USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > St. Peter's Church in the city of Albany : commemoration of its two hundredth anniversary, November, A.D., 1916 > Part 7
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At this anniversary service, on this significant occasion, here in the Capital of our great Empire State, I wish to speak of the need of a higher spirit of patriotism in our land. I wish to do this not from any political view-point, but simply as an American citizen, who cares for his coun- try, and as a preacher of the truth, who must declare that which he believes men need to hear.
I fear that in our country as a whole, there is at the present time a perceptible lowering of our national tone, and weakening of our national spirit. Our state of mind and soul is due to a number of causes. It is due in part to our mixed population, which includes vast numbers of people who are not yet assimilated to our national life. It is, in my judgment, due also to the fact that in this time of crisis we have not as a nation risen to the measure of our opportunity. We have failed to take moral leader- ship in the world when it clearly devolved upon us to do so. We have shrunk from fully meeting the great issues of the past two years, as these have come to us, and as a result our moral vision is somewhat obscured.
And I believe that our present lack of national spirit is due also in part to a vast amount of well-meant, but mistaken, and harmful, and essentially un-Christian, teach- ing which declares that peace is the supreme end of life, the one thing to be preserved by any means, and at all
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cost. Christianity does not teach that the chief aim of life is to escape pain and suffering. Peace is indeed a great and blessed thing, to be inexpressibly prized, and preserved by every right and proper means. But right and truth and justice are far greater things, and they are the only foundations upon which true and lasting peace can rest.
Christianity teaches that whenever the choice comes between peace and these higher things, peace must unhesi- tatingly be sacrificed. Not one of us in this country wants war. We want to see every possible measure taken to lessen the likelihood of war and to remove its causes. But there are things which we may not sacrifice even for the sake of peace.
Let me speak of three things to which I believe we need as a people to be aroused.
1. We need a deeper realization of our fellowship with the world as a whole, and of our obligation to bear our part in it. We need a leadership which shall rouse us to feel our responsibility as the greatest of the neutral nations, and to bear our clear witness for the principles of civiliza- tion, and for the common rights of mankind.
We are passing through tremendous days for the world. More than one nation has found its soul in these two years past. But our country seems so far not to have been deeply touched. Individuals and groups are feeling the world's tragedy and giving heroic help, but our people generally are not moved by it. We are going on our way as usual, making more money, spending as lavishly as ever upon ourselves, apparently little concerned about the great moral principles involved in this world struggle, although these are as vital to our existence as to that of the peoples who are giving their lives for them. A strange apathy seems to have settled upon us. We hear with apparent uncon- cern of deeds which ought to shock and stir us to the depths of our being. Can we without grave and irreparable hurt to our own soul as a nation sit silent and unmoved in the face of these latest outrages now being committed against the defenceless men and women of Belgium ? Have we no word to say against acts which violate the law of nations, the law of humanity and the law of God ?
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It is right that we should be neutral to the full limit of consistency with our principles and our ideals. But this does not require that we shall have no word to say in the face of wrong like this.
There are times when an absence of moral indignation is our most crushing condemnation. There are situations in which this means that righteousness and justice have come to have small value in our eyes, and that we care little about them. Our tolerance and impartiality on which we are so ready to pride ourselves may mean only indifference and un- concern as between right and wrong, between good and evil, between Christ and the things which deny and deride Him.
I say again that no true American wants war with any land. But I say also that against such crimes as some of those which have been, and are now being committed, our voice ought to be heard, for our own sakes and for the sake of mankind. I say that every true American would far rather that we should face the possibility of war, if this must be, than that we should prove unmindful of those principles of right, of freedom, and of humanity, upon which our life as a nation is founded and upon which the hope of the world depends.
2. We need a great reawakening of the spirit of discipline, of service, of responsibility and duty as citizens of this land.
There can be no such thing as high character in an indi- vidual or in a nation, there can be no such thing as a high and true national spirit, if personal advantage, money- making and self-indulgence come to be our ruling aims. In an atmosphere of mere commercialism, of extremes of poverty and riches, of social injustice and class antagonism, the spirit of patriotism dies. We ought all of us to stand for true simplicity of living and against luxurious extrava- gance, and colossal accumulations of wealth, as both un- American and un-Christian.
