St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-03-16
PLYMOUTH CHURCH.
The Eighth Anniversary Sermon by the Pas

The Eighth Anniversary Sermon by the Pastor
Heard by Large Number of Worshipers.
DR.. Dana was met by large congregation
yesterday morning, and without anything I'M
usual in the service he marked the beginning
OF another year in his pastorate by an earn
est sermon founded on the words in Mark l.,
10, Believe the Gospel. He remarked that
this brief, terse clause, if read as an appeal,
reveals its latent pathos to all Ingenious
minds; II taken as a command, It's grave
import all recognized: if construed as sug-
gestion, its solemn reasonableness none
would dispute. The Gospel is simple,
not complex; it creates no difficult
ties; those complained of exist
independently, while the gospel makes the
best answer to them We need not under
stand optics in order to see, Or the process of
digestion in order to eat-why need we the
mysteries of grace and conversion to believe
and be saved? Ignorance is no bar to the
physicians helping person chargeable with
it, nor that we can't explain why believing
effects what it does, should we refuse to be-
lieYe.
THE STEADINESS OF PURPOSE
the gospel faith secures is seen in the ample
biographies of those Cbristianly-liveo. PauTs
incompatible career was the result of be-
lieving. He was made by the gospel. He
illustrated what it can do for every acceptin g
heart. Quietude and repose come, too, of be-
heving. Howard was unruffied by danger,
unterrified by peril-fraught visits to loathe-
some prisons. Luther's life was attuned to
his own greatest hymn. All unbelievers
have been impressed by the serenity and
repose of those holding to the gospel.
Hume was forlorn in the solitude of his
dreary philosophy. The skeptics of the day
are busily warning against each other; none
have found peace in believing what they be-
lieve. The strong, abiding trust of the work.
ers with Christ is the marvel of all candid
beholders,
POWER MOST LASTING
comes from thus believing. "Every ring
breaks up at last" Evil books and evil COM
binations have no heightened existence.
Cromwell and Washington, Lincoln and
Gladstone, win at last over all
foes and assailants. The worlds
greatest poets caught their themes
from Christ. No great military poems have
appeared since the Advent. Milton and
Tennyson could only have lived and written
since the Gospel was published so too
Raphael and Angelo got their subjects and
inspirations from that which rouses all man IS
best powers, the Gospel faith. To you /
bring no statistics as l cross the boundary of
another year of my pastorate here, memory
and vision report enough to apprise US we
have been kindly dealt with by our God, and
prospered, perhaps, as much as we deserved.
But the message 1 would bring you is in the
words OF our common Master: Believe the
Gospel, imbibe more OF its spirit, let its SOY
ereign beauty and power possess you more
and more, yield with increasing dociity to it,
that like all made great by its doctrines and
duties you may be made personally nobler
and as church more and more useful. Ac-
cept it as the directory of your daily life, and
it will exalt the temper and range of your
earthly existence. For all time, for all persons
the primal privilege and opportunity is found
in connection with Gospel believing.