Music Hall Sermons (Volume 1)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870. Excerpt: ... SEKMON VII. DIVINE FRIENDSHIP. A friend of publicans and sinners.--Luke vii. 34. 'I HERE are many pleasant relations which men-L sustain to each other in this world. Human lives meet and mingle, and are interwoven like threads in a texture of glossy richness and manifold colors, and never does human nature appear to better advantage than when seen in the light of its relations and connections. No one thread, no matter of what richness of color, can rival the magnificence of the entire robe. There, for instance, is the relation between parent and child, and it is regarded the world over with respect and reverence. There, too, is the relation of husband and wife, and when represented by harmony of taste and temperament between the two, you might not. find a lovelier exhibition. The relations which exist between brothers and sisters, between the government and the citizen, between the church and its members, --all these are pleasant to contemplate, and are productive of happiness and profit to man. But there is one other relation man can sustain to man, which, as a spontaneous and self-created impulse of one soul for another soul, as an evidence of mutual likes and aspirations, and as a proof, in its higher exhibitions of itself, of constancy and unselfish benevolence, is inferior to no other. I refer to the relation which.exists between all true friends, --honest, sincere friendship. In the relation of parent and child, authority on the one hand and obedience on the other occupy the foreground. In man's relation to the government, material interests may preponderate. Love is by nature selfish in its appropriation of its object, --flowing with a swifter and rougher tide. But in friendship, neither authority nor obedience, neither material considerations nor f...