In every good citizen of a republic there must be some- thing of the spirit of the soldier, the spirit of self-sacrifice, of self-discipline, of obedience to duty. Let me say again here what I have said recently elsewhere, that speaking not only from the standpoint of a citizen, but from the standpoint of a minister of religion, whose duty it is to advo-
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cate only that which is for the highest moral and spiritual good of our people, I believe there is nothing that would be of such great practical benefit to us as universal military training for the men of our land. The assertion that this would lead us into militarism need not be seriously con- sidered. This assertion is made by those who are opposed not only to militarism, but to any adequate measures for military preparedness. The danger of a democracy is not that it may be carried into militarism, but that it may be found unprepared to defend itself against militaristic aggression.
I advocate universal training because of its military effectiveness. It will make our land practically secure against invasion.
I advocate it because it is the only military system that is truly democratic. It puts all on one common footing. Its effect is a people trained and prepared for their own defense.
I advocate it because it will weld our nation together and help to make of our many races one united people.
I advocate it because of its moral and spiritual value. It will give us needed discipline. It will develop in us those high qualities of orderliness and system, of respect for authority, of obedience to law, which are not the strong- est points in our national character. It will tend to make our young men better Americans, better citizens, and better Christians.
3. In order that our land may be worthy of her past and may play her true part in this time of world crisis, we need more than all else, a great religious awakening among our people. This is a time which calls every American who loves his country to take his stand openly for religion. There is a close and inseparable relation between true religion and true patriotism. The man who loves and serves his God is certain to be one who loves and serves his country. All through the history of the world we see this. The Bible is the greatest influence for patriotism the world has ever known.
But the religious situation in our country is a startling one. We have in this land some two hundred forms of religion and about half our population has given up going to church.
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We need as a nation to be brought under the rule and leadership of Jesus Christ. Our American people in vast numbers do not know Him. They need the help of that sacramental religion which is set forth for us in the Prayer Book, which not only tells us the truth about Christ, but which brings us to the altar to kneel in His actual presence. To many of the people of our land, deprived, through no fault of their own, of that Sacramental help which He instituted and provided, Christ Himself has become little more than a name, a figure in past history, a vague moral ideal.
And I fear that we have helped to estrange men from Him and to make Him unreal to them by our partial and one-sided teaching about Him. We have too often pre- sented to them a weakened Gospel and a merely mild and negative Christ. We have taught them to think of Him as the Man of Sorrows, the patient sufferer, the example only of gentleness and meekness. We have not taught them also to see in Him the Christ of Divine majesty and power, the One Whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and His feet like unto fine brass, Whose voice is as the sound of many waters, the One out of Whose mouth goes a two-edged sword, and Whose countenance is as the sun shineth in His strength.
We have dwelt too exclusively upon what may be called the more feminine side of the Christian religion. We have presented it as the Gospel of forbearance and patience, but not also as the Gospel of vigor and courage and strength. We need to hold up before men a more complete vision of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Scriptures do indeed show Him to us as the Lamb of God, suffering willingly for the sins of the world, and we can never emphasize this truth too much. Its meaning is deeper and holier than any human words can express.
But the Scriptures also show Him to us as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Conqueror from Edom coming with dyed garments from Bozrah; the One riding in triumph on the white horse, with His Name written on His thigh, "King of Kings and Lord of Lords." There is no con- tradiction between these two representations of Him. The figures which represent His gentleness are complemented and
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completed by the figures which represent His strength. We must see the truth in each of them if we are to have before us a true vision of the Living Christ. He Whom we worship and follow is not only our Saviour, longing to forgive, He is also our Lord and King, righteous and swift to judge.
We have preached to men a soft Gospel of love without justice, of peace without righteousness, of salvation without the Cross. We have ignored the terrible declarations of the Gospel as to the punishment of sin. And one result of this is seen in the misguided and unbalanced teachings of ultra pacificism. If we had kept before men the full picture of Jesus Christ as Saviour, and also as Judge, we should hear less of that doctrine which seems to teach that the use of force is never justified, that no wrong is to be resisted, and that everything relating to military service is evil and un-Christian.
We must preach to men the full Gospel. We must preach the Gospel of Salvation by the Cross, of Sin and Punishment, of Divine Justice and Eternal Judgment.
