The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-02-18
THE GLORIOUS NOW.
DIR. 8. NJ. Vernon Talks to His Old COngre-
CATION at Roberts Park Church.


DIR. $. NJ. Vernon Talks to His Old COngre-
CATION at Roberts Park Church.
Rev. DIR. S. NJ Vernon preached at Roberts
Park Church, yesterday, morning and evening.
The title of his morning sermon was ''The Clio
rious Now, his text being: Say not thou, what
is the cause that the former days were better
than these" Ecces vii, 10; and, Say not we
there are yet four months and then cometh har-
vest; behold, say unto you lift up youreyes and
look ON the fields, for they arc white already to
harvest" John ", 50. he said that men natu-
rally dream of the golden age that is past or of
one that is to come while they neglect the means
for making the present golden and heavenly.
We look back upon the glorious epochs of the
past and forward to the future, neglecting to
recognize the manifestations of God which are
given to the present. In this we are not doing
the cause of the Lord the best service; for,
however glorious the past or full of promise
the future, first duty is to consecrate this
present tIme-to recognize the glory Of God as
to-day revealed. 1t may strengthen our faith to
look back and see what God has done for His
children, and it may revive our hope to look for
ward to the signs of promise; but it will greatly
distress Him and furnish proof of the weakness
of our faith if we fail to see and know Him in
the work of His hands to-day The sin of the
Jews is the sin Of all times They would not
recognize Hint when He had come. They talked
of their father Abraham and the coming glories
of the Messiah's kingdom. The Lord is walking
our streets to-day as He did the streets of Jeru-
salem and our sin is no less than that of the
Jews if, like them, we fail to recognize Him.
We have an incorrect notion of times of special
blessing We say the former days were better
than these, when, in truth, God was never nearer
to men than now, and heaven never nearer to
earth. Men tell us of the power that attended
the ministrations Of the Weseys, Whitefeld, Ed
wards, Finney, Nettleton, Knapp, and others.
7 81
incorrect notion that we have about these past
gories. We look upon those times out of the
ordinary; when the truth is just the opposite.
They are natural and conform to fixed and
natural laws. These results came then and
come now from Jesus, when men are in harmony
with Gods methods of working Jonathan Ed
wards prayed all night, and then preached that
great sermon when all grasped their seats fear
full that they would be swept into perdition-a
sermon that shook all New England and
drew down that old Presbyterian
church subtle power that has never
deserted it. How many sat by the side of
Kissing pot of steam before Watt took the sug-
gestlon and haTnessed 1t, making it the great,
strong and swift servant of mani God had been
for over five thousand years sending out at every
Preside the suggestion of steam and its power,
and Watt was the first to catch the suggestion.
Nothing unnatural or wonderful in it. but he
heard God, and took His suggestion. So with
Morse. He saw Gods suggestion in the light
ming, and read the meaning We talk of the
regular system of nature. Do you suppose
Gods. laws are less exact in His
exact We look at tho means
ployed and the forms used. No sooner
does a Wesley appear than we begin to look at
his methods and account for his success by them.
How hard it IS to recognize that all the work
done is of the Lord. Men askwhich of theforms of
Methodism contain its success. Coke says in the
class-meeting, others in the intineracy. These
forms as forms, are miserable and worthless
Itc ic DhO inst tolit
it's secret is in spiritual life not in form. | have
sat in the presence of that great man, Mr.
Sprague One says his power is in his match
less, trumpet-like voice, another in his graphic
sentences, another in his wonderful rhetoric.
They viii go on telling that the powers here or
is there The divine thing of man they have
never seen-the triumphant soul of man, on
fire and glowing with spiritual manifesto
ton A class meeting is lOathsome and
disgusting thing in company of people who
have lost their spiritual Gfe but there is moth
ing more glorious than a company met to-
gether filed with the life and power of God and
without which no man can do Gods work
without which all our methods are lifeless.
See the religious progress of the last hundred
years-of the last fifty years. See what it has
been in Methodism alone, until this living pres
ent is the most favored and sacred of all times.
Say not the past was better. The
sun each morning as it leaps into
the sky seems new from the hand
of God 1t was a great day when Christ died,
but this is a greater when He now lives for us.
He never wrought more wondrously in the
world than to-day. When the buds and flowers
of spring open, we shall say there never were
more beautiful flowers and the songs of birds
were never sweeter. There never was more
beautiful era than now, more blessed epoch
than this present. The people who are in the
world to-day, the friends who sustain and glad
den our lives, are Gods own. The whole world
is his temple, and all things are the work of His
hands, and in them all and above them all are
His voice and His eye. It is the sin of the times
that men will not recognize Him now when He
is crowding himself upon the world and showing
His grace. The first and supreme duty of man
andof life is to recognize Godto-day in the world
in the manifestations which He gives Of himself.