Morning journal and courier., 1882-06-26

vived Look at the faithless and hope less Pessimism of our day, which is rapidly taking hold of con- siderable class of cultivated men as they reject or positively ignore any l hope for man in the providential guidance or | redeeming spirit of the living God. Does it l not answer the question whether unbelief l tends to evil? This pessimistic indifference l and despair as to the future of so many culti | vated deniers of God is the most dismal sign of the times. There are cool and hard headed materialists who think they believe in nothing except what the fingers can handle or the eye discern.
 unbelief. The believers in what they call force and tendency selfinstrueted and
 self moving, more mysterious and mys
 tifed than faith, and enthusias-
 tic discussers of human perfectibil-
 ity, who, over the shattered frag-
 ments of the dream of their youth, have
 flung faith overheard and ex Christian de- voices who have turned their backs upon Christ and his church and supercilious critics of the creeds and laws of other men who profess no earnest creed and no earnest life of their own; and selfish and self-ln- dulged favorites of fashion or of letters, too dainty for the struggles and sacrifices their human progress involves; but they all join l in the common cry, Let the world go, for
 
 and from which nothing can save it. Re- form and progress in science, in government, I in morals and religion all are in vain, and only in vain, simply because they have | neither faith nor inspiration from the living ! God No greater evil can befall man of culture and thought than to sink into such heartless, faithless and hopeless condition In respect to himself and his kind
 l The speaker now brilliantly in impassioned I thought compared by contrast the hopes of human progress which the Christian theory warrants and inspires.
 ! In the complex movements of social forces 1 tbe Christian sees God everywhere present and directing in every raging battlefield 1 and desolating tornado or other convulslon of nature. Upon each tumultuous ocean 1 storm, in the tumult of revolution and anar- chy God is seen. The kingdom of God, with ! all it's attendant good, despite opposition, l was everywhere gaining force and strength. l Each individual soul may be a temple of the l living God. FrGm one generation to an other the State, the school and the church ! shall become more and more spiritualized and l more perfectly animated and moulded by the {! spirit of the living God. Animated by I faith like this in social progress no man can I be lost, no prayer can return unanswered. ! Not cup of cold water can be given in vain, neither song nor sigh nor prayer can vanish l into thin air
 
 l The life which seems to be wasted is fraught l with fruitfulness. The faith that humanity l shall be redeemed is forever assured by the 1 faith that God has taken hold of it that he may redeem it to himself in all it's relation i ship and agencies, and is conductingit toward 1 this bright and blessed consummation. The man with such faith has something worth living and laboring for. Hope and
 not despair is the inspiration of his activities. l He has received kingdom which cannot be
 moved, and that kingdom is certain to be- ! come the joy of the whole earth. That l kingdom shall come when the social forces l that unite man to nan shall be transfgured and controlled by the spirit of the living 1 God and all individual souls shall rejoice i'll 1 his presence, and his ref gn turn living faith 1 in it's promised reality to take the place of 1 the mystical dreams, the cynical contempt or selfish despair which are bred of the atheis tic belief of modern days, new energy ! would be imparted to human hopes and l fresh inspiration to human activities. The 1 agencies and appliances for social welfare that have been freshly emphasized, the new 1 generalizations and laws of personal and 1 public economy, would be recognized as the 1 voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord ;" and l the echo should respond, ''Every valley shall l be exalted, and every hill shall be laid low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and
  ergy, the splendid enterprise, and the magi | cal discoveries of the present age, would be accepted mere tokens that God is moving among men for their good as never before. if men will but recognize his presence and ac knowledge his wisdom. Meanwhile take heed ! lest any one of you be so weak as to suppose that atheism is rational because 1t Is fashion able with 8 few, or that the heart of unbelief ! is not wholly and desperately evil, in such 8 hopeful time as this.
 The heart of unbelief consummates it's evil 1 by uniting man for the future life. If the wilful or careless abandonment of faith in- wolves departure from God, and if such de parture units for 8 truly successful life in the present world, how much more for I the life which is to be. Even for this life 1t is fearful to think of the career of a single l human being, turning his back upon the liv ing God and going step by step, farther and farther from his presence in thought, and feeling and aim. If we follow that soul into l another life, it were evil enough, if it were left alone under the impulses which had gained such headway and in the direction which habit and consistency ! had fixed. We instinctively say when man deliberately turns his back upon the light and continues to walk away from it, it cannot be l but that the shadow will widen and deepen l the farther he goes, whether he prosecutes his journey in the present life or the future
  circumstances he must carry into the next world his unchanged self in respect to his moral habits and purposes, in respect to his love and hatred his estimates of God himself. It would also seem probable that in the future life it will not be so easy to forget God and to live without God as it is at present, and for the purpose of trial and discipline and award the eternal God will be manifested dis tinctly to every soul so that he cannot be overlooked or forgotten. The scriptures teach this most distinctly, whatever else they may be supposed to teach or to fail to con- vey. The writer of our text, sTake heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God,'
 also says Tt is fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Whatever else may have been supposed to
 have been learned or unlearned in regard to the future state, this one lesson has been deepeped in every mind by all that we know by nature
 or revelation concerning man and God, that
 character in th1s life is prolonged and fixed
 into destiny in the future and moral elem ents of evil and good must be intensified with
 manifold energy by the future revelation of
 God as he is; and the reflection of man will
 discover what he is when tried by these vivid
 revelations. If, then, it is an evil thing to cut off one's self from God in the present
 world, it must be unspeakably greater evil to depart further from him in the life to come
 to be fully alive to what has lost in turn
 ing from God. and also to know that he is un-
 der the deepening shadow of his displeasure,
 and that he does not desire to return From
 such destiny everyone hopes and prays to
 be delivered. Should some atheist and ag-
 nostic chance to hear me he would doubtless
 utter the prayer, if the future state shall
 make known God, may he be ready to wor-
 ship and love him. But let us suppose that
 not one of us has turned his back upon him,
 would it not be a fearful waste and loss to
 allow the springs and habits of our early life
 to be so little controlled by our faith that we
 can only hope to be saved as by fire? Would
 it not be evil if ambitions and activities and
 achievements which we have followed with
 energy and hope and fear shall prove to be
 wretched and stubble, and shall vanish into
 smoke under the flame of Gods great dis pleasure? Be not deceived. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap.
 Young Gen lemon of the Graduating Class
 It is not because think you are in special danger :om unbelief that I have select ed this them.
 It is rather that may exhort you with greater courage and hope to fight the good fight of faith
 The fact is not to be disguised, however, that faith Is destined in these days to meet a
 contest, and that unbelief in some of it's as- poets was never more composing to men of culture than 1t is at the pI eSent time There