The ultra pacifist doctrine rests back in a misconception of God. The God in Whom we believe, Whom Jesus Christ reveals to us, is not a God only of gentleness and love. He is a God also of wrath who overthrows evil, Who requires righteousness and Who punishes sin.
And the call that our nation needs at this present time is the call to stand for righteousness, to bear clear witness for the truth, to follow Him Who counted not His life dear unto Himself, even though this should lead us, as it led Him, to the Cross.
May we as a people desire, in this day of the world's tragedy, not first that America shall be prosperous, not first that America shall be kept out of difficulty, but first, and above all else, that America shall do right, and bear her true high part in the world, whatever the consequences may be.
And may this parish of St. Peter's be ever, as it has been from its foundation, a faithful witness for that Sacramental religion of the Holy Catholic Church which brings men into the living presence of Jesus Christ, which leads them to know Him as He is, and which fills them with desire, at whatever cost, to stand with Him.
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REV. CHARLES CONANT HARRIMAN Rector since 1912
The Rertor's Serman
Preached at the concluding service on Sunday, November 26, 1916, by the Rev. Charles C. Harriman
And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our Faith .- St. John 1, 5:4.
It is granted to few institutions to record a career of two hundred years of activity and service. That has been the happy experience of St. Peter's this past week. And I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and appreciation to you, my dear parishioners, without whose sympathetic support and active co-operation this anniversary could not have been observed in the helpful, dignified and devotional spirit which has characterized it.
During the week you have listened to several sermons and various addresses. And partly because the ear be- comes wearied with listening and the mind dulled by too much speaking, but rather more because I want this last service to be one of worship on your part rather than of sermonizing on mine, I shall make this last address both simple and short.
Others have sketched for you in outline the story of the early beginnings of this Parish and have traced the onward progress of St. Peter's Church, event by event and year by year in golden colors, as it were, on a seemingly white background. It was only our own dear Bishop who dared to point out to us that on the frame of time, in which we see the picture of the history of this dear, old church, there are stains and dust, the stains of blood of battles lost, the dust of noble purposes and ambitions dead ! Truly, " Distance lends enchantment to the view." It was the same then in early days, as now. The past was no more perfect than the present. Yet this is the glory of the earlier time and the promise of the future out of the failures of the past,-that out of the seed that has been sown year
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in and year out for two centuries, as men have come and men have gone, and human life has lingered here for a while but to pass on, the resulting harvest is one of wheat and not of tares. The mistakes of the past today are forgiven and forgotten, the good lives on !
And these good things, these achievements of which we speak with pride, these spiritual victories which have estab- lished for St. Peter's its character, and these noble lives which have made real to us the Communion of Saints, we shall find, when we come to review carefully our history, were all the result of a faith, simple but great, a faith apos- tolic in character and of the nature of that which is alluded to in the text as " a faith that overcometh even the world."
What we really thank God for at the time of this great anniversary is not for a record without a blemish, a past without a stain, not simply for a long and interesting his- tory, not simply for the men of note and activity who have stood in this pulpit and given to it power and prestige, not for those prominent in business, professional, and social life who have sat here in this congregation year after year, but rather for those Parish ancestors of ours who were par- ticularly men and women of faith, possessed with a domi- nating consciousness of God and a sense of their personal responsibility to Him.
Read again the history of St. Peter's Church with this thought in mind and you will see the glory of its past and the promise of its future is wrapped up in the mystery of faith, that personal Christian faith, that faith of which Charles Wesley spoke when he said: "Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, and looks to that alone; laughs at impos- sibilities, and cries it shall be done !" The touchstone of that Christian faith was the Cross. The true expression of that faith was seen in childlike obedience to a Heavenly Father, who had been revealed through Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son ! And in that faith, remember, the foundation was laid on which it is given us to build.
Dear friends, it is not a very difficult task for one to unveil the past or even to interpret it. It is a difficult thing to forecast the future. And yet of one thing I feel sure-unless there is in us the same real vital, personal
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faith in Christ, which has made possible our past we have little, if any hope, of a future. Emerson has said, " All great ages have been ages of belief." I think that is true. Certainly it is true that the life-giving power of the Chris- tian Church has always depended on this living and per- sonal faith in the Christ of Whom the Church is an expres- sion.
