The Rev. Sidney Berry recently preached an outspoken sermon on "The Weakness of God." - a very strange and daring expression, he said, for St. Paul to make use of; and he quoted with great aptness and effect from Dr. T. R. Glorer and Mr. Benjamin Kidd. During the reading of a poem by Francis Thompson, towards the close of the sermon, one could have heard the proverbial pin drop, so tense was the atmosphere.
"What is it that is happening today?" Mr. Berry asked. The gospel of power is in the forefront of things again. Men believe in power to-day more than ever. Their politics are governed by it. Religion has been pushed back, and on one side. Even after the holocaust of the great war the world still stands to arms. There is no unity in European civilisation to-day. The gospel of force has split up the world and broken it in pieces. The people of Europe are more at variance now than they were even during the war. Christianity is the private, personal faith of many, but it has no weight and no place in public policy. This belief in force is one reckless folly of modern life. But it has no future, and there is in it no salvation. It moves ever more and more towards the edge of the precipice. There is in it no healing and no restoration. Only in the Cross and what it stands for can that come. Force is impotent to destroy the good.
The sufferings of the world to-day - and they are greater to-day than ever before in its history - are not death agonies but birth throes. Love is stronger than hate, and good must conquer evil. Yet only because of the Cross can this he said. The world to-day is a Calvary, but we know that Calvary stood in the end not for defeat but for victory - victory out of defeat. Those who took the sword would perish by the sword. Evil defeats and destroys itself. There is mystery and eloquence in the Cross; yes, but there is revelation and eloquence and strength. "It Is through the Cross that I feel Christ to be near. He speaks to me out of the heart of the profound tragedy, and He speaks of victory. In the end the slain hath the gain."
The Cross, with all its mystery, is the one light and is the one power than can win hearts and transform lives. The foolishness of God is wiser than all the wisdom of men, and the weakness of God is stronger than all the strength of men."