EDINBURGH WORSE THAN SODOM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2043, 8 May 1890, Page 3

EDINBURGH WORSE THAN SODOM.

The Rev, Mr Eobertson preached on Sunday afternoon on the subject of ' Edinburgh and Sodom,' to one of the most meagre audiences that haye been seen in the M'Crie Eoxburgh Church for many a day. Probably people remembered the * sell' on the preceding Sunday. On this occasion, however, they did not go disappointed away, as Mr Eobertson told them plainly whither they were going. The fertile plain of Sodom, reeking with smoke, was, he said, a warning to men that uncleanness had to be reckoned for to a holy God. Sodom was a city of corruption. The unclean spirit—the same spirit that has got a lease of to-day—had come to Sodom, and had found a congenial soil. He had also called seven other spirits, and they and he had taken up their abode. Lot had been chosen as a testimony against Sodom ; but he had only held forth a half-hearted testimony. His wife and daughters used to perade gaily dawn the Princes street of Sodom with mockery in every trail of their robes. God wished to use Lot as an antiseptic against the degeneration of Sodom. Nevertheless, Sodom, which had only the rushlight of Lot, would be more leniently judged than Capernaum, which hid the morning star of Christ. The same law holds for Edinburgh. Look at Edinburgh's history. She had the full light. When America—that now Christian country to which we went for inspiration—was dark as midnight, Edinburgh was basking in the sunlight, Edinburgh was the Jerusalem of the earth. She was full of the preaching of the Gospel. Yet those stones in the Grassmarket which were once covered with the blood of martyrs were now for the drunken to vomit en at the New Tear time. She was full of religious dyspepsia. Religious fashionableness had wrapped her round, but there was no conversion in it, She was saturated with the Gospel, and had become like the slimy eel that wriggled in the fisher's hand. Her apathy and indifference were so deep that they called for the thought of all Christian men Above the din of the city they could sometimes hear her doom—'Woe unto thee, Edinburgh; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.' Sodom, Capernaum, and the heathen would be a witness against her, Sodom for iniquity would have a hot plaee in hell; Capernaum for greater iniquity would have a hotter place; but Edinburgh's place—where in hell would it be?—Weekly Scotsman, January 25th.