" Faith opens the way for understanding, disbelief closes it," St. Augustine says. And it is only the Christian faith that has opened the human heart to an understanding of God. Through faith in Jesus Christ, as God's Son, human- ity alone has learned the meaning of suffering, the necessity of sacrifice, the power of sympathy, the glory of love, and the full value of the individual soul. Only in a belief in the Incarnation has man realized that his life is united to that of God, and in the Atonement that God and man are made one in purpose and will. Without such faith in Christ the Church degenerates into a mere ethical and social institution, without motive power or spiritual force, and its disintegration becomes only a question of time.
There is a cry today that the Church shall readapt and readjust herself to modern times and needs. There is a complaint that her services are too inelastic, that she is out of sympathy and touch with the great majority who carry on the real work of the world. The Church is urged to do this and to do that, things pertaining solely to the secular and social life of those to whom she seeks to minister. These needs may be real, and the complaint just, but the first and essential duty of the Church, I take it, is to awaken and keep alive the consciousness of God in the minds and hearts of every one of her children.
To fail to do that spells for the Church disaster and dis- grace. Yet that is the danger which confronts the Church today. There was a time when people read their Bibles regularly, had family prayers, or made a practice of reading books of devotion, and indulged very much in the discussion of religious subjects, creating for themselves not only con- victions of a religious nature but a life that was truly reli- gious in character. Not so today. The atmosphere is intensely practical. It takes a stretch of the imagination
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to realize even the significance of ideality. The demands made upon the human mind and human heart are exacting and exhausting, there is little to stimulate the spirit of reverence and devotion; the spiritual energy of the indi- vidual is dissipated and lost in the search of strange gods, and even the thinking Church seems to have difficulty in concentrating its thought on God and making Him real to the men and women of today.
What is to be done ? Our only hope and salvation is this personal consciousness of God. But how are we to arouse and maintain this sensitiveness of the soul that makes it capable of hearing and responding to the " small voice " of God, trying to make itself felt today in a world so full of discord and so out of touch with the peace and perfect love we know to be His, as He is revealed to us in the Christ.
There is no legislation of the Church that can accomplish this; there is no order of service the Church may provide that will do this; there is no program of militant socialism, no appeal to man's fighting instincts, even in the cause of righteousness, that will enable the mind of man to know the heart of the living God. There is only one way. It must be by an act of faith supported by the will. The way of the saints, apostles, martyrs ! It must be by taking the Christ at his own valuation and by giving oneself in loyal, personal, allegiance to Him.
The weakness in our position today is that we acknowl- edge with our lips, but fail to show in our lives, that early, simple, child-like faith in Jesus Christ as God's own Son and our personal Saviour. It was that which gave those early apostles not only their consciousness of God but the power to move the world.
Yet, while there are those within this Parish to whom the approval of their conscience, in their love and worship of the Christ, is more to be sought than any other thing life has to offer, I, for one, will never fear that St. Peter's Church will fail to meet all the legitimate demands of the present or future that can be made upon it.
Oh, my friends, this is my thought this morning. I feel it would be a shame, a disgrace, to let this Anniversary
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pass by in the mere glorification of what has been or what may yet be in promise.
The only asset the Church ever has had or will have is the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the hearts of those who represent Him!
Today the pulse of that life in the Church at large is low. It is not God's fault. It is not wholly the fault of the men and women of today. It is the natural result of yielding too easily to the temptations of our environment and of life as we must live it today, in disregarding the " small, still voice " of God which is trying to make itself heard against unprecedented odds. And, because that is so, I urge you in this psychological moment of a great anni- versary when it has been permitted you to realize the value of this personal faith in Christ, to conclude the celebration with a supreme act of worship. In all humility and lowli- ness of heart I urge you on your knees to lay bare your souls to the living God, to beseech Him with all sincerity and earnestness of heart to cleanse your minds of unworthy motives and unholy ambitions; I urge you to strive by sheer act of the human will to reestablish that relationship with God through Christ that will make that faith yours-that apostolic faith which, wherever it has been given an honest chance, has proved itself able to " overcome the world."
And as I urge you to do, so I pray:
O God, give me the strength, the wisdom, the grace to lead my people aright. O God, open the hearts of my people that the love and truth and life of the Christ may enter in. O God, let not this anniversary pass simply with a demand upon the memory and aspiration, but help us to consecrate it by an act of the will so that we ourselves may be taken up into the mystery of time through our association with the Eternal, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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