Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1879-03-01
NATURE AND MAN.

Extracts from recent sermon by Prof.
David swing.
Assuming, therefore, as the more log
ical and more useful theory, that our
universe proceeded from Mind, it must
follow that il proceeded for the good of
Mind, for its use and pleasure. The
created must exist for the Creator. That
infinite Soul which we call Deity must
have produced this immense material
system, not for the systems sake, but
for His own sake, Just as the artist
carves out a beautiful statue, not at the
request Of tine dumb statue, but by re-
quest of himself The Psalmist was log
zeal in singing forth the words:
The heavens declare the glory of God,
for having been formed by a powerful
Mind they must indeed set forth the
thought and emot on of that intellectual
Power which ordered them TO exist.
The Creator IS the reason of the created.
1t must follow then that the Being whom
we call God, is being who can draw
happiness from an external world; that
the scattered stars, the vast circle in
which they move, the vast bulk of
many OF them, their varieties of light
and heat, all these countless details are
perpetual JOY 10 the Intelligence who
evoked forth this wonderful variety.
Such a theory is a perfect answer to
those who ask us 10 mark that the earth
is beautiful where no man dwells. and
that the glories of the midnight sky go
on even while man is sunk to sleep.
Man may be absent from island or con-
l.. 10. Ia. ~,
but if the universe was made in the first
instance for the Maker, then there is no
part of the sublimity or beauty which
is in vain, and there sis no flower that
is born TO blush unseen and waste its
sweetness ON desert air" In order to
explain al that greatness and beauty
beyond the sense of man it is necessary
only 10 remember that God is Soul,
and, having made the creation for Him.
self, must certainly have possessed the
power of enjoying the great production.
As We pnor little mortals, building a lit
tie home for ourselves, enjoy deeply its
bright fire on the hearth and in the
springtime the sunshine on its door-sill
and falling around upon its upspringing
grass and opening buds, SO He that
Quit tndt subilulc ftslutnct WHICH we
attempt tn see with our telescopes must,
like us morials, love the home He has
built, and feel a divine joy in the planets
and suns which bestud His fields, and
in the foliage and flowers which bedeck
and perfume millions of worlds. The
definition of Deity which represents
Him as an Essence self-sufficient, inca
pable of being made more happy, is a
definition born out of our Ignorance,
and one which leaves no reason to be
found why God should have made an
external cosmos. Better far that We re-
open our definition and make God a
lover OF happiness that comes from
without, and that therefore there is no
ocean-music without a Soul that loves
it, and no rose that bushes unseen, and
that no sparrow sings unloved, nor, as
Christ teaches US so delicately, falls to
the ground without breathing out its
little life in the plying hand of the All
Father.
But the chief reason for discussing
this theme l shall find in some of the
inferences TO be deduced from il rather
than in the theme direct. II would seem
to follow that the universe having been
made largely for the pleasure of such a
Being as God, there must pervade it