THE WORTH OF A MAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 June 1920, Page 10

THE WORTH OF A MAN.

(The first of a series of monthly addresses to men by Rev. A. H. Collins.)

Text.— "How much, then, is a man f better than a sheep."—St, Matt. xii. 12. 1 This is not a question. It is a com- * meat, one of those swift flashes of 1 moral insight -which set old truth in a t new light, and invest it with a strange, 1 new power. In this single, luminous >' saying of the Master, He lifts the crown h of sovereignty on man's brow and pro- s claims the inherent and indistriictable <J dignity of man's nature. And it is of t that 1 wish to speak. <j One of the most arresting and gladden- ' ing features of modern life is the inereas- r ed and ever-increasing estimate that is C everywhere set on man. Time was 1 when manhood was held cheap. The toiling millions were the wretched t the helpless, hopeless slaves of a priylleged and pampered few. Their lives were made bitter by hard and cruel bonds. They hardly dared „ call their souls their own. Rome in the ] hour of her imperial splendor was peo- t pled by slaves whose bodies tyrants , whipped at will, then flung them into their J pleasure ponds to feed the Ashes. The ( survival of the old, title "Freeman of the , city" points baekwards to feudal times when in "Merrie England" he only was "a man" whose long hair floated over , shoulders that had never stooped to a , lord, and all beside were bondmen and serfs. Suace then we have climbed by ; painful steps and slow to a broader, . worthier conception of our common man- ; hood. Little by little the essential worth of man's nature ias asserted itself. Christ taught «m ;o lift our eyes to heaven and cry "Our Jather," and by ( degrees -we are coming to see that he who does that must, '<.« be consistent, turn his eyes round and say "My bro- ( ther"; for the doctrine of the common Fathtrhood of God involves, the doctrine of man's universal brotherhood. Little by little, I say? this is getting recognised, and its recognition is ending many in age-long woe. It is but as yesterday in the life of nations that the British Government paid down £25,000,000 in hard cash to emancipate the slaves held in bondage by British subjects. The great Republic of the West has only recently recovered from the storm of fire and Wood through which she elected to pass rather than continue the traffic in human fiesh and blood. These were doughty blows struck for the defence of freedom and the proper recognition of the honor due to man made in the image of God; that they have not been struck in vain.may be seen in this, that the serf has be* come a citizen, that the word "people" is coming to be written! with a capital "P," and that look where you will there are signs of awakening among the manhood of the world. A LIVING FORCE. : Nor should it be forgotten that we owe all this to "the carpenter's son" of Nazareth. "The enthusiasm of humanity" is no idle dream of religious charlatans; it is a living force begotten in our hearts by our faith in the Son of God. When Jesus said, "How much better is a man than a sheep," He Bowed the seeds of social revolution. The Gospel alone explains the great and beneficent changes that are passing so silently over the face or society. The Bible has all along been the Magna Charta, of human liberty. Its voice has ever been on the side of freedom, the' redress of wrongs and the lifting and greatening of that nature Christ assumed in the incarnation and dignified by wearing. Believe me, men and brethren, we fly in the face of our truest friend when we despise the message and reject the law of that Book which all along the line of history has demanded of king 9, statesmen, and rulers, that they "honor all men," that they respect manhood wherever they find it, that they treat men as men, and not as food for gunpowder or tools for self-aggrandise-ment. DIVINITY OF MAN. Speaking, as I wish to do, of the Divinity of Man, the inalienable worth of man, I do not forget that preachers and theologians have generally assumed a different attitude, and used another form of speech. They seem to have proceeded on the assumption that In order to glorify God you must vilify man. Yet what father would covet honor gained at such a price? We have been so long accustomed to use contemptuous terms of man that we are in some danger pf forgetting that such language can never be justified by an appeal to the Holy Book. If man is nothing, why all this fuss about his ruin and why all this anxiety about his redemption? Christ thinks man worth saving, and this makes his ruin tragical and his redemption glorious. Man is God's pearl of great price. Jesus uttered no word that cheapened man. He calls and commands to humility; but humility is only another form of greatness. Pride of name and place is one things a sense of human worth is quite another. Pride dwells on what it has that is different from other men; worth thinks of what it is in common with other men. Pride separates, worth unites. Wherever there is the largest measure of self-respect there will always be the fullest. and tenderest respect for the rights and claims of others. You cannot disparage man without dishonoring God, ajid reducing the Cross to an exaggeration of remedial measures. No; I am not afraid of making too much of man; our peril lies in the opposite direction. Man is the scandal and the glory of the universe. Man is no less a mystery than God, His nature is a union of extremes—dust and Deity. His heart is a Te'scrvoir into which all kinds of joy and sorrow may flow. As an animal he reaps enjoyment from the senses; as a spirit he draws fruition from the skies, and holds fellowship with Cod and the holy angels. An animal, an angel he, ' Combining seraphs' ecstacy with eefisuous delights; All good above, all ill below, through his mysterious being flow, He heaven and earth unites. * r '"' PROFOUND, MYSTERIOUS MAN! And here let me remind yofi that sin which is our guilt and our shame has nevertheless something about it suggestive of man's inherent moral worth. It is better to bo a man who can sin than an ox that cannot. It is better to be a man tempted, fallen, and redeemed, than an angel that never felt the force of temptation, but never knew the blias of redemption. "Cloistered and untried virtues are valueless." A man's power to sin points to the greatness of his nature no less than his power to be holy; just a3 ft wealth of rank and poisonous weeds in a garden proclaim the richness and potency of the soil no less than a crop of ripe and luscious fruit. Our moral freedom is. our glory, but you can't be .'free without having the power and liability to sin. The strength JloJ ft mm <*»s» *a &m»My. m&-

