The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-11-01
Sunday.School Lesson.
The Goodness Of God.
EXTRACTS from Recent Sermon by Prof. Swing
of Chicago.l
FOURTH QuARrER. 1877

Extracts from Recent Sermon by Prof. Swing |
of Chicago.l
IT will be seen that almost all the ills
of humanity are self-brought. Great ex-
ceptions, indeed, are to be found, but
there is no perfect uniformity in the
universe. Exceptions aside, mans
world is marked all over by the tender
ness of its Author. Indeed, Nature
follows us with more than mothers
love. When great genius like an
Alexander, or a poet Horace, or
statesman like Webster, fingers long at
the wine, Nature daily attempts to re-
pair the injury done the body and the
soul She sits down patiently to re-
build the body, and attempts to wash
the soul white with penitential tears.
That eloquent Kentuckian who died a
drunkard few years since would at
times weep for hours over his injured
body and spirit, and for weeks or
months would climb upward. This
was Gods laws coming to his rescue,
that repentance being an angel sent to
bear his soul back to honor We say,
!" Human Nature is weak; man is cum
bered by the fesh;'' but we speak care
lessly unless we mark how Nature re-
turns again and again to each sinful
one, pleading with them like a mother
that they would return. 1t is only after
long, long struggle Nature gives up
her children. She fills their midnight
chamber with her signs, their pillow is
wet with the tears of her penitence, the
silent night is full of her whispered elo-
quence.
1t is declared by many that when
they see the sufferings Of the poorer
classes which throng our own large
cities, they wonder if there is kind
and just God. Oh, yes, there is a kind
and just God, but He seems to have
been too generous toward man He
left man free Man was unworthy of
such divine choice, for he selects
misery and death in the cities when all
God land, from the Gulf of Mexico to
the Columbia River, invites us to its
life-giving breast. There is one single
State on the Gulf which could furnish
happy homes to ten millions of our
poor. The immense wheels of the
seasons have been rolling all over this
continent for many centuries, and still
the spring comes in regal beauty and
autumn in richness, and not son of
man will move out to honor spring by
picking wild flower, nor honor
autumn by reaching up for a wild
grape. How many hundreds more of
| years Nature will wait for man to come
and touch this rich soil with pillow and
garner in abundant bread, no man may
tell but this we know, that the good
ness falls all over America, blows over
it in the winds, falls on it in the dew
and the rain, smiles in the sunbeam.
She has made us present this year of
an extra hundred millions of gold
handed it to us in the harvest field. 1t
requires no great power of fancy to
enable one to see along the banks of
our Western rivers, from the Rio
Grande to the springs of the Missouri,
homes for all, and then the banks
would not be as thickly occupied as the
banks of the Rhine. But mans folly
intrudes and destroys this picture, and
we behold those streams flowing in a
gloomy solitude as lonely as the in
most chamber of Etna, while all our
streets and highways swarm with beg
gars in every form of wretchedness.
When one sees the goodness of Nature
poured out SO generously, when one
sees spring and summer passing in in
finite value over fertile lands for hun
dreds of years, and then beholds mill.
ions of starving poor, made poor by
bad government, made poor by ig-
norance, made poor BY idleness, made
poor by vice, the feeling comes over
the heart that God might well call
mans career on earth failure, and
might declare his stay here ended, and
say, Come now the fervent heat to dis
solve the elements.
Thus far the word Nature has been
used as meaning God, acting in the ma
terial world. But follow Nature still
further, and mark with what tenderness
she accompanies her children. Itwould
not be enough if she should only pro-
vide homes for all in her hills and
plains, for man needs more than shelter
and food. He has mental and spirit
ual nature. This the God of the Uni
verse remembers, and hence there is not
rood of earth's surface that does not
awaken thought, not an hour which
may not inflame the heart. The seasons
bring not only harvests, but they come
with their arms full of poetry and deep
meditation. Borne from the romance
of spring, we are about to be surround |
ed by the pensiveness of autumn. Its
foliage is to appeal again to our souls |
and make us more grateful for the gift |
of intelligent life. The world does not
simply furnish bread, but its facts turn |
into sciences, its loneliness into art, its |
truths into philosophy, its feelings into |
poetry, its meditation into religion; the |
road over which humanity has marched |
is transformed into history, the sounds
of the air are framed into music, and |
even the tomb, where man returns to |
dust, is transformed into the portals of |
eternity.
Before Paul's day, the Jew had limit
ed the goodness of God by himself, and
when Paul began to unfold His truth to |
the Romans, they Inferred that the jews
were to be-cast away and the Romans
only were to be blessed but. Paul met
them with Gospel for all, and declared
that this goodness is for all who remain
n its vast confines. To the unfaithful. |
severity, be he jew or Roman, but |
to the faithful goodness, will flow out
forever and forever. Dark DAYS NAV
seem to be around you. but to thee at
last will that ompipotent ard imperish-
able goodness break forth. The uni
verse is full of God, hence the true soul /
true to Goodwill be oyertaken by
that benevolellce which made the earth
and the sun.
And now mark how Nature attempts
to carry us kindly over the dark valley
which bounds this life! When the I
heart has to the best Of its power done
its duties toward man and God, then 4
death comes as . peace. Beyond doubt
the death-bed Of the Christian comes
the nearest to passing from simple
peace over to sublime triumph; but |
Christianity did not come when man
qame. and TO hundreds of millions the |
10y Of the Cross had not vet been
preached or conveyed even BY rimor
Or legend. Hence large proportion
q dying hours have cozns dang Is
places where the particular hope in
Christ was not present to dispel clouds, !