The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-06-30
REDEMPTION OF THE RACE.
An Interesting Sermon by Rev. William
Edwards Park, of GlOversville,
Who Has Been Called to the Pulpit of the
First Presbyterian Church-A Log
ical and Scholarly Discourse.

the First Presbyterian Church, preached at that
church yesterday, morning and evening. His
morning audience was large one, nearly every
seat in the church being taken Mr.. Parks ut
terance is rapid but clear though occasionally
slightly nasal. His manner is impressive, and,
though his sermon in the morning was ffty-four
minutes long, it was listened to from first to last
with close attention.
He took as his text Kings I, chapter 2, verse 2:
ll'I go the way of all the earth"
He said that with many faults and some vices
David was. upon the whole, good man. The
simultaneous end of his reign and of his life
| drew near The monarch was told that he must
die. The preparations for his approaching dis
solution were made with that thorough system
which had contributed so much to the success of
his life. Adonijah his eldest son, was promptly
and adroitly thwarted in the attempt to usurp
| the government and the succession was secured
peacefully to Solomon Just as David is sliding
down from the summit of his earthly greatness,
! gliding away upon the silent sea which sur
rounds every one of US on the borders of another
world, the monarch exclaims with last dying
| accent, II go the way of all the earth.
Every man may say this in view of death. l
| go the way of the strong and of the weak, of
women, of maidens, Of children; of white men
and of black men; of old men who drop like ripe
fruit from the tree of life and of infants who
the path of the eminent and the obscure; the one
whose death sets a nation weeping, and the one
whose decease is known only to his own humble
household. follow in the path of armies, as
when ten thousand Austrians were drowned in
crossing frozen lake, ON the retreat from Aus
terlitz, or when eighty-two thousand men per
ished in seven hours on the field of Borodino. I
go the way of navies, as when in 1885, fifteen
thousand persisted in the Invincible Armada, or
when, seventeen years before that
event, four hours beheld thirty-two
thousand men slain in the Gulf of Lepanto
pass on in the way of communities, as when
an eighth of the population of New Orleans
died of cholera, in the summer of 1882; go the
way of villages in Switzerland that have been
crushed by avalanches of sailors that have been
engulfed by the ocean. Even when there is nei-
Their accident disaster, in all times and in all
places, men are called upon to take place in the
procession that leads to the other world.
Il go the way of all the earth" Every man
will say this when he rises from the grave, and
passes on to the judgment bar. He will rise
with men coming from the tops of the noun
tains and men ascending from. the bottom of
the sea. Beside him will stand men who were
chilled by the tempests of Labrador
and men who burned under the sun
| of India. He will find himself moving
| with men who constructed the Pacific
railroad and men who built the pyramids of
| Egypt He will be associated with men who
died at Thermopylae and men who persisted OPP
| posing British tyranny on the hills of Saratoga.
| Together will be those who on the banks of the
| Nile wove fine linen for the garments of the
kings of Egypt, and women who, upon the
! banks of the Merrimac, are weaving the
fabrics which shall clothe our countrymen of
| the present generation. All are moving forward
toward their doom in silent, ceaseless inexora-
| BILE tread yet there may be now in their minds a
new consideration which has suddenly become
altogether more decisive than any former dis
| tinctions of race cline upon the earth.
| That consideration is character now rising to
supreme Importance for the first time in the
minds of millions, and casting every other ele-
| ment of value into the shade Now, alas too
] late in many cases. the lovers of honor and gain
and those who were greedy of pleasure begin to
realize that there is no value like the worth of
the soul. To myriads of the dissolute and
| thoughtless the awful import of eternal ex-
| istence will be now for the first time felt. At
swell with hope, as he believes himself going
| forward to his reward, while the wicked man
must have internal trembling and terror, as
| he feels himself to be advancing toward his pun
| ishment The moment is come when the social
| instincts which controlled us upon earth are to
| be relaxed and dissolved by the awful presence
| of the Almighty.
Where then, does all on the earth go? What
! becomes of menu 1t is impossible for one who
takes any interest in his race to think of this
immense throng without sensation that Dor
| ders upon horror as he asks the question, Into
what unknown sea does this mighty tide of life
/ Ii IL kl...4
present the majority of our adult population are
| gravitating towards eternal death. A lurid
| shadow is cast upon our present life, and the
mind darlely whispers the question, Has the AL
mighty created only to destroy9
Give to gospel texts their full meaning; grant
they assert the fact that a myriad of men will
| be lost; they never deny but thai reater myr-
lads will be saved While they asset the num-
Der of the lost to be absolutely great they give
us no means OF comparing 1t with the number
of the saved, VIII sh will probably be immeasura-
| bly, greater. Our trust in God inclines to
| believe that by far the create number of the
| human rac9Till be redeemed. If we may judge
| the mind of the Almighty by our own (apart
! from revelation we have no other means of
| knowing it,, we may suppose that He desires to
succeed in His purposes
Now the atonement of Christ is the great I'M
| dertaking by which God the father desires to re
| deem the human race, IT, then, in spite of al
| the means which God has employed and tt 3
| sacrifices which he has made, the majority of
our race be lost, the plan Of the Almighty will
have resulted in the most fearful failure. If
such should be the'dreadfd end of our species.
| the being believed to be .lnipotent would stand
before his creatures as ore completely defeated
| in his purpose. The idea of the whole human
race sinking into etern ] Heath can not for mo
ment abide in the mind. 1t is kind of suicide
| of the universe.
1t is generally supposed that one-half of the
human race dies in infancy; some claim that
threefourths or four-ffths of the race is thus
| ms
or suggested by instinct to prove that the souls
of these little ones are not Immediately accepted
of God To this part of the world saved at once
may be added the number of adults who are con-
verted on the earth, forming a body which,
though small when compared with the grown
| impenitent population Of the world, is yet i'm
mense in itself. Relatively small as the number
of believers may now be- it is constantly increas-