God's estimate of man, and other sermons

Front matter

Class BX 6^3

Book_J^&5S6 Copyiight>J° .

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

Preface

This book contains a few of the sermons preached during my active ministry. I pray that the Holy Spirit may use them on the printed page as He did in their delivery. W. C. Black,

[Written at Tupelo, Miss., in 1912.]

Contents

Page.

Introduction . 9

I. Autobiographical Sketch 13

Introduction

The sermon is an ancient form of literature. It was the very earliest vehicle of Christian thought and teaching-. With parable and dialogue it shared in the Master's methods of making known to men the gospel of the kingdom. It is almost certain that the Sermon on the Mount and the sermon of St. Peter at Pentecost were the portions of the New Testament first written out. This original importance of the sermon as an institution of Christianity has been maintained. The preacher's discourse has supplanted nearly all the functions of the old temple ritual; and in Protestantism, with prayer and song, it has become the chosen means of -worship and evangelization. It is the persistence and fulfillment of the forms and tokens of ancient prophecy.

Like sacred verse, the printed sermon must be marked by literary individuality and must carry unusual spiritual force if it is to command extensive and profitable reading. That the sermons contained in this volume embody these ideals to a degree which will become a challenge is the confident belief

INTRODUCTION.

of those who heard the author deliver them in the days of his active life and ministry. They are, indeed, in some true sense an autobiography, an epitome of the thought and faith life of the man who preached them. Happy for every preacher if he remembered always that the work done by him in the pulpit is to be the main determinative in whatever influence of his ministry is to survive after its human close. The true sermon is the incarnation of given hours or days of a life of passion, vision, and discernment, which has become as "the voice of one crying." No character of self-expression, or ministry whatsoever out of self, so draws virtue from soul and fiber as does the ministry of preaching the true evangel. The sermons of Chrysostom, Savonarola, St. Remy, and Whitefield were to them literally a kenosis. Their physical substances, as well as their minds and souls, flowed forth in the tremendous currents which brimmed their sermons with the vitality of the unseen. With some of them it meant a bodily depletion and stress which at times became little less than self-immolation, a literal "filling up 7 of the measure of the sufferings of Christ."

The sermons of this volume will be found to an-

INTRODUCTION.

II swer to the older, rather than the newer, models. Their utility is all the greater for this. The tone of their theology is silver-clear. They are, for the most part, an echo from the times when the pulpit of the South had suffered but slightly from the invasion of latitudinarian ideas; yet some of them are answers to controversial and liberal tendencies which were noted and studied by the preacher in his later ministry. Several of these discourses had a wide range of pulpit delivery, and their titles were at one time as household words in a large section of the Methodist family. They will now be available to the younger ministry, to whom they will become valuable as models of frankness, faithfulness, and earnestness in pulpit utterance. They will not less stand as incentives and precedents to this younger brotherhood, who will by them be reminded how the author, through grace and diligence, mastered difficulties, conquered circumstances, and made himself a heard voice in the times of his generation. They are also of such substance and expression as will make them acceptable for the use and meditation of the older ministry and, as we believe, available in the Christian home of every rank. To his brethren

INTRODUCTION.

who fought beside him in the days of his militant ministry and who shared with him the experiences of his earthly march, these discourses of a comrade will be as memory itself sounding the notes of an unresting advance. H. M. Du Bose.

Atlanta, Ga., August 20, 1915.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

I was born in Copiah County, Miss., May 24, 1843. My father, William Black, was a native of Georgia and was of Irish descent.

My mother, Eliza McRee, was a native of South Carolina and was of Scotch descent. Her father, William McRee, emigrated to Mississippi during the early part of the decade between 1820 and 1830 and settled in Copiah County, in what was afterwards known as the "Bethesda neighborhood''— so called on account of the Methodist church of that name which came into existence at an early date.

My father came to Mississippi during the same decade and located in the same neighborhood. He and my mother were married soon afterwards. My father began life poor, but both he and my mother were industrious and frugal and thus became prosperous. At the time of his death, in i860, he owned nearly three thousand acres of land and a number of slaves, one tract of about thirteen hundred acres

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

being located on Pearl River, east of Crystal Springs. [See Appendix A.]

My mother had ten children, three of whom died in infancy. The others all reached mature life. [See Appendix B.]

I was studious and usually stood at the head of my classes. I was fond of reading, that taste being stimulated by my mother. But books and periodicals adapted to the juvenile mind were then exceedingly scarce in that section, and so the range of my reading was not very extensive. I grew up with the habit of attending church every Sabbath. My mother was an ardent Methodist and a thoroughly devout and consistent Christian, one of the very best women I have ever known. Her example, training, and influence were the most potent factors in the formation of my character. She died in 1888. I accepted Christ and united with the Church when I was about thirteen years of age.

