The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-04-18
HIGHER CHRISTIAN TEACHING.
Part OF the Annual Parish Sermon
Preached by Rev. G. #. Dole i'm Plymouth
Church, April I'd.

agement, such the increase of good feeling amons
the people of the society," the financial position etc.
the pastor went on follows: 1t is not, however,
much in these things which have named that see
our hope of success. In what propose to say now
want to speak very clearly, and hope that may bt
distinctly understood have several times told you
| lately that new and better form of preaching, a
simpler though no less profound theology, and more
rational ideas of Christian work were coming into
vogue than those to which we have most of us been
accustomed. The history of Christianity has been
history Of reforms, revivas and ever changing meth
dds of thought and work. The gospel had hardly
come as gospel of good news when it began to grow
formal and to die down to the old Jewish stiffness
Again and again in new form it has had to come
back as gospel Its progress has been like the rise
Of the tide-the sea the same, the waves ever
shifting-Go love rolling in mems hearts
and they in forms translating it into the thought
and life of successive generations.
Thus the Protestant reformation was something
more than return to the apostolic simplicity. Thus
Jonathan Edwards and Wesley represented some
thing different from the early reformers and from
each ether. Thus theological seminaries for thir-
ty years have been teaching new form of truth from
what would have satisfied the old covenanters. And
now to-day as clear as the light in all of the denom-
nations and perhaps much as any in ours) in this
country, in England and on the Continent there is
coming in new movement of Christian thought-a
higher wave the sands of the centuries than those
which have preceded. Even the prevalent scepti-
cism-on the whole probably the most honest scept-
cism which was ever known in the world-has been
only the natural subsistence of the waters before this
increasing wave. The materiastic reaction has
marked a demand for higher form of religion 1t
is not sudden change of which we are speaking.
Scores of the md of tbo
which is passing away-the Robertsons the Maui
'rices the Bushnells have been the forerunners of
this divine movement. 1t has its sources far back
with men whose lives still shine over the darker ages
for which they were Gods 1t goes back at last
to Jesus Christ as its origin whose model of good
ness we make at best only renewed attempts to real
ize.
Neither is this any public movement. Hundreds
OF the older men whose gray hairs and thoughtful
faces command our respect, have lived to see the
glory OF its coming and are giving their blessings to-
day to such as are just lighting their torches with
purer light. All of US who talk and read though we
may not know it, are feeling its effects All the pull
pits, though they may sometimes seem to contend
against it, are under its influence and here and there
sometimes to handful, sometimes to great crowd
ed congregation men are preaching to people Cos
pei which is the same and yet which is not the same
If thought now that we had DO higher gospel to
preach than that form in which most of us were in
structed, if good as that may have seemed, we had
not come to see anything better, to which that only
served as one round of the ladder and if to-day we
had to use the same expressions and methods which
failed fully to satisfy even our fathers, tor one
should be disheartened at trying to preach where
though the churches were SO many, they commanded
little attention and met with such Inadequate sue
cess.
Or if felt that this was personal matter and sue
cess depended on the talents oratory or originality
of the preacher, should be appalled, by the task of
so many hundreds of sermons. But the work is not
ours, it is Gods. The gospel which we preach is the
sterling old Chrian gospel, and the new and higher
foms in which it seems to come are forms which
Gods spirit has helped us to see-forms, let me tell
you, SO glorious that tremble at times lest we do
something base, untruthful or selfish which shall
cloud them away from our sight-forms which in
these hours when we say Goods will be done" most
devoutly when We love God and our fellows most
truly, and when with our minds working most clear
ly our view of truths seem more distinct, we then
see as bringing better than we saw them be-
fore the sight of the divine realities of lite.
1t is this then-our gospel in which we have SUI
preme confidence, being sure that men need it. You
are right then if you others have said that the
preaching here in this church was different, somehow.
from good deal to which you have been used 1t is
not MUCH however, the preaching which is differ
ent. 1t is something larger than the preaching-as
much larger than any one man his words as the
infinite God is above all his creatures Would to God
that your pastor could preach this gospel with the
power and persuasion with which sometimes he sees
it. Your hearts could not stand unmoved by Gods
love if he were good enough to bring down with all
its wonderful pureDess the vision of which he has
sometimes caught gimpses of the Father in Heaven.
You could not bear to be unjust and evil if he could
make you see the vileness of sin as is You could
not dare to face the inevitable doom of evil if he
could bring to your minds the thought of the terror it
is to see goodness and love dying out of SOUL and
no boy or girl could bear to live day without Christ
if you had brought clearly before Won the glory of the
life in which he is our MASTER
MOI 1t is not the fault of his gospel it il not the
fault of his method, if your pastor seems to have
such poor success in moving mems hearts, IT. il be-
cause he fails in goodness and orgets his truths and
does not live in the high clear air of the infinite Pres
ence But IT he were there all the time, If he were
nlled with that spirit, no Wesley nor Whtefeld nor
f1nney nor Moody could bring to bear on mems souls
truths more rich and mighty than those which he now
seems so often to mar and belitte.
But what, perhaps you ask, are the characteristics
OF this new and higher form of Christian teaching
First then it has single aim and that aim is IN win
+ho o;;ro 1;eo wiz q, 49,, 1.-4 - - " "iA
'ne ui'in0 nv WIN oil Jul nearts we want such
goodness as Christs, for ourselves and for all men,
Secondly. it's creed is short. We believe in cd
o rIooo,I Eo+hn ~ - - ~ ooo
our hea'eniy fatner on wnom we depend. We be-
eVe unquestonngly IN our need of his spirit ruling
us. and we look TO Christ as our Lord IN a.
through him our Fother in psono., -, aou' IL 'na1
through him our fatner III heaven has best made
himself known to us and because in his life and
words and death we actuallv find tho ,niob+;os+ NV
-, a ;.;u.I:o., =. a.. - ee"0 Po"
ei anu ipspua'ioh u save our souls from sin. And
we hope in the life everlasting towards which we be-
lieye this life is intended To fit ms Not +bo+ g.
~. - - 49,. -. ~ ~ wv 'nat eneIe
are not many other tnlngs good to believe but we
feel sure that these are enough.
Thirdly. our reouirements ara faw h,+ ;,,....---
-. -. ~ 40" ou' Imperative.
unnlnchng opedlence towards God as seen in his
laws, love towards him in whatever form of goodness
and trutb he reveals himself and upsesh ho,,o,ea
-, 60 i peheFo-
iehce W our ieno"s Anu we thlnk these things, if
genuine cover everything else
Fourthlv our Christianity ooes nnon . ho..a .
- ,,y So "P pasls oI
iacts. we speak thaG we 90 know and we testify
that we have SEEM" In word is it because of the
facts of what we best call tCbrist in or uo +hot
~ -. m,- - o'i N'ee 'ha0
we chieny peeVe' 1here are certain essential facts
OF consciousness and these facts comprise religion
There are certain questions about tbe nbi,osob 81
N-S PiAiiOSOPhy Va