Morning journal and courier., 1884-03-17
Center Church.

Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth Breaches am
 Excellent Sermon on Citizenship in Heaven.
 At Center church yesterday morning Dr. Smyth preached from the text, "For our citizenship is in heaven,' a passage from the twenty fifth verse of the third chapter of Philippians. In substance the sermon was as follows: We are living on the same earth as our neighbors, but in entirely different worlds. You enter railroad car and sit down among your fellow passengers, all of whom are in ditferents worlds Of thought, memories and occupations. Each house in the city contains it's own world. They may be to each other as foreign lands. They may be as distant from each other as is the planet Jupiter from this world. It is but a short step from such reflections to pass to the idea of sympathy and charity. We may step easily out of ourselves and consider others. Remember the many and distinct worlds. Is it not possible that somewhere there is a world large enough for all2 Is there not some life in which all may be in cluded Where aad of what nature is the REShL COHnOuWGG4Iu OL bOuIb u0 6CTlp- ture answers: tOur citizenship is in heaven" This common life of souls is not earthly. No earthly thing nor the sum of all earthly things can form 8 world big enough for all the different souls. We need to remember that our personal worlds are small. They are large enough for ourselves and a few of our nearest friends. Matthew Fa RT1k the university is only one of the many worlds and shall the remnant only be saved? Re cipes from the other side of life are equally narrow Socialism leaves out whole worlds in it's calculations. Nothing earthly is fit to be called king. No philanthropic work can succeed which ignores the fact that all earth ly things divide and separate into different parts.' Trade divides people into different classes. Wisdom also. Patriotism, the most unifying principle, is but partial love There are different nations. l am not look ing for any social reform against nature. assert the simple fact that no single earthly pursuit is broad enough to comprehend all. Is there not something large and heavenly which shall compass all, as Gods sky is one continuous circle around all lands and places ?
 You have sometime been intro ducsd to a circle of strangers and have conversed with one and another of various subjects in none of which you took deep heartfelt interest You felt that you were not of the same world Rs your acqlsin tances of the hour and that you had nothing in common with them. But at last a single chance word. the name of one long gone, or perhaps of child that has died, has brought you and the speaker together in some larger world and you stood as if in the shadow of the eternal, in that other real world where souls live on and on. It is certain that God has not stopped short of our natural faiths and hopes He has not stopped short of Jesus Christ and bis spiritual life. The apostles united all kinds and nationalities of men. The miracle of Pentecost has been repeating itself ever since. The same spirit from above is now baptiZing all nations in one world. Christianity has shown what no power on earth has shown, the power to found 8 commonwealth for all souls When man is converted he is natur- alized and entitled to all the rights and privi- leges of that better country. The pressure5 of the world on men hatten their lives Worldly IiYes are theirs and aimless as dry leaves futteriDg hither and thither on the wind. Success in life is good, but if 1t is the-whole of life it does not bring the power of completing the whole idea of man which the Creator gave. Let human soul reoog- nize it's higher king and then no earth pres sures can hatten it, no absorption of world- liness can make this life run out into thinness and dryness and destroy all growth.
 The religion of the gospel is not prohibi- tion, it is new affection. It is not changing chain, it is the emancipation proclamation of the soul It requires us to leave sin out of life and bring into it every virtue to i'll us with unconqaerable enthusiasms, it throws the bright glow of promise over every human concern and relatio9ship, it offers the entire completion of all our human possibilities of R- N--S S.- I. . completed in heaven. Here the best things human begin to be. There there wil be no more death and separations. We are to accept the free gift of this heavenly citizen- ship. We are to go about our qrdinary duties in the faith and hops of this citizen ship and thst brighter and larger life that remains for Hs.