Notes of a Sermon Preached on in Union Church, Tientsin, on June 15 by the Ephesians V. 3; "Sesting, Rev. C, E. Darwent which befitting." not It is astonishing what an amount of excellent and valuable matter is permanently lost to the world in the monthly magazines. Nearly every month, there is in magazines the "Contemporary Rev "Nineteenth Century and After, article g0 full of thought, so timely, that it ought to be printed in millions, of copies and distributed as widely' as possible, Explorers'are busy digging up buried cities, like Carthage, and so T want to make you grateful to me, for digging up, and bringing light an article buried in the May number of the "Nineteenth Century After" which cannot have been seen by 999 out of the 1,000 eyes of people, who grievously need to read it. Indeed, we all need to read it, Its title is "The Bible and the Jester." It is by one, Vernon Rendall, "Vernon" is rather a favourite pen-name of lady writer: witness, "Vernon Lee." However, we shall take for granted that the writer is a man, and say "he The Spice of Irreverence.
Vernon Rendall is troubled, as he may well be, by the growing jesting references to the Bible in public speeches and in print. It has been 0 for a generation. It is getting worse. Democracy has many virtues, but it does not seem to hav made for reverence in its allusions to sacred things. A speaker has to make a hit, if he can, and he finds too often, that a spice of irreverence, euphemistically called "daring," is a great help.
It is often said that the Bible is not known as it once was. What~ ever truth there may be in that "The meek shall inherit the earth." I remember that coming out. Clever, no doubt; but Mark Twain had such an overflowing spring of real fun and humour in him, that he might have let that] pass, even when it occurred to him. He was so rich in humour that he might, have remembered that if he himseft had no faith in the New Testament, in Jesus Christ, his, readers had. It was "not befitting," when we remember who said that the Lord-of all, the Son of God who came from God to save us.
Mark Twain angpffender.
We find the same tendency in the drama. Would titled \"Salomé" or have been allowed 100 years ago? I doubt it. The Bible can be used rightly. The old Masters painted its scenes seriously and reverently. The peasants of Ober-Ammergau act Bible scenes with the greatest decorum. But these cases are entirely different from the use of ron to raise a cheap laugh. They make for reverence; the Inter does. not.
And altogether apart from the teases of jesting at Bible subjects, we must all see, that there is such straining all' round to. raise Faugh, that the temptation to raise one at the expense of things that ought to be spared the degradation ina very severe one, It may be as well, at this point, to say a word about" this matter' of "raising Faugh" "Henry Ward Beecher once put it very well, "He said, "It one thing to say something in order to. make people laugh, but quite statement, the fact remains that it another to to say a thing, that is so ly far better known than any other, true that people cannot help laugh book, and allusions to its incidents, ing when they hear it. "God has are picked up more quickly by an} so made us that one method human eaking audience than al-|natire employs to signify its retires is. ewtrepatia.
and repo, to turn. So the fitting is the well-turned, the well balanced, Fitting conduct, is just the right conduct for the occasion. Sometimes. you cannot exactly give the reason why a certain line of speech or conduct is wrong, but you feet it is wrong. Tt isn't seemly. The best illustration, that I can remember is from Thucydides, the entertaining old Greek historia 'X young man had made a very bril-engagement to a charming, and wealthy lady. He was 30 pleased, says Thucydides, that he danced for joy and wound up by standing on his head on the table. Whereupon the young lady's father said to him, "You have danced away fyour yedding." Yes, it is perhaps hard to set out a list of arguments: showing, that itis is a wrong thing to stand on your head, if you can it, but all the same, it was "not! befitting." The lady's! father was right. There was a lack of dignity fand seemliness in it, That is what Paul says about jesting of certain sorts, it is "not befitting."
And no one, who has any serious! views on this great thing that we all life and religion, can deny that! he is right. I read that Athenaeus, an old grammarian, says that Paul's word is midway between coarseness, or boorishness and low-down vulgarity, the latter word being from Bomos, an altar, It that the riffraff of the al and any old offal. And the Greeks lat irreverent jokers were like this rabble, They will snatch at anything to serve their purpose. Do not be like that. As Mr. Rendall says, boys have not had their sense of reverence cultivated.
Perhaps, that is the one faculty that is the last to be developed in any one of us So, as he says, boys would play at hide-and-seek in Westminster Abbey; but what should we think of grown men and women who did that? Unbefitting jesting is just so. It is playing with the great serious things that give life its salt, its nobleness, its [grandeur. And the surest way to to any other book. And s0 cognition of a truth is We cease to have any rence for any-temptation to all kinds of all have heard preacher thing at all, in heaven or on earth, speakers to raise a laugh at the ex-, Rey. W. L. Watkinson, who keep us is to jest at the Bible, its story and pense of some of its telling incidents smiling' all the time we are listen its words. and. phrases, proves overwhelming. ing. They are so pithy and pointed People say, what a clever speaker and apt. That is good. It is entire-Playing with Great Things of Life.
is to make us laugh over a book ly different from the irreverent use Jesting at sacred things is "not that our fathers used to call, "Holy of sacred things just to make people befitting" as we must all feel, on Bible, book divine. laugh. account of the dignity and great-homy in Parliament.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.