sured by the distance the pendulufQ swings to the left hand as by the distance if swings to the right. It is a law 0 f jptics that the blackness of the shadow must always be in proportion to the brightness of the light, and there are no shadows so deep and cold as those flung from a pure wliito ray of light. A man can only actually be as Satanic as he has power to be saintly. The brighter the surface the deeper the tarnish. It is the best of things that become the most offensive if they corrupt, so that there is a bright side to human sin, and all that the Bible says so emphatically about man's fallen condition is, when rightly interpreted, a testimony to his native worth. The exceeding sinfulness o£ sin is an index to the sinner's worth, and we can rightly appreciate the saving gospel of ■ Christ only be remembering the sublime height from which man has fallen, as well a sthe abyssmial depth of his descent. WHAT IS POSSIBLE. We may reach the same conclusion by an entirely different road. Every soul has what may be called its grand moments—times when our better aelf asserts its presence and we have glimpses of what it is possible for us by. the grace of God to become. Our spirit chafes under the restraints and limitations of the body. We have a sense of something outside us that is larger and nobler. We have a faculty for the infinite. "Sink deep enough in the human and you come to the divine." Man is like a eagsPbird living behind gilded bars, yet in continuous contact with'the light and air outside, and he has longings fqj that ampler space and that nobler freedom. He knows that he is greater than the world that lies about him. Mind can master matter; soul may rise above sense. "Man is a feeble reed trembling in the midst of the creation; but he is endowed with thought. It does not require the universe to arm for his destruction; a breath of wind, a drop-of water will suffice to kill him. But though the universe should fall on man and grind him to powder, ho would be greater in his death than it would be in its triumph, for he wotijd be conscious of defeat and it would not bo sensible of its victory." We can play off the forces of Nature one against the other, and set the mountain torrent boring a roadway through the heart of the mountain itself. We can tame and harness the forces of wind and wave, and" compel them to do our bidding. We csn talk through the air, tie our messages to the lightning and post them under the sea. Here in this body pent, "cribbed, cabined, and confined," thought is free and we can wander from pole to pole in far less time than it takes me to describe the fact. Consider, too, what is implied in this that man is capable of receiving a revelation from heaven, capable of holding fellowship with his Maker, capable of desiring to be like God. "So nigh to grandeur is bur dust, So nigh to God is man. When duty whispers, Lo! you must, The soul responds, I«can." Oh! surely our soul must be akin .to God or it could not do all this—"Now, aro we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be," when in the endless cycles of God's Eternity, He shall give to our spirit the last touch of an imperishable beauty. THE FULLEST REVELATION. But it is in the cross of Christ that ' we get the fullest revelation of man's greatness 1 and worth. The central object of all scriptures is the Cross; and the Cross demonstrates at least these two things, God's eternal hatred of iiin, and God's eternal love of the sinner. Whoever cheapens man belittles the Cross; and reduces the atonement to a waste of sacrificial blood. The Cross explains man's worth as nothing elso can do. "Calvary is man's eulogy written by the finger of God in characters of his own life's crimson." If you would know how God thinks and what He feels towards man, then consider what it denotes ior God to suffer on his account. A mother's love can never be fully known, though it may be part surmised from the sacrifices she will make on her child's behalf; and there are times when this assumes peculiarly impressive forms. "God only knows the love of God," but we get hints of it in many ways, and never more than at the Cross. The sacrifice of God's eternal Son is the. Holy Spirit's witness to man's preciousness in the Father's esteem. It is said that one of the Kings of Prussia one day entered a village school and questioned the children. , Holding up a precious stone he asSed to what kingdom that belonged, and ' they replied the "mineral kingdom''; ! pointing to a rose lie asked the question ' again, and once more they answered "to 1 the vegetable kingdom." Then said the noble ■ monarch, "and pray tell me to what kingdom I belong?" All were silent awhile for they did not like to . say the animal kingdom. But at last a sweet-voiced little maid said, "Please, sir, you belong to the kingdom of God." , "Out of the mouth of babes and suck- '. lings thou hast perfected praise." That '. child was right; man belongs, to the [ kingdom of God; and can only miss that ' glorious heritage by wilful rejection of . the Son of God'. THE MOTIVE FORCE. I have done when I have reminded I you of two principles which seem na- : turally to grow out of this subject, and I first let this word bo said. We ought I to regard, ourselves as those wno have ' been created in the imago of God, and ■ redeemed by the blood of the Cross; and i we ought to find in this a motive for ' the conquest of evil. We are as far > removed from the most intelligent and T sagacious of the brute creation as mid- ■ day is removed from mid-night. We i can hold fellowship with the Most High; , we can take pleasure in the works of ' His hand, and rejoice in the rectitude and beneficence of His ways. We are His children. His love can fill us; we . may find unspeakable felicity in giving ourselves to Him in loving obedience ! and unstinted service. Wickedness is therefore beneath us. Every act <sf sin is a violation of our highest being. If the majestic eagle which soars beyond the range of human vision, and dwells amid the splendor of the mid-day sun 1 should descend to the habits of an ig--3 noble owl and mope out its existence ' amid the dungeons and gloom of an old • baronial castle; if one of heaven's 1 bright Seraphim who rest not day nor 3 night, but serve Him in His temple continually, should degrade itself to the s level of brutes that perish, even these ? would act more worthily than do wo 1 when, forgetful of our high origin and s . Bublime destiny, we stoop to. sin. Pity ' the Red Indian that sells his father's s , inheritance for a few gaudy glass beads; condemn Esau who sold his birthright; 1 for a mess of pottage; but remember 0 that theirs was wisdom itself compared 8 with those who barter their souls for '' things of time, and prostitute the ? noblest faculties of the spirit to services unworthy of the sons of God. Your : ' joul was inad.e fox Gpb All the king;

