Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-17
HOW HgRB1Ics CAN PREACH

able men. As a sample of their strong,
deep and pure thought power, we take ex-
tracts from their recent Thanksgiving SER
mons
LFrom DR.. Swing, Presbyterian Hereto
Thus We see country where the soil.
and the climate, and the political ideas,
and the schoolhouse, and the literature.
and the religion, and the innate qualities
of the race are all attempting to create for
| the citizen fair, even a beautiful, success
! We must all thank God for making to all
our young people at least, such offers of
| happiness No such professions of love
were ever made by the Maker of the uni
verse to any one group of His children. 1t
is the fault of us who dwell on this CONT
nent if we sit down and bewail the wick
edness of the times and the hardness of the
human lot. Some may well do this, some
overtaken by disease or personal calamity
must turn away from this bright outlook
and with sad faces look only down toward
the home in the grass; but before the
| larger number of you this country lies out
spread in physical and spiritual beauty.
| You will not realize the significance OF it
unless YOU conceive of it as having come
from a God of wisdom and love. Do not
ing of liberty, and education, and toll, and
industry, and taste, and all the deep long
ings of gifted race are the accidents which
chance has brought together between the
Atlantic and Pacific seas. Empty your
hearts of such frozen blood, and feel that,
like Moses, you are all standing upon holy
ground. As in the doctrines of the second
life we have the words 81 go to prepare a
place for you," so in the doctrine of earth
we can look back, and, as before our world
was inhabited, can hear the Infinite Gre
ator saying: g go to prepare place for
man," and 10 our beautiful earth is the
fulillment of the prophecy. The Father
who was to make a heaven for man first
made an earth for him that his blessings
might come to his heart slowly, but come
forever. Your stay here can be made great
only by this inspiration of religion. The
assumption that you are the occupants Of
one of the islands of the Deity that the
eternity around your island is Gods great
ocean, which no human ship can sail, but
in which he moves to and fro always that
the beauty of America is a part of the far
off beauty of Heaven that its virtue is a
part of the virtue of the Creator, and its
love of life part of His immortality
these are the assumptions which will make
you crown with greatness the genius Of
these threeseore years. Sorry that we
must soon leave a country so dear, we are
| thankful that what it shows us is marked
all over with grandeur, and that our grave,
when it comes, will be, like our cradle,
still in the empire of wise and loving
God.
From DR.. Thomas Methodist Heretic.l
And here comes in also the fact and the
law of suffering. Suffering, or pain, or
penalty gives another and deeper look to
| life that it could wear, were it only a scene
of pleasure or delectation. Suffering, pain,
means God, law, righteousness. 1t means
that evil is hedged II, is fenced about with
stern consequences. 1t looks to the cor
recting, the stopping, of the evil-doer in
! his ways. A man cannot 90 far in any
violation of law till God says stop; and
the abused stomach or passions say stop
you are'at the end of the road you have
| overdrawn your account with Nature.
And [ tell you this fact of penalty is
powerful factor in the government OF God.
But the law OF suffering has another use.
It is not only penal-it is educatory. The
discipline of suffering can do for character
what nothing else can do. 1t is not TO de-
velop stupid passiveness, nor an unfeel-
ing stoicsm not these, but to melt, and
win, and subdue the heart it is the power
that consumes the dross and leaves only
the gold it opens wide the gates of the
soul to the companionship and sympathy of
the suffering ones all about us it makes
the heart tender and quickly sensitive. l
have seen the strongest men weep and bend
low to kiss the little hands aud brew of an
infant but day old as it lay cold in death
| have known mothers who have lived
largely for themselves and in forgetfulness
of others, after death had come to their
own homes, 90 out and seek some one In a
like sorrow that their own hearts might be
comforted in comforting others. And o!
into this great law of suffering-of suffer-
ing for others-God Himself came to our
world in Christ went into the wilderness
to hunt the lost /; welcomed the Magda.
lenes wept at the grave and died on the
cross In this law of suffering the Holy
Ghost is now in the world with ''groan-
ings that cannot be uttered.
Now, put all this scene under the light
of immortality. Look at the world but as
the cradle of mans childhood. Look at
all this strange scene of toll and suffering,
not as the end, but the beginning; look at
it not as world for rest or pleasure, but
as a school for learning battlefield for
victories a pilgrimage through the desert
and look at all its vicissitudes as a develop
ment and then look out upon the eternal
ages for the continuation and completion
of this work, and then you may begin to
see how "all things work together for
good all things-life and death, and
even permissive evil; and then you can
in "all things give thanks" Then you
can say with Job: "Though He slay me
yet will l trust Him }" and with Paul
"None of these things move me-" That
is the true Thanksgiving.
I stood the other day by the coffin of an
other of our number-Sister Waters-one
of the first to join in this service a year
ago. Long teacher in our public schools,
then wife and mother, noble, intelligent and
true and with heart SO large and tender
that she knew all the sufferings of love
and she watched for seven long weeks by
her sick child-watched till love could do
no more, and then herself sank down in
death. A few hours after the child she
bore and loved SO well joined her on the
other side. And | stand at this hour and
see the long travail of our world, its suffer-
ing and pain, but | see God working out
righteousness, and I see the gates of eter-
nifty open to receive the weary souls of
earth. see the ships go down in the
storm, and soldiers fall on the field of bat
tie, but above the storm and the lannon's
roar see the angels of God gathering up
from mangled bodies and watery graves
the spirits that can never die. And. stand
ing in this broad light, let US in "all
things give thanks" for coon the mystery
will be passed and we shall know that
I" He doeth all things we'll !"
Here is Castle. 1t is the House of an
Editor. 1t has Stained Glass windows