In 1 86 1 I was a pupil of Centenary College, Jackson, La. The breaking out of the Civil War having closed the college before the end of the session, I taught a summer school at Bethesda. In September I enlisted in the 1 -"Confederate army as - a private in the Seven Stars Artillery. With the rest of my command, I was captured at Port Hudson July 8, 1863. When our company reentered the service, the Confederate government was unable to furnish artillery, and for this reason the artillery company was organized into a battalion of cavalry called at first Roberts's Battalion, afterwards the Twenty- Fourth Mississippi Battalion of Cavalry. Of one of these companies (Company C) I was elected first lieutenant, which position I filled until the close of the war. The captain of the company was John Wilkinson, who after the close of the war became a remarkably gifted and much-beloved preacher of the Louisiana Conference. Our second lieutenant was David Ingram Purser, who a few years later was widely known as an able minister of the Baptist Church. Having no chaplain, we three, with other kindred spirits, kept up religious services whenever it was practicable to do so, not only on the Sabbath, but during the week. There were times when services were held every night. Each of this trio committed his first attempt in the direction of ministerial work under these conditions, though Wilkinson and Purser did not become licentiates until after the war.

I was licensed to preach in 1864 by the Quarterly Conference of the Georgetown Circuit, William Finn pastor, being at the time on a short furlough. These nightly services on the "tented field" at times became decidedly evangelistic and were honored of God in the accomplishment of lasting results in the lives of men.

I was married during the closing days of the war —March 24, 1865— to Miss Phcebe Marshall, of Spring Ridge, Hinds County, Miss. Soon afterwards I commenced to teach at Bethesda and continued to do so until December, 1869. During 1870 and 1 87 1 I was at the head of the mercantile firm of W. C. Black & Company, Bolton, Miss., my brother, James Monroe Black, being a member of the firm. During the latter of these years I served Raymond Circuit (Raymond, Bolton, and Clinton) as a supply.

In December, 1871, I joined the Mississippi Conference in the same class with J. J. Smylie and H. Walter Featherstun. During, the next twenty years I served the following charges : Madison, Camden, Edwards, Jefferson Street ( Natchez) , Central Church (Meridian), and First Church (Jackson). Jn 1895,

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

without any seeking of my own, I was transferred to the South Georgia Conference and stationed at Mulberry Street Church, Macon. In October of that year I was elected editor and publisher of the New Orleans Christian Advocate, which position I filled for seven years. For the next few years my appointments were: First Church (Jackson), Moss Point, Jefferson Street (Natchez), Brookhaven, Court Street (Hattiesburg). In 1907, at the urgent solicitation of Bishop Ward, I served Tupelo, in the North Mississippi Conference, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Rev. T. W. Lewis, who had accepted an agency for Millsaps College. At the close of the year I was transferred back to the Mississippi Conference. My subsequent appointments were : Meridian District, East End (Meridian), and Edwards. At the latter place my health, which had been failing for some time, broke down completely, and it became necessary for me to retire from active service. I then removed to Tupelo, where I had many warm friends and where I resided for three years.

In 1879 I delivered an address on "The Philosophy of Methodism" at the Crystal Springs Camp i8

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

Meeting, which produced such a pronounced impression on the large audience present that I was requested to publish it in pamphlet form, which I did. With very little advertising, four thousand copies were sold in a short time. An address delivered at Natchez, entitled "A Centennial Retrospect," was also published by request. In 1886 I published a pamphlet with the title 'Temperance and Teetotalism," of which five thousand copies were quickly sold. In 1889 I published "Christian Womanhood," a 12-mo book of three hundred pages, of which nearly six thousand copies were sold.

For a number of years I lectured extensively. One lecture, "Genesis and Geology," was delivered in eight different States. Another lecture, entitled "God in Nature," was still more widely known. A discourse entitled "Is Man Immortal?" given sometimes as a lecture and sometimes as a sermon, has been delivered about one hundred and forty times and in nine different States, from New York to Texas. This discourse was delivered by request before two different sessions of the Mississippi Legislature and also before the Constitutional Convention of 1890. The two lectures last named were

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

published in book form in 1903, with an introduction by Bishop Charles B. Galloway. Three editions were called for.

I was for several years quite active in the temperance cause. Besides doing a prodigious amount of work in Meridian and Lauderdale County during the famous local option campaign of 1886, I made temperance speeches during the same year in thirteen counties of the State.