doms of the world cannot satisfy you apart from Him. Brothers, let us arise and return to our Father. Born for the kingdom of God lot us seek peace by entering into it; and, secondly, let us recognise this'essential greatness in the souls of those around us; and rind therein an incentive to seek their salvation. THE VALUE OP MAN. Society has different standards of judgment in determining the value of man, some of. them false'as sin. Sometimes a man is estimated by his mental or physical qualities; if he is of good physique or clever in manipulation, if he is capable of executing delicate and intricate designs he is honored and respected. In other cases it is mental agility that is commended. A man is able to think clearly, and speak winsomely and commandingly on abstruse and elevated subjects, therefore he is, honored. Thus in many instances wc honor the accidents of birth, instead of honoring the nature Christ dignified by wearing, ft was thus the ancient Greeks acted. "The genius which touched the canvas with light, or moulded marble to forms of passion, or shaped the quarry into architrave and frieze, or which uttered rare thoughts in melodious, numbers," received the eager tribute of their homage, but the human soul was not esteemed for its own sake. Christ speaks otherwise. Inspiration teaches that an Inherent majesty is possessed by every human spirit. The meanest man and the basest woman bear the impress of God's image and may by the grace and

goodness of* God attain to mow than, angelic liappiness. So let us view man, and whilst recognising distinctions ol gift and talent let us not despite Iht pitifullest of the sons of earth; for we are of one blood, have one Father in heaven, and have been redeemed by one Saviour. Men are sadly f ar 0 (f from God, but men are capable of redemption, and Christ has demonstrated that tun is w"ttfi the Bftuu oi m\hz e&4 MX**