you say that you have felt nothing of this convicting and convincing
power? Then I ask: Have you ever passed through an hour of serious
inquest with your own soul? Have you ever tried to know yourself even
as you are known? The debate cannot be all on one side. A man only
knows that he is ignorant through the need of a knowledge he has not
got. Before I can persuade you that Christ is your Saviour, you must
realize that it is a Saviour you need. Before you can start out for
Christ you must come to yourself. And while men make a mock of sin,
while they regard it as a matter of indifference, or profess to explain
it away under the terms of science and philosophy, we need not wonder
that they have so little faith in higher things. We need go no further
for an explanation of the thoughtless unbelief which is eating its way
like a festering sore to the heart of our modern world. If the lusts
of the flesh and the pride of life sum up the totality of our being
here, why should that crowd on the artist's canvas be represented as
moved by an anguish that touches no chord in its soul; which is,
indeed, foreign to its every thought, sympathy, and pursuit? So long
as men are indifferent about the very question, Why that anguish? vain
is the appeal, "To you is it nothing your Saviour should die?" So long
as men are utterly unconcerned about the fact, and nature, and effects
of moral evil, then selfishness will remain for men the only recognized
law of self-preservation.

And here is where I come into line with the practical side of the
Christian evangel. The Cross of Christ is no arbitrary arrangement.
It is not the expedient of a system cunningly devised by priest,
theologian, or Church. It is the grimmest, sanest, divinest thing ever
set up in this human world. The Cross is symbol of the only Power that
can enter the lists against selfishness, and enter to throw it. And
let me plead with you to think about this: every wrong in the world has
selfishness, if not for its root, yet at its root. Cast out the
selfishness which is sin, and you cast out the first and the last thing
that stands between us and the new heaven and the new earth. Think of
this, and you will better understand the anguish of Him who carries the
sorrow, and is wounded in the wounds made by man's inhumanity to man.
Refuse to think of it, and cease to wonder why countless thousands
mourn; why the strong oppress the weak; why might is worshipped as