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[Illustration: coverpage]

[Illustration: titlepage]




  _The World's Great Sermons_

  VOLUME IX

  CUYLER TO VAN <DW18>

  THE
  WORLD'S
  GREAT
  SERMONS


  COMPILED BY
  GRENVILLE KLEISER

  Formerly of Yale Divinity School Faculty;
  Author of "How to Speak
  in Public," Etc.


  With Assistance from Many of the Foremost
  Living Preachers and Other Theologians


  INTRODUCTION BY
  LEWIS O. BRASTOW, D.D.

  Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology
  in Yale University

  IN TEN VOLUMES

  VOLUME IX--CUYLER TO VAN <DW18>

  FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
  NEW YORK and LONDON




COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

_Printed in the United States of America_




CONTENTS


VOLUME IX

  CUYLER (Born in 1822).                  Page

  The Value of Life                          1

  BROADUS (1827-1895).

  Let us Have Peace With God                19

  WILBERFORCE (Born in 1840).

  The Mother Church                         37

  SPALDING (Born in 1840).

  Education and the Future of Religion      49

  MACARTHUR (Born in 1841).

  Christ--The Question of the Centuries     73

  CARPENTER (Born in 1841).

  The Age of Progress                       91

  PARKHURST (Born in 1842).

  Constructive Faith                       111

  PATTON (Born in 1843).

  Glorification Through Death              129

  SCOTT HOLLAND (Born in 1847).

  The Story of a Disciple's Faith          145

  STALKER (Born in 1848).

  Temptation                               165

  BURRELL (Born in 1849).

  How to Become a Christian                183

  WATSON (1850-1907).

  Optimism                                 199

  NICOLL (Born in 1851).

  Gethsemane, the Rose Garden of God       211

  VAN <DW18> (Born in 1852).

  The Meaning of Manhood                   231




CUYLER

THE VALUE OF LIFE




BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE


Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, Presbyterian divine, was born at Aurora,
New York, in 1822. He took his degree at Princeton in 1841, and
studied theology in Princeton Seminary. He was ordained to the
ministry in 1848, but after discharging the duties of three pastoral
positions, took up the prosecution of more general activities,
including temperance and philanthropic work. He has been a
voluminous writer, having contributed some four thousand articles to
leading religious organs. He died February 26, 1909.




CUYLER

1822-1909

THE VALUE OF LIFE

     _The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty
     hath given me life._--Job xxxiii., 4.


There are two conflicting theories, nowadays, as to the origin
of man. One theory brings him upward from the brute, the other,
downward from God; one gives him an ascent from the ape, the other
a descent from the Almighty. I shall waste no time in refuting the
first theory. The most profound physicist of Europe, Professor
Virchow, of Berlin, has lately asserted that this theory of man's
evolution from the brute has no solid scientific foundation. Why
need you and I seek to disprove what no man has ever yet proved or
will prove? The other theory of man's origin comes down to us in the
oldest book in existence, the Book of Job, and tallies exactly with
the narrative in the next oldest books, those compiled by Moses:
"The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath
given me life." That is the Bible account of your ancestry and mine.

We make a great deal of ancestry. The son of a duke may become a
duke; the child of a king has royal blood in his veins; and a vast
deal of honor is supposed to descend with an honorable descent.
Grant this true, it proves a great deal; it proves more than some
of us imagine.