In 1886 I received the title of D.D. from Southern University, Greensboro, Ala. During the same year I was offered the presidency of Whitworth College, Brookhaven, Miss., and of Centenary College, Jackson, La., both of which I declined because of a preference for the pastorate.

I was always a student. During the time when I was teaching I toiled most arduously to make up for my lack of collegiate training. After I joined the Conference I worked in my library to the limit of my capacity and often transcended the boundaries of prudence, thereby impairing my health. I marked out a course of reading and compassed it. I read no trash. I felt that I had no time for fiction. My reading was chiefly within the domain of theology,

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

science, history, psychology, and metaphysics. During the first years of my itinerant life I did much less pastoral visiting than I did in later years. I felt that my main business was to preach and that I needed nearly all of my time to acquire the necessary equipment. After a while I learned by experience that it is not wise to spend more than five or six hours a day in severe brain work, and I gave much time to pastoral visiting.

As a pastor I made it a rule to visit the poor, the humble, and the obscure much more than those in the higher walks of life. I was especially diligent in looking up newcomers and bringing them into fellowship with the Church. I sought to be tactful in administration. Serving, as I did in several instances, Churches in which there were warring factions, I steered clear of partisanism and kept on good terms with both sides.

I was successful in adding members to the Church. During the four years of my pastorate at Central Church, Meridian, four hundred and sixty-two names were added to the roll. During my two terms (seven years) in First Church, Jackson, six hundred and sixtv-nine members were received. More than

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

half the persons who composed the membership at the close of the second term, December, 1902, had been received during my pastorate. I was successful everywhere.

I was the originator of Wesley Chapel, Natchez, now called Pearl Street. During my first year at Jefferson Street I became convinced that, in order fully to utilize our forces and do the work which the Church ought to do, it was necessary for us to build an additional house of worship. The recently erected cotton mills had brought about a considerable increase of population in that part of the city, and many of these newcomers were Methodists. Not a few of these I induced to get their Church certificates and have their names placed upon our roll; but there were those whom I could not induce to attend our services. Hence I resolved to secure the erection of another house of worship, if it were possible to do so. The project at first met with strong opposition. Many of our members reasoned thus; "We have a building large enough to hold many more persons than usually attend our services. Moreover, our church is not yet completed, and it requires a constant struggle to pay current expenses and at the same time make needed improvements in our house of worship. Under these circumstances, to undertake the building of another house of worship seems utterly Utopian."

I did not become discouraged, however, but continued to agitate the matter. On the third of October of that year (1881) I induced the Quarterly Conference to appoint a committee with authority to raise funds, purchase a lot, and erect a building. A lot was soon secured, and a Sunday school was organized and put into operation in a school building in the vicinity. In December, 1882, Rev. Thomas L. Mellen, who had been licensed to preach by the Jefferson Street Quarterly Conference a short time before, was appointed to take charge of this mission work. Within a few months he succeeded in erecting a suitable building.

When I began my pastorate in Meridian, in January, 1885, the Methodists were using a plain wooden structure which was poorly adapted to the needs of the Church. I began at once to agitate the question of erecting a new church. There were obstacles in the way that seemed unsurmountable, but these were overcome. In June the old church was removed to the western part of the city and was known for a number of years as West End Church. It is now called Fifth Street Church. Of this Robert Selby was pastor the next year, 1886.

The old building* having been removed, the building known for many years as Central Church was erected on the same spot. Commencing in June, we completed the basement in time to hold services therein before the end of the year. The Mississippi Conference met there in December, 1885, Bishop McTyeire presiding. [Central Church was destroyed by fire in November, 1913.]

In the latter part of 1903, while pastor of First Church, Jackson, I saw that there was need of an additional church in the southern part of the city, then called Duttoville, and began to agitate the question of building one. A lot was donated by Maj. R. W. Millsaps. I did personally nearly all the work of raising and expending the necessary funds and also superintended the construction of the building. The house was completed and in use within five weeks from the time the first subscription was taken. A Church was organized and at once took its place among' the appointments of the Mississippi Conference, designated as Rankin Street Church.

I was a member of five General Conferences — from 1886 to 1906, inclusive. I made it a rule never to be absent from my place on the Conference floor or in the committee room.

