The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-02
SERMONS AND CELEBRATION
Services at Plymouth, Christian Chapel,
English Lutheran and Elsewhere.
A Distinguished Lady Visitor Addresses the
Central w. G. T. q. on the Occasion of
Its Eleventh Anniversary.
DIscoURAGEmENT AND REACTION.
The Morning Theme of Rev. Oscar C. McCul-
loch at Plymouth Church.

lOch at Plymouth Church.
The morning services at Plymouth Church
opened with the reading of the nineteenth chap
ter of first Kings. after which FIVE persons were
received into church fellowship by the pastor.
who charged them with the difficulty of the
passage from the world to God, and of the
necessity of Gods children banding themselves
together in churches, with Christ their leader,
the better to cope with the forces of evil.
The sacrament of baptism then followed,
''consecrating thee to be good soldier of Jesus
Christ, to ever take the side of the right and
at all times to be helpful, merciful and loving.
After the hymn, "Blest be the tie that
binds our hearts in Christian love-" the
sermon on Present Christian Duty followed,
the text being the clause, What dost thou here.
ElijahF from the thirteenth verse of xix Kings.
The question implied reproach Elijah was
away from his duty, and fleeing for his life. 1t
was asked as one might ask a physician who
had fed from an epidemic. The Bible constant
ly presents problems of duty; 1t is human life
set in type, so that we all may read; its people
are natural and human; we may like them or not,
but they show life as it is; it is full Of stern
judgments, saying thou art the man."
Its lessons are adaptable to our daily lives its
heroes unlike those Of Greek myth and story.
This story of Elijah at Horeb is that of a strong
soul gone into eclipse and Encouragement He
comes unannoune like comet, into the history
of lsrael-nothiIfg of his childhood or youth.
He announces the famine to Ahab and disap-
pears fed and nurtured by God After three
years he shows himself unto Ahab, alone among
the children of God, to all appearance and his
own belief, though there are 1000 who have not
bowed the knee to Baal The crucial test, as be-
tween the servants of God and Baal is held at
inf W 81 6
sacrifice the token is given to Elijah. The
prophets of Baal are destroyed, the cloud APP
pears the heavens are opened and the rain falls.
There had been great revival and exhibition of
Gods power, and then came the reaction. 80
let the gods do to me- and more also. If / make
not thy life as the life of one of them by to-
morrow" threatened Jezebel 1t is a law of
nature that reaction follows action; strength and
weakness work and rest, height and depth.
Reaction came to Elijah after his success, and
he fed into the wilderness, beyond Beer sheba,
hungry and weary, begging that he might die
For | am not better than my fathers"
But God touched him with seep-healthful
dreamless sleep. With sleep and food. with
strength and silence, came recuperation. He
things anew. and. in the strength born of soil
tude and the wilderness, he went forty nights
unto Horeb, the mount of God The question of
duty came to him in the cave-"What dost
thou hereP and his plant, "They have slain
Thy prophets and seek my life," was ignored
and he was told to go unto the mount of the
Lord. The wind came. the thunder and light
ming, the earthquake and the fire, and at last
the still. small voice of duty and conscience. of
self and God, and the second time it said, What
dost thou herey' Again Elisha told his story of
fear and reaction; there was no sympathy
coincidence. only the way of duty pointed out
"Anoint Hazael king over Syria and Jehu king
over Israeli Elijah had gotten over the period
of reaction. Whenever great revival comes to
people, and they have taken new and adj
yapced stand they need, if ever, commander,
the strong hand that led them to stay with
them. Otherwise they are as an army which
has been led by an enthusiastic general into the
enemys country; they fight one battle.
and are left with angry hosts about
them, and the reaction sets in and
they are discouraged. Such times come to all,
lawyers, to teachers, to mothers in their daily
routine. Even John the Baptist lost his reckon
ing, and asked art thou He that should come
or look we for another?" And Christ. discour
aged went apart TO the solace of solitude and
came forth to the TRANSPORTATION. Bruce lost
one battle, but in his hiding place took courage
from the ant which had lost seventy. The
physician loses case, and for time thinks
medicine is guess-work the lawyer will lose faith
in juries, and fails for time to trust the princi-
pies of justice. Reaction comes to business men,
to the teacher with her seventy little ones 1
suppose have wished score of times that
might be physician and see the relation of my
work at once, as disease and remedy. Here, /
say are two more sermons gone into the great
ocean of talk, even though some of the seed fall
on good ground The cure for this reaction
from the various work of life is sleep and rest;
change for time, and then return as did Elijah
again to duty.
The closing portions of the sermon were il
Illustrated at length from the striking cases in
secular and religious history of those who had
met reaction, but had been of good courage,
waiting on the Lord who had strengthened their
hearts.