“THE FIRE OF MORAL PASSION”

Evening Star, Issue 20150, 15 April 1929, Page 5

“THE FIRE OF MORAL PASSION”

At the Hanover Street Church last night the Rev. E. S. Tuckwcll took as Jiis text the words of Jeremiah, in the 20th chapter of his book, and tho 9th verse: “If I say, f will, not make mention of Him, nor sjxiak any more in His name, then there is in my heart, as it wore a burning fire shut up in my bones.” The Judah upon which this sensitive soul looked out, had dethroned God and enthroned inferior and immoral deities, and so went wrong morally. You cannot leave God out and find somewhere else an effective motive for the highest living. Jeremiah could not be silent. Alany were under similar conditions. They declared that it was nob their business. It would be a gratuitous interference. It would be futile. Keeping their own lives clean, they felt no call to denounce the uncieanness of others, no obligation to toil to purge the community of its evils. They would let others fight for reforms and then quietly accept the blessings won for them. Others might take tho blows, they would enjoy - the benefits. Jeremiah could not yield to such a temptation and so he dared to speak, warning and threatening. Standing, on one occasion, in the Temple Court, ho spoke his denunciation, when Vashnr tho priest strode forward and struck the prophet. Thus did Jeremiah earn their hatred. They plotted against, linn and sou"ht to midermine his influence by slander. AVe, had but to put ourselves in his place to understand the temptation to a recreant silence. But so deep was his moral passion, so sincere his love for God and Ids fellow Jews, that ho could not keep his month shut. In the grip of that mighty force that sways the moral universe he _ must speak or die. A fire burned in his very bones, and ho could not hold his peace. The age-long battle si ill raged between right and wrong, taking different forms iiindifferent times. There was perhaps never a time when the kindling of the fires of a deep moral passion was more needed than to-day. It was an hour when old standards were being attacked and there was a general loosening of moral fibre. ' .Moral scepticism was spreading. God was being pushed farther from the centre. One symptom of _ this was the increasing secularisation of tho Lord’s Day . Here the point was not that there was violation of a. divine command—-th«ye. was not—-b.ub that there was a growing refusal to accept this day as sacred and use it for liolv purposes. And our need was not spineless politicians who, with their eyes noon revenue and Hie eat. smiled on the provision of facilities for this secularisation, but statesmen who recognised that it was wrong to make it fatallv easy for the people to slip away from those uplifting influences which male for righteousness. It was one thing to make_ onr^. standards more reasonable ami intelligible. It was another to reuonnre llicm altogether—to wnten them down until thev were only water: to make their binding so thin that it snapped like a hair. He appealed to parents, leathers, and all leaders to think their way to clarity on tho great moral issues and then to cherish within them the fire of moral passion. Let them take eare_ lest they lost the genius of indignation. The world owed an unspeakable debt to those prophets of the race with tho fire ot n great moral passion burning in their bones. Trace every big reform to its source and thev were upon one of such prophets. Bv that way came the omanerpatio-* of the slaves, and by that would come all worthy reform. Let ns hav loftv standards. Let ns live our standard:’ and let ns dare to speak o 1 stamlvds.