When I took charge of the New Orleans Christian Advocate, the paper was overwhelmed with debt. I was chosen to the double position of editor and publisher with the belief that I would liquidate the indebtedness and put the paper on a paying basis. I did do so, but at a fearful cost to myself physically. For some years I did the work that previously had been done by two* men and a lady employee. A great deal of the time I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Under these conditions, it was impossible for me to do as large an amount of editorial writing as I wished to do. Fortunately for me, my son, Rev. McKendree Marvin Black, came to my rescue with his facile pen and for several years did a large amount of valuable work. I did my editorial work with conscientious care, striving always to* fill my columns with something that would be morally and spiritually helpful to my readers. I sought to make a first-class family paper, and to that end I gave much time to the uncongenial work of ransacking carefully a long list of exchanges in search of suitable clippings.

During the last year of my editorship I lived in Jackson, Miss., and filled the pastorate of First Church. I was able to do this because of the fact that my son, McKendree M. Black, was in the office in New Orleans in the capacity of assistant editor. As publisher I had to undergo a great deal of unjust criticism for running premium offers of sewing machines and other household necessities. Such measures, which I adopted to increase the circulation of the paper, were condemned as if they had their roots in moral obliquity. It was claimed that I was using space for these offers which should be used for reading matter, when, as a matter of fact, I was using considerably less space for advertising purposes than I was entitled to under my contract.

I was faithful to my trust in every particular and left the paper in good financial condition; and the publishing committee so stated in an emphatic way and commended me heartily for my diligence, fidelity, and success.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

I quit lecturing* several years ago, at a time when I was receiving (as I had been for several years) more invitations than I could accept with the time at my command. I quit simply because I found that this work, superadded to my regular work, was in excess of my physical capacity. I quit in order to prolong my life, or at least to prolong the period of my ministerial activity.

I was a member of the Board of Trustees of Millsaps College from the beginning until December, 191 1, after my superannuation. I was always regular and prompt in attending the meetings of the Board and rendered the best service of which I was capable.

My work on the rostrum was entirely compatible with my position as a minister of the gospel. My lectures, though scientific, were spiritual in tone.

Eight children came into my home. Two of them, Otey Raiford and Ernest Montgomery, died in infancy. Eva Eunice died at twelve years of age in Natchez. Cora Estelle died in Meridian at the age of fourteen.

My wife passed to her reward on high January

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

10, 1909. Her life had been devoted to the service of God, her family, and the Church. "

I have four children living — McKendree Marvin, Warren Featherstun, Clara Augusta (Mrs. Turner), and Leila Ada.

[Note. — The author of this volume passed to his reward on high at his home, in Meridian, Miss., on January 4, 1915, shortly before midnight; and on January 5 his body was tenderly laid to rest in Rose Hill Cemetery, there to await the resurrection morn. "He being dead, yet speaketh."]

II

god's estimate of man.

"So God created man in his own image." (Gen. i. 27.)

All religious truth crystallizes about two points : a conception of the nature of God and a conception of the nature of man. By its teachings concerning both these, Christianity evinces its infinite superiority over all other forms of religion. Both its conception of the nature of God and its conception of the nature of man are immeasurably more exalted than can be found elsewhere in the world's literature. We have here in very small compass the Scriptural conception of the nature of man; he is made in the image of God.

In order to get the full significance of this passage, we should consider it in its historic setting. It forms a part of the Mosaic account of the creation. The phraseology here used is strikingly unique. Concerning the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, the reptiles of the jungle, the fishes of the sea, and all other forms of terrestrial life, it is simply god's estimate of man.

said: "God saw that it was good." Of man only is it said that he is "made in the image of God."

To what part of man's complex nature does this statement apply ? A very little reflection will suffice to show that it does not apply to his physical nature. God is a pure Spirit without body or parts. This being the case, it is impossible that there can be any likeness between God and man's physical organism. Of course there are passages of Scripture in which God is spoken of as having a body or bodily parts or organs; but all such passages are unmistakably figurative. For instance, God is spoken of as having eyes, but no sane man understands this to mean that he has such visual organs as we possess ; for, if so, then God, like ourselves, must have light in order that he may exercise his powers of vision at all, whereas the teaching of the Scripture is that "the darkness and the light are both alike" to God. When God is spoken of as having eyes, that is only a figurative way of expressing the idea that God sees, that he knows. And so the great Scriptural truth of divine omniscience is taught in this way more forcibly than it can be in any other way.

So when God is spoken of as having hands, that

30 god's estimate of max.

is only a poetic way of expressing the idea of divine power in active exercise. And so of all other passages in which God is spoken of as having a body or bodily parts or organs. All such passages are unquestionably figurative. I repeat that, as God is a pure Spirit without body or parts, it is impossible that there can be any likeness between God and man's physical organism.

So, then, the statement that man is made in the image of God applies, not to his physical nature, but to that invisible, intangible, immaterial something within this physical organism that thinks and feels and wills, that something which we call the mind or heart or soul.

