1902
To the best comes the time when their very good is evil spoken of. It takes goodness to understand goodness. The pure in heart see God, and only such can recognize the life of God when manifested in the saints. Few trials are more keen than the misrepresentation of goodness. An evil motive imputed to a saintly deed is as the sting of a serpent. The clouds of defamation lower at some time over every saintly heart. The life of the saint is hidden and cannot be understood by the worldling. "Sitting still" is the only possibility. Time exerts a remedial influence, and such remedy that it cannot exert the One to whom the saints are dead will. He will bring out our goodness as the light and our righteousness as the noonday. — Episcopal Recorder.
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Friday, March 14, 2008
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Pastor Pleaded for Dumb Animals
1901
Rev. Dr. Spalding, Who Preached First Sermon in America on This Theme, Urges Mercy to Beasts
Rev. Dr. George B. Spalding of the First Presbyterian Church yesterday morning preached a sermon on "Cruelty to Animals" in response to a request from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which asked the ministers of the city to preach upon the topic. The sermon, which was of especial interest, was heard by a large congregation.
Dr. Spalding said that religion, in the commandments and the beatitudes, takes in God and man and every living thing.
Dr. Spalding spoke in particular of the law of Sabbath rest in the Fourth Commandment, which he said was the most tenderly humane law of the decalogue, which God intended should apply not only to "every son and daughter of mankind aching, breaking under the strain of the ceaseless toil of the week; but more than this, rest for the cattle which share man's work and strain and suffering."
Turning from the decalogue of the Old Testament to the beatitudes of the New, Dr. Spalding said the same union of heavenly and earthly relations was to be found.
"The beatitude 'Blessed are the merciful,'" he said, "stands like a queen among the sisterhood of royal blessings. There is no humanity without such mercy; there is no religion without such mercy; there is no love to God without a love which takes on this mercy towards man and bird and beast." He then continued:
"I look back to-day on forty years of ministry. It is my satisfaction that I have ministered to many a human want and spoken in defense of many of my fellows' rights, and perhaps in some way have lessened 'man's inhumanity to man,' but I rejoice with a special joy that early in my ministry I preached a sermon on 'The Rights of Animals' which has been registered as the first sermon on the subject ever preached in America.
Tail Hocking and Pigeon Shooting
"But how much, how very much remains to be done before men and even women will be truly merciful. The very hardest task still remains to be accomplished — to win society, to win fashion to humanity and mercifulness. What shall we say when the slaughter of pigeons by the thousands and the slow dying of many of them with legs and wings shot away is still the spectacle of the meetings of the shooting clubs made up of wealthy and intelligent men of the State? What shall we say when the fashion of the day demands that the horses shall be maimed and tortured before they be counted fit for public display in the market and street?
"Oh, gentlemen, oh, tender women, how long shall the awful cruelty toward these your friends escape your better thought, your natural sensibility? There are those who mock at such sentiments as weak, as womanly. They would brush it all away by affirming that no great pain is really inflicted. I know of what I am speaking. With my own eyes I have witnessed the whole awful process of torture extending through days. I have seen the sweating agony which these noble creatures suffer to make them meet the style which a merciless fashion inexorably demands.
"Is sensitiveness to such distress a turn of flabby nerve? and moral cowardice? I take refuge from such a charge in the lives of the poet, the truth of which has been proved on battlefields and shell swept decks and in the face of death in its grimmest forms:
'The bravest are the tenderest —
The loving are the daring.'"
—The Post-Standard, Syracuse, New York, May 13, 1901, p. 7.
Rev. Dr. Spalding, Who Preached First Sermon in America on This Theme, Urges Mercy to Beasts
Rev. Dr. George B. Spalding of the First Presbyterian Church yesterday morning preached a sermon on "Cruelty to Animals" in response to a request from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which asked the ministers of the city to preach upon the topic. The sermon, which was of especial interest, was heard by a large congregation.
Dr. Spalding said that religion, in the commandments and the beatitudes, takes in God and man and every living thing.
Dr. Spalding spoke in particular of the law of Sabbath rest in the Fourth Commandment, which he said was the most tenderly humane law of the decalogue, which God intended should apply not only to "every son and daughter of mankind aching, breaking under the strain of the ceaseless toil of the week; but more than this, rest for the cattle which share man's work and strain and suffering."
Turning from the decalogue of the Old Testament to the beatitudes of the New, Dr. Spalding said the same union of heavenly and earthly relations was to be found.
