The Whence and the Whither of Man: A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; Being the Morse Lectures of 1895Tyler, John M. (John Mason)
Religion
The Whence and the Whither of Man: A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; Being the Morse Lectures of 1895
Tyler, John M. (John Mason)
Evolution
Something more is needed than light. We need more light and
knowledge of our duty; we need vastly more the will-power to do it.
I know how I ought to live; I do not live thus. What I need is not a
teacher, but power to become a son of God. "I delight in the law of
God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity
under the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I
am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?"
This is the terrible question. How is it to be answered? Let us
remember our illustration of the change wrought in that
panic-stricken army before Winchester by the appearance of Sheridan.
What these men needed was not information. No plan of battle
reported as sure of success by trustworthy and competent witnesses,
and forwarded from the greatest leader could have stayed that rout.
What they needed was Sheridan and the magnetic power of his
personality. This is the strange power of all great leaders of men,
whether orators, statesmen, or generals. It is intellect acting on
and through intellect, but it is also vastly more; it is will acting
on will. The leader does not merely instruct others, he inspires
them, puts himself into them, and makes them heroes like himself.
Now something like this, but vastly grander and deeper, seems to me
to have been the work of our Lord. Read John's gospel and see how it
is interpenetrated with the idea of the new life to be gained by
contact with our Lord, and how this forms the foundation of his hope
and claim to give men this new life by drawing them to himself. And
Peter says that it was impossible for the Prince of Life to be
holden of death, for he was the centre and source from which not
only new thoughts and purposes, but new will and life was to stream
out into the souls of men. This power of our Lord may have been
miraculous and supernatural in degree; I feel assured that it was
not unnatural in kind and mode of action.
And here, young men, pardon a personal word about your preaching.
You will need to preach many sermons of warning against, and
denunciation of, sin; many of instruction in duty. The Bible is a
store-house of instruction and men need it, and you must make it
clear to them. All this is good and necessary, but it is not enough.
Learn from the experience of the greatest preacher, perhaps, who
ever lived.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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