The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-06-25
PULPIT AND PLATFORM.


FIRST PARISH.
Rev. DR.. Horatio Stebbns of San Francisco.
former pastor Of this church, preached yes
terday at both morning and evening services
The pulpit, communion table and platform
were beautifully decorated with flowers, and
the church was filled on both occasions, the
congregation including many leading citizens
of other denominations. One could hardly
realize the time that had passed since the
doctor presided over the parish, for allowing
for slight increase of gray. there was little, if
any change in his presence or voice.
At the morning service ne took for his text
Psalms xvii, 1S-14-'I had tainted unless L
had believed to see the goodness of the Lord
in the land Of the living. Wait on the Lord;
be Of good courage and he shall strengthen
thine heart; wait, say, on the Lord" There
is a moral grandeur in these words of David.
This psalm was a deep tender prayer to God to
sustain him. We all know what kind of a
man David was; genius, now at the heights
Of Joy, now depressed into the sunless depths
of woe. He fell once, but the abundant rivers
OF love washed away his SINS David says he
couldn't have stood his safferings II it had not
been for his faith, and he therefore says
to all in like circumstances "Wait on the Lord
/ waited ON Him and He strengthened me, and
He shall strengthen you"
The moral idea of the sermon was that we
must have the courage OF our convictions; that
the spiritual is superior to the sensual and
rules us. If we would have convictions of
God we must have forttude. We can't ex
pect that God is going to take us up, all limp
and broken to pieces, and inspire us. We
needn't apologize for our feelings as to what is
right and what wrong. They are there. They
give our senses fiat contradiction when they
see fit But when we treat our great beliefs
with timidity, whom we don't stick by our
guns, the citadel of the mind and heart is sur
rendered. The sensuous and the spiritual
natures contradict each other and, as we
weaken TO one or the other so we go. The
heart OF man whispers "immortality." The
senses cry aloud "po mortality" Yonder
YOUR friend lies dead. His deathly condition
is in defiance of the idea of Immortality. The
senses say he is dead, the spiritual nature
claims that he lives. Every affirmation of the
soul flies directly in tho face OF what we see.
What right has the soul to say this man lives
and not be charged with impudence? And
what right has man 20 believe the soul in the
face OF the senses N lace OF all the immortality
Of his system. He falls down on his knees be-
fore the soul with contrition and hope. What
does it all mean. 1t doesn't mean we must
not believe in the senses for we do. Let
scientific men try and make you believe star
will fall from the earth to the sky. They will
fail.
There are three great facts; First, Man be-
lieves in his seuses; second, the total swing and
weight of the senses is against faith; third, in
spite Of all his belief in the senses, whose
weight Is against faith, man spontaneously and
universally believes in God. The praacher
thon wont on to show how unreliable the
senses were until they were reetified by subor