"The beatitude 'Blessed are the merciful,'" he said, "stands like a queen among the sisterhood of royal blessings. There is no humanity without such mercy; there is no religion without such mercy; there is no love to God without a love which takes on this mercy towards man and bird and beast." He then continued:
"I look back to-day on forty years of ministry. It is my satisfaction that I have ministered to many a human want and spoken in defense of many of my fellows' rights, and perhaps in some way have lessened 'man's inhumanity to man,' but I rejoice with a special joy that early in my ministry I preached a sermon on 'The Rights of Animals' which has been registered as the first sermon on the subject ever preached in America.
Tail Hocking and Pigeon Shooting
"But how much, how very much remains to be done before men and even women will be truly merciful. The very hardest task still remains to be accomplished — to win society, to win fashion to humanity and mercifulness. What shall we say when the slaughter of pigeons by the thousands and the slow dying of many of them with legs and wings shot away is still the spectacle of the meetings of the shooting clubs made up of wealthy and intelligent men of the State? What shall we say when the fashion of the day demands that the horses shall be maimed and tortured before they be counted fit for public display in the market and street?
"Oh, gentlemen, oh, tender women, how long shall the awful cruelty toward these your friends escape your better thought, your natural sensibility? There are those who mock at such sentiments as weak, as womanly. They would brush it all away by affirming that no great pain is really inflicted. I know of what I am speaking. With my own eyes I have witnessed the whole awful process of torture extending through days. I have seen the sweating agony which these noble creatures suffer to make them meet the style which a merciless fashion inexorably demands.
"Is sensitiveness to such distress a turn of flabby nerve? and moral cowardice? I take refuge from such a charge in the lives of the poet, the truth of which has been proved on battlefields and shell swept decks and in the face of death in its grimmest forms:
'The bravest are the tenderest —
The loving are the daring.'"
—The Post-Standard, Syracuse, New York, May 13, 1901, p. 7.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Religious Thought — Gems Gathered From Denominations
1909
Conscience
A guilty conscience makes cowards of us all, but a clean conscience makes heroes of men. — W. P. Hines, Baptist, Lexington, Ky.
Woman's Purity
Like a calla lily so is the purity radiating from the character and life of a good woman, changing the atmosphere about her and making the world better for her having lived in it — Rev. W. M. Vines, Baptist, Brooklyn.
Revealer of Man.
The house is the revealer and developer of man. Beasts have dens, birds have nests, and men have homes. A man shows what he is by the kind of house he builds around himself. — Rev. Dr. Radcliffe, Presbyterian, Washington.
Fault Mending Time
Now is the time to fill up the valleys of carelessness by mending numerous little faults; also it is the fitting time to level the mountains of pride and practice the virtue of humility at all times. — Archbishop Keane, Roman Catholic, Dubuque, Ia.
Spirit of Wisdom
By the term "spirit of wisdom" is meant not merely a wise-spirit, though so much is, of course, implied, but a spirit which is essentially wise even in its temper and action. — Rev. C. W. McCormick, Methodist Episcopal, Brooklyn.
Soul Perfection
Virtue can never be accumulated by self seeking. No soul can come far on its way toward perfection until it shall devote its enthusiasm to the unselfish service of humanity, until it shall learn that its task is to reach every man. — Rev. Ira J. Houston, Congregationalist, Cleveland, O.
Church Valor Theories
We all need to be told now and then to get the cobwebs out of our brains. There are cobweb theories of life, false and foolish philosophies of life, possible only to those who have prostrated themselves before an idol of the theater. There is nothing virtuous in suffering for its own sake. God does not envy you your happiness. Pains which must be borne should be borne heroically. Don't be afraid to be happy. — Rev. Charles F. Aked, Baptist, New York.
Conscience
A guilty conscience makes cowards of us all, but a clean conscience makes heroes of men. — W. P. Hines, Baptist, Lexington, Ky.
Woman's Purity
Like a calla lily so is the purity radiating from the character and life of a good woman, changing the atmosphere about her and making the world better for her having lived in it — Rev. W. M. Vines, Baptist, Brooklyn.
Revealer of Man.
The house is the revealer and developer of man. Beasts have dens, birds have nests, and men have homes. A man shows what he is by the kind of house he builds around himself. — Rev. Dr. Radcliffe, Presbyterian, Washington.
