The Portland daily press., 1874-01-12
SUNDAY SERVICES.
ST. LUKE's CATHEDRAL.

OH bIe Ieuple OF UOu, taxing as us UeXG
Cor III. 16. Know ye not that ye are the
Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you?
Words that come no doubt with much less
force to us than to those to whom this Episte
was written; those who could never forget the
glories of the Great Temple which had been the
special place of Gods presence on earth. We
hear now that God is present everywhere, as il
it followed that no special abiding place was
possible to Him. Yet this truth was as we'll
understood by Solomon as by us. When he had
completed the Temple by Gods command.
as centre of worship for the Jewish Church,
his prayer for Gods presence there was found.
ed on the confession "The heaven of heavens
cannot contain Thee Yet when that House
of God was completed and consecrated, the
visible signs were not wanting that God ac-
cepted it as his dwelling place, and vouchsafed
there presence in different sense from that
in which He fills the whole creation; pres
ence which continued through age after age,
even in all the corruption and sin of His chosen
people.
We have lost in some degree that conscious
ness of Gods presence on earth, as ruling and
guiding our daily life. In His house and in His
worship, we cannot help feeling that we are
somehow in His presence, as we are not,
elsewhere. Even if the feeling is but i'm
aginatiOn, or from the force of association,
it is wonderfully intuitive and powerful
one But is it only Imagination or as
ISOLATION? Is our God wholly different
being from Him who is revealed in the Old
Testament as we'll as the New? For there
Ha tc no hStr of fu no for off Twin
ity, but One ''near to every one of us, One es-
pecially delighting to dwell in the assembly
of the Saints delighting in the offering of
prayer and praise; whose pleasure it is to have
His Name and worship made honorable among
men, in all those ways in which men delight to
honor themselves and their fellow beings.
w atever might be our prior conception
of God He has distinctly revealed Himself to
us in the character of Being to be worshipped
and served with body and soul alike, in the
most public and solemn manner, in places set
apart for Him, in which He will place His
Name. He has told us this most distinctly in
His last Revelation to st. John-describing
there the glories of the New Jerusalem not
merely by dim vision of what shall be in
far-off eternity, but as pattern of all Chris
tiap worship, SO far as earthly things may be
compared with heavenly. Such is the Christians
God, as He reveals himself, not as this or that
mind may conceive of Him; One who delights
in personal service, in common worship, in
holy places, in all of beauty and majesty which
own gl0rions creation; and yet above all, One
who will have His Temple in each individual
heart who has poured out His spirit upon all
men, to dwell in them, to help them in the
struggle with temptation and sin, to fit them
for the life and worship of the Temple made
without hands.
All Christian ages have recognised this two
fold character Of worship and service of God,
on the one hand common and public, on the
other the secret devotion of the heart. Both
are essential to life given to God and the loss of
that sense of his twofod presence has led to that
worldliness and goddess living, that separation
between God and man in the maxims and pur-
suits of our daily life, which is more than ever
characteristic of our age. The warning of st.
Paul in the text is against the defilement of
Gods Temple in the Christian soul, either by
false belief or by a sinful life. They are the
two great perils of our own day. On the one
hand the spirit of sect and party fruitful in
mischief as ever, making one idea or one man
the centre of all truth, spirit leading away
from IF -, the Ere great g. comprehensive truths
derision and falsehood, and on the 9th
er practical unbelief, goddess living, a denl-
al of the gift of the Holy Spirit or our response
bilty for useing that gift for our own and 9TH
ers' good. These two evils are to be met and
overcome only by life of work for Christ, of
actaal participation in all Christian duty,-love
faith, penitence, secret prayer, self-denal on
the one hand, and on the other by the signs of
corporate life in Chrst's Mystical Body, COM
Christ's Flock, reverence for his His Name,
His Word, His House, joy and gladness of heart
in His Service; thus making both an inner and
outer life, true type of the Temple of God to
" hich we are daily drawing nearer the Jerusa-
lem which is above.
PLYMOUTH CHURCH
Rev. G. f. Dole preached in the morning
from Luke I'd 81, taking as bis subject, ''The
Waste in Life" The verse starts many inter-
esting inquiries regards Cbrist's training and
early life, but the bearing to which it calls our
attention now is the great and apparent waste
in Christ's life
He was able to discus with the Rabbis in the
temple at twelve years, yet after that he went
down to Nazareth and spent eighteen yearslof
obscurity 1t is hard to get an idea of how
low that life in Nazareth was. The people
were mean and ignorant. The name of the city
was byword. Christs life was undoubtedly
one of daily toll. But Christ lived Nazareth
till thirty, threw way all that time, his Nigh
ty possibilities of example and teaching and
served the world publicly but three years.
1t seems avery great waste; but looking
more largely we see it is only one instance of
equally apparent waste in Gods dealings every-
where, Every science opens unto us seeming
ly, lavish and needless expense Geology tells
us of its thousands of years sunk in preparing
our world. The telescope points unto us al
most infinite uninhabited places Nor in
small things only does there seem limited |
ana unseen beauty and perfection. Meanwhile |
everywhere we see laws of wasteful destruction |
at work. Millions of men had died before |
even the Chrlst came. But is all this wasted? |
Why even we can begin to see the wisdom of |
love in it all. 1t meaps preparation. IT. has |
meant higher education. 1t has meant tho
thoroughness of the divine finish. Shall wo
say then that Christ's years il. Nazareth were
wasted? Can we not see how through them he
was fitted for his work. How, even throuob
the drudgery of his carpenters shop, he learned |
human life and its needs; how through petty |
details he worked out the thorough finish of his |
perfect examples. We will not then, after ali. |
call that obscurity ano drudgery waste,- since
even to Christ, it brought that fitness of moral |
4IA