The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-13

plete control of matter. It Is the mind which
is progressive in reference to matter. As / said
all progress supposes two points; point from
which we START and point toward which we
tend The fixed point outside of ourselves
toward which we tend is God. There is no other
fixed point outside of ourselves. Material prog
ress can never satisfy man. He may ride on
the wings of the wind; he may send his thoughts
along the electric wire with the
rapdity of lightning from one extremity of the
globe to the other; he may annihilate space; he
may change the darkness of night unto the
brightness of day; he may telephone his voice
around the world, or build railroad on the
bottom of the Atlantic ocean from New York
to Liverpool, and still not make very much
progress, nor be very happy over what he has
made. One feeble step toward God will lift him
infinitely higher than all this Wanted progress
of the nineteenth century. The idea that man
is progressive is entirely Christian. 1t never
to elaborate system Of progress, to even enter
tain theory Of progress as possible. The
golden age for them was not in the future, but
in the past The light was in the
past, the darkness in the future
Christianity alone reveals the human pos
Progress is in the man, and his progress may
not be gagged by material tests. IL he were
only wonderful mechanism with mere cor
poreal existence we might judge Of him by power
OF looms and tonnage registers by accumula.
tons Of capital, and the results of mechanical
bandicraft. But 'the life is more than meat,
as 1.-The body is more than raiment." There are
topics of thought which machinery cannot weave
We have faculties which mechanism and its OPP
erations cannot satisfy. There is world of
beauty not to be hid by the dust Of busy traffic;
a realm of harmony not to be stided by the hum
Of industry. There is voice louder than the
wild shrek Of the locomotive, or the thunder of
the train of cars. There are calls more wakeful
than the demands for food and raiment and
man hears them and acknowledges in them a
call addressed to himself. which is all unan-
swered unless he himself attain to something
higher. He feels that he has not made fitting
answer when he has pointed out all the mon
uments of art which prosperity has erected,
and shown all the creations of aesthetic
culture which success has enabled him to
achieve. He has not answered it, though he
has carved his pillars after natures own designs,
built up his shafts as she has draped them in
dark caves, aud wrought out his temples for
worship after the pattern of the groves These
are attendants of his prosperity, not elevations
Of the man. The lofty culture which exalts him
among his fellows, the mysteries of science, the
eloquence of poetry and song, may show that he
has advanced, but the advance is in himself, and
not in these. So, too, religious sentiment may
be developed, but the advance must be in the
man. and not in that which is incidental to a
Christian life
God has specific part to perform in the ed
ucation of the race Gods education of the
race has followed a great law of progress in the
development of the religious history of man
kind. 1t is SEEM first in the progressive pre-
sentation Of the truth ON the part Of God to
man; and, second progressive appreciation of
truth on the part of man. God revealed his
nature to man first Creator, then
Father, and, last of all, as Savior. And the
same great law is observed when you note
the progressive appreciation of truth Oh the
part Of man. AT one time we find man clinging
to the symboisms of truth, and again we be-
hold him cnging to the truth itself. At one
time he is churchman, and at another
Christian. To-day we have the the best thought
of the centuries, and it is to be found in our ap-
probation of Christ above creed or dogma;
in the sunshine of this thought bigotry, intoler
ance and persecution are melting away. We
standing to-day, as never before, in the presence
of Christ We are beholding, as never before,
the King in his beauty and while he is opening
the narrow rim of our horizon into infinity, the
truth, the umixed. symmetrical beautiful truth
is passing out
In this age on ages telling,
To be living is sublime.
Now, make your choice between darkness and
day, and wait not until you know everything
before you do anything but work, work. work
while it is day.
Religious experience is not dying out of the
hearts OF men, For many years the tide of hui
man thought has been flowing in other channels,
and has found ether outlets in science, culture.
LHe uuudulG0S anu CIldrlGlcS Oh lie, Out, IL L
read the signs Of the times Alright, the turning
point has been reached, and the tide of faith and
fervor is flowing back again into the channels of
religious experience and expression. When the
tides reach landward they heave and swell, and
dash their crested waves madly against the rock
bound shores. This is the advance line of their
progress, but beneath all this foam and fury the
steady tide beats in noiselessly and resstessly.
The incoming tide Of religious thought and ex-
perience to-day has not, perhaps much of the
oy16f noY md rn0r of +hn dial
waves of religious feeling that have hitherto Wis
tied u.s. but is broader and deeper and more pene
trating. This overflow of Gods life and love is
not only filling the rivers and streams of society
long stagnant and corrupt but it creeps up the
the little ventures of our individual lives. I'M
til borne on the bosom of this mighty food we
feel beneath our keels the swelling, living tides
of faith and inspiration and we are borne oue on
the bosom of this mighty food of divine life.