Fault Mending Time
Now is the time to fill up the valleys of carelessness by mending numerous little faults; also it is the fitting time to level the mountains of pride and practice the virtue of humility at all times. — Archbishop Keane, Roman Catholic, Dubuque, Ia.
Spirit of Wisdom
By the term "spirit of wisdom" is meant not merely a wise-spirit, though so much is, of course, implied, but a spirit which is essentially wise even in its temper and action. — Rev. C. W. McCormick, Methodist Episcopal, Brooklyn.
Soul Perfection
Virtue can never be accumulated by self seeking. No soul can come far on its way toward perfection until it shall devote its enthusiasm to the unselfish service of humanity, until it shall learn that its task is to reach every man. — Rev. Ira J. Houston, Congregationalist, Cleveland, O.
Church Valor Theories
We all need to be told now and then to get the cobwebs out of our brains. There are cobweb theories of life, false and foolish philosophies of life, possible only to those who have prostrated themselves before an idol of the theater. There is nothing virtuous in suffering for its own sake. God does not envy you your happiness. Pains which must be borne should be borne heroically. Don't be afraid to be happy. — Rev. Charles F. Aked, Baptist, New York.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
The Suffering Savior — Isaiah's Servant Songs
1929
The Suffering Savior
TEXT: ISAIAH 53:1-12
BY WM. E. GILROY, D. D.
The problem of suffering is one of the deepest problems of life. Sooner or later it affects every individual, but it also becomes emphasized in the community and national life and in the experience of humanity as a whole.
Why do the righteous suffer? Why are communities thru some catastrophe swept away, often without warning? Why do nations rise and fall, with what seems like historic disaster taking place upon a large scale?
These were the questions that were early faced by the religious leaders in Israel and that became particularly emphasized at the time out of which the prophecies that we are studying arose. The Kingdom of Israel had been destroyed and the Kingdom of Judah had suffered temporary overthrow with the exile of its people to Babylon. Where were the promises that were cherished by Israel, that in the seed of Abraham all the nations of the earth should be blessed. How could these promises be fulfilled with the children of Abraham dispersed and scattered and their national life disrupted and broken?
A WRONG SOLUTION
The first solution proposed for this problem was that suffering is simply the result of conduct, that the good prosper while those who have done wrong bear the brunt of their own wrong doing. But such a philosophy of life could not long survive the tests of reality. Thoughtful men saw that this explanation did not accord with the real facts. The sacred writer saw the wicked flourishing and "spreading himself like a green bay tree," while, on the other hand, he saw people of earnest and saintly character suffering acutely. It was this problem that was faced in the book of Job.
Even, however, when a better view of the matter had arisen in personal experiences, there was still a tendency to explain all larger events and provinces, and national experiences of welfare and of calamity, upon this basis. It is, in fact, a philosophy from which it seems difficult for the world to get far away. When some community is seriously stricken by catastrophe today, there is a tendency for many people to regard it as "a judgment of God."
Jesus protested against this view of things in his reference to those upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell. He refused to believe that those who were killed in that disaster were sinners above all others in Israel and were on that account singled out for punishment.
Possibly one of the reasons why this philosophy that relates sufferings to punishments and penalties is so persistent is found in the fact that in a crude, rough way there is some truth in that philosophy. Sin does bring results of pain and penalty to individuals and to nations. But the mistake is in trying to make a philosophy that is partially true an explanation of all the facts.
The prophets, whose writings we are studying, were faced with this situation, that at a time when Israel was in exile and suffering there was probably a more earnest and genuine interest in religion than there had been for years. Out of all this situation they developed the idea which was later strongly fulfilled in the life and work of Jesus, that there is such a thing as people suffering for others and that the good who suffer are often in that suffering fulfilling the highest purposes of God.
Here is this noble and moving picture in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah of a suffering servant whose life seems the reverse of all that man might wish his life to be. He is despised and rejected by his fellow men. He is a man of sorrows, contemned even by those whom he is seeking to serve. Yet all this suffering is borne for others. His life, in spite of its woes, is tuned to unselfishness and service, and in his very sufferings he is fulfilling the mission of a savior of his fellow men.
VARIOUS INTERPRETATIONS
Some scholars claim that this suffering servant, here described, typifies the people of Israel in their experiences of trial and bitterness fulfilling under God's purpose the mission that they had long supposed that they were to fulfill thru ease, prosperity, and comfort. Others see in this suffering servant the personification not of the whole of Israel, but of the faithful remnant of the people, while still others have seen in this suffering servant an individual, an early prototype of Jesus of Nazareth.