I. In the first place, this statement applies to the purely intellectual part of man's nature. Let me elucidate this. Xo being can comprehend the plans and purposes of another being unless there is a similarity in the mental make-up of the two, Xo brute can comprehend the plans and purposes of the human mind. The best-trained animal to be found inall earth's menageries can never be taught to comprehend the mechanism of a watch, a steam engine, or a telegraph instrument, nor the purpose of its existence. Why not ? Simply because the brute mind and the human mind are not cast in the same mold. The human mind is endowed with intellect, while the brute mind has only instinct; and there is a world-wide difference between the two.

Equally impossible would it be for man to comprehend the plans and purposes of God, if it were not true that the human mind and the divine mind are cast in the same mold.

But man does in a large measure comprehend the plans and purposes of God. Do you ask for proofs of this? They lie around you as thick as the leaves of autumn. Every science is a proof of man's ability to comprehend the plans of God. Take the science of astronomy as an example. The most marvelous achievements of the human mind He within the domain of astronomy. Xow, in these marvelous achievements what has man done? Has he created or originated anything? Nay. His work has been solely that of discovery, He has ascertained a vast multitude of facts concerning the heavenly bodies, their relations to one another, and the multitudinous interactions growing out of those relations, and alsoconcerning the forces and laws that govern them in god's estimate of man.

their everlasting flight. In other words, he has comprehended the architectural plan according to which God has constructed the stellar universe. So when we study astronomy we are, to use the language of the immortal Kepler, simply "rethinking the thoughts of God" and thus holding communion with the Infinite Mind that planned the universe.

What is true of astronomy is true of all the sciences. Every science is simply man's comprehension of the facts, forces, and laws pertaining to one particular department of the universe. I repeat that every science is a demonstration of the fact that man is made in the image of God.

This differentiates man immeasurably from all other forms of terrestrial life. Ransack the menageries of the world, select the most intelligent and frest-trained animal to be found therein, and try to teach it to comprehend the science of astronomy. Would you succeed? If that animal could be kept in existence for millions of ages and could have a competent instructor all the while, it would make no progress whatever toward comprehending even the fundamentals of this science. Why ? Simply because the brute mind is not made in the image of God.

god's estimate of man.

2. The statement that man is made in the image of God applies also to his moral nature. I refer specifically to that part of his nature which we call conscience. By conscience I mean that faculty by which we make moral discriminations and exercise moral emotions — the faculty by which we perceive the difference between right and wrong, by which we approve the right and condemn the wrong.

That man universally possesses this faculty is demonstrated by the fact that every language contains words corresponding to our words "right" and "wrong." Just here a vast chasm intervenes between man and all other forms of terrestrial life. No brute possesses moral faculties even in a rudimentary form. True, we sometimes speak of our domestic pets as if they had a moral nature, but in so doing we are using language loosely. No scientist speaking scientifically will assert that any brute has a moral nature. Suppose a man calling himself a scientist should arise before this intelligent audience and argue that the Christian people of this city ought to gather together all the dogs, cats, horses, and cows of the city and organize them into churches and Sunday schools, in order to give -them the 3 god's estimate of man.

same sort of moral and religious training which we give to our children. Would he not be set down as a lunatic? Common sense teaches that these creatures are by nature utterly incapacitated to receive that sort of training; or, in other words, that they have no moral nature.

In the fact that he possesses these moral powers man evinces his kinship with God ; for no sane man will deny that God is a moral Being, that he discriminates between right and wrong, that he loves the right and hates the wrong. To do so would be to undeify him, to transform him into a celestial monster, an omnipotent irresponsible, unworthy the homage of any rational creature.

Thus we see that man is made in the image of God, not only in the intellectual part of his being, but also in that far higher department which we call his moral nature.

3. Man also evinces his kinship with God in the fact that he possesses a capacity for philanthropy or disinterested benevolence. I use the word "philanthropy" in preference to the simpler word "love" for the reason that if I could use the word love in this Connection it might be' said that brutes possess this god's estimate of man.

power as well as man, which is true. The mother bird will imperil her own existence in defense of the helpless young in her nest; and so will the savage, untameable tiger. Love of this type belongs to the brute creation no less than to man. Parental love is simply instinct, a blind impulse implanted in the maternal breast for a wise and beneficent purpose. The mother, both brute and human, loves her infant offspring, not because she sees in that offspring anything worthy of love, and not because she wills to do so, but because it is her nature to do so. She can no more help loving that helpless little creature than she can help being hungry when her stomach is empty.