I had
the operation and
came out of the
hospital as sick as
ever. At last It
was my good for
tune to begin using Doan’s Kidney
Pills. They strengthened the remain
ing kidney and increased my weight
to 121 pounds. I have no more
trouble.”
Remember the name—Doan’s. For
sale by all dealers. 50 cents a box.
Foster-Milburn Cos., Buffalo, N. Y.
Whistler’s Friendships.
That Whistler, the man of famous
enemies, had faithful friends, Is re
tailed by Ford Madox Hueffer, writ
ing of the Pre-Raphaelites, in Har
per’s Magazine. Madox Brown had a
tircular printed drawing the attention
of all his old patrons to the merits of
Whistler’s etchings, and begging
them in ths most urgent terms to
make purchases because Whistler
was in indigent circumstances. The
jtory is that upon one occasion
Madox Brown, going to a tea-party
t the Whistlprs’ in Chelsea, was met
In the hall by Mrs. Whistler, who beg
ged him to go to the poulterer’s and
purchase a pound of butter. The
bread was cut, but there was nothing
to put upon it. There wa no money
In the house, the poulterer had cut
off his credit, and Mrs. Whistler said
she "dared not send her husband, for
he would certainly punch the trades
man’s head.”
Secretary Meyer’s Idea of using oil
Instead of coal fuel on hattle ships
* * * would probably raise the
steaming radius, give more room
aboard ship, reduce crews, cut off
smoke and save time. Many of the
big new freighters, argues the Bos
ton Record, are using oil as fuel. and.
the battle ships are being equipped
with auxiliary oil burning apparatus.
It would not take much to establish
it as a final fuel.
A BreaKfast
Joy—
Sweet, Crisp,
Golden-Brown'
Post
Toasties
Ready to serve fromfth<?
package with cream—
cooking necessary.
“The Memory Lingers*/ v
Fkg*. 10c uni 15c.
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