We who view the prophecies from the vantage ground of the New Testament and the story of the earthly life of Jesus can see that in him these conceptions found their true fulfillment. It was in the spirit of this suffering servant that he came and lived and died. It is in him that we see the good suffering with and for the guilty, and that we behold the regenerative power of the cross.
—The Lima News, Lima, Ohio, April 27, 1929, p. 4.
My review (2007): This is a really good article. Very clear and concise, steps through the subject in a thoughtful, reasonable way. The author had a great style.
The Suffering Savior
TEXT: ISAIAH 53:1-12
BY WM. E. GILROY, D. D.
The problem of suffering is one of the deepest problems of life. Sooner or later it affects every individual, but it also becomes emphasized in the community and national life and in the experience of humanity as a whole.
Why do the righteous suffer? Why are communities thru some catastrophe swept away, often without warning? Why do nations rise and fall, with what seems like historic disaster taking place upon a large scale?
These were the questions that were early faced by the religious leaders in Israel and that became particularly emphasized at the time out of which the prophecies that we are studying arose. The Kingdom of Israel had been destroyed and the Kingdom of Judah had suffered temporary overthrow with the exile of its people to Babylon. Where were the promises that were cherished by Israel, that in the seed of Abraham all the nations of the earth should be blessed. How could these promises be fulfilled with the children of Abraham dispersed and scattered and their national life disrupted and broken?
A WRONG SOLUTION
The first solution proposed for this problem was that suffering is simply the result of conduct, that the good prosper while those who have done wrong bear the brunt of their own wrong doing. But such a philosophy of life could not long survive the tests of reality. Thoughtful men saw that this explanation did not accord with the real facts. The sacred writer saw the wicked flourishing and "spreading himself like a green bay tree," while, on the other hand, he saw people of earnest and saintly character suffering acutely. It was this problem that was faced in the book of Job.
Even, however, when a better view of the matter had arisen in personal experiences, there was still a tendency to explain all larger events and provinces, and national experiences of welfare and of calamity, upon this basis. It is, in fact, a philosophy from which it seems difficult for the world to get far away. When some community is seriously stricken by catastrophe today, there is a tendency for many people to regard it as "a judgment of God."
Jesus protested against this view of things in his reference to those upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell. He refused to believe that those who were killed in that disaster were sinners above all others in Israel and were on that account singled out for punishment.
Possibly one of the reasons why this philosophy that relates sufferings to punishments and penalties is so persistent is found in the fact that in a crude, rough way there is some truth in that philosophy. Sin does bring results of pain and penalty to individuals and to nations. But the mistake is in trying to make a philosophy that is partially true an explanation of all the facts.
The prophets, whose writings we are studying, were faced with this situation, that at a time when Israel was in exile and suffering there was probably a more earnest and genuine interest in religion than there had been for years. Out of all this situation they developed the idea which was later strongly fulfilled in the life and work of Jesus, that there is such a thing as people suffering for others and that the good who suffer are often in that suffering fulfilling the highest purposes of God.
Here is this noble and moving picture in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah of a suffering servant whose life seems the reverse of all that man might wish his life to be. He is despised and rejected by his fellow men. He is a man of sorrows, contemned even by those whom he is seeking to serve. Yet all this suffering is borne for others. His life, in spite of its woes, is tuned to unselfishness and service, and in his very sufferings he is fulfilling the mission of a savior of his fellow men.
VARIOUS INTERPRETATIONS
Some scholars claim that this suffering servant, here described, typifies the people of Israel in their experiences of trial and bitterness fulfilling under God's purpose the mission that they had long supposed that they were to fulfill thru ease, prosperity, and comfort. Others see in this suffering servant the personification not of the whole of Israel, but of the faithful remnant of the people, while still others have seen in this suffering servant an individual, an early prototype of Jesus of Nazareth.
We who view the prophecies from the vantage ground of the New Testament and the story of the earthly life of Jesus can see that in him these conceptions found their true fulfillment. It was in the spirit of this suffering servant that he came and lived and died. It is in him that we see the good suffering with and for the guilty, and that we behold the regenerative power of the cross.
—The Lima News, Lima, Ohio, April 27, 1929, p. 4.
My review (2007): This is a really good article. Very clear and concise, steps through the subject in a thoughtful, reasonable way. The author had a great style.
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