Notes of a sermon preached by the Rey. C. E. Darwent, in Union Church, 'Tientsin, Sunday, July 25. Text. St. Matthew' XNY, 2B31:""But what think ye? A man had two sons;.and he came to the first and said, Son, go work today in the vineyard' And he answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented' himself and went. came to the second and said and he answered and said, I go, Si end went not. Whether of the twain did the will of his father? They say. the Jesus Christ spent most of His public life in controversy; and this an extract from a discussion, with His standing enemies, the priests and Pharisees. At first reading the parable does not seem to have a very pertinent application to the matter of controversy, nor does the truth it contains seem very deep. I suppose that any one of us, if we had been asked which of the two songs was the better, would have said, the one that went. It is pretty obvious. Impulsive people are not the worst kind of people. The worst are the hard, "dour" sort. Still, while this is a good, and useful lesson, it is not a very great one, nor docs it seem to be a rebuke to the priests; for they had never even pretended to go with Jesus, as his disciples; so they had nothing to repent of, as the first son had. Still less easy is it to see the connexion of the parable with the tremendous and appalling conclusion, that our Lord closes the discussion with: ''Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before you.' Our Lord's state. ments are not mere opinions, like cur's, They are judgements. And this is one that ought to make everyone of ask himself, Where do I stand? Although the parable seems a platitude, it cannot bs one, Jesus Christ cannot be accused of talking platitudes. He was never commonplace, as we are. Because He said it, there must be some great principle involved, And indeed, there is. It is one, the neglect of which, has sent more souls to perdition, than the neglect of any other has done. It gave our Lord more concern than any other. Some sins, like drunkenness, He hardly names. They carry their sentence of condemnation on their faces. The wettest "wet" in America makes no defence of drunkenness. The sin that Christ has in mind and of which the priests were guilty is a subtle one; it deceives us all; it is as active now as it was in the time of our Lord.
Fixe Worps No Desps.
What then is this" important principle, that Jesus uses this parable to teach? It is, that to be lieve and to hold a truth, to boast about a truth, to be full of fine ideas and sentiments, and never attempt to pur them into practice, is to be surely.an the high road to damnation. It is far better not have fine principles and ideals anc doctrines, unless we translate them into life, That is the tremendous bit of teaching in this parable. To be, as men sometimes are, even enthusiastic about truths that they never do, is to be a worse mao than the most inveterate drunkard The first son went. He refused at first, but he went and did a day's work. The facile readiness of the second son to go. who did not go, doesn't count. It is entirely wrong to think we shall be judged by our good intentions. "Hell is paved with good intentions." The first son. after refusing, admitted that he had done wrong, and he went, That is the point. We are left to infer. that tha second son must have known he ought to have gone but he did not. That is his condemnation. Principles, beliefs, convictions that are left latent in the soul are like seeds sown in a gar. den that never come up. They may as well never have been sown And it is possible for a man, indeed it is very common for people, to be full of the most beautiful—sentiments and grand moral. political, and religious doctrines and truths, yet never move a finger to do them or get them done. Jesus says, that is ruinous to the life of the soul. Whatever you really believe, try to live it, indeed you must live it if you are going to retain your belief in it. If you don't try to Live it, it will cease to be a thing with any life and reality in it will be a dead thing. If all sour principles are like that un practised and unlived. your soul will be like an outhouse in a garden, in which dead sticks are kept for supporting peas. You may be full of beautiful principles and lofty doctrines, but if you don't at least try to carry them out in practice in your own life. and try to make them current in the world. you would be a better man without them, and much nearer the kingdom of heaven. I will support myself at this point, by a quotation from a great preacher, and student of human nature. the late Phillips Brooks. He sa} "Whenever a man lets himself he! satisfied with ardent aspirations, which never go forth in deeds, or! with admiration for goodness, which does not utter itself in some struggle for more goodness, we have a man to whom high ideals are doing more harm than good. They are ruining him." It is be cause the word "ruin" lies in this; matter. that Jesus is so urgent over it. He knew what "ruin" means when it occurs to the soul as no one else has ever done.
Everyaan's Barrie or Waterloo.
And the reasons for it are not: hard to understand. Dwelling on! truths, still more glorying in them and boasting about them without doing them blunts the conscience, dulls the finer feelings. It is always so with the wrong use of any of our powers, physical or spiritual. They cease to act with any force. To stir up feeling, and not let it eventuate in action, is to toughen and harden it. It becomes an unreal feeling and sympathy. You think you have it, while really, you haven't got it. Human nature is 60 queer, and bad, that we can weep over some recital of misery yet never stir a finger to remove the misery. If we have got to that stage, we are near the kingdom of the devil, and are far from the kingdom of heaven. For in the next place you see that such people are living in an entirely unreal world of feelings, and sympathies and ideals that never get beyond themselves, never get out of their own souls. And it is possible to dwell so much on things that. you never do, that you come to believe you'have done and are doing them The best illustration I can think of is that of the old case, which is a favourite one with reciters, the case of "Bill Adams," and how he won the battle of Waterloo. You "remember, how he had told the tale so often, how he had told the Duke what to do, that he had come to believe that had all happened, and that he had won the battle. We are all in danger of being like Bill Adams. We can all talk. and sing about great divine things so heartily, that. we come to beli¢ve that we are doers and helpers of them. I knew an old engineer, who told every. person he met the story how once, owing to the drunkenness of 2 captain, he had had to take charge of the ship in a storm. I have been told that there was next to no truth in the story. But the man had told the story so often thet he had come to believe that he had done it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.