The examiner., 1886-02-27
THY KINGDOM COME"
UPON EARTH.
PRAYER OF KES- TERDAY, SOCHALHsNA's DREAM
 OFF TO-DAY.
ssChrisaia aniiy's Hope of isae First Centu ry, EvOiusiOn's Central Truth of
 The Nineteenth.
Synopsis of Sermon delivered at Unity Church,
 Hartford, Feb. fl, by Pastor John C. Kimball)

|
 No one can read the New Testament
 without noticing how often the words
 kingdom, my kingdom" Kingdom of | heav en, or of God, are used in its teach
 ings. The very first petition of the Lords prayer that all Christendom has repeated l for 1900 years is, s'Thy kingdom come. D 1 What is the nature of this kingdom, and when and where is 1t to be established?
 The words king and kingdom, to us repub- l licans, savor of tyranny and subjection in
 our thoug ht, and we. rebel little even at
 the idea of a religious kingdom with God as 1 its sovereign; and the old conception of God sitting on throne outside of creation
 has been largely given up as incompatible 1 with his real relation to the universe. Yet, the words ''Thy kingdom come" l rightly taken are in the very line of our American, and our scientific thought, that
 they express the very thing that the most
 advanced minds of this age are hoping and
 striving for, and that we liberals, social | ists and reformers can use them today l more consistently as our prayer than the
 most devoted of those old disciples could | 1900 years ago. Jesus undoubtedly took | the words from the common speech of his time, as expressive of ths most cherished
 aspirations of his countrymen; for the in
 tense longings of the Jewish heart had | been for ages the restoration of the old state of things, before their subjection to
 the Roman yoke, and to be again an inde- pendent nation, with new David or Solo, mon on the throne, enforcing all the rites
 and ceremonies of the old Mosiaclaw.
 or course with them 1t was to be an | earthly, visible, temporal kingdom, yet 1 even to their minds it was to be something
 more than material prosperity and riches | It was to be in very truth kingdom of God on earth. Righteousness, justice, and | equity, were to extend throughout all its | borders, and the lion of force and the lamb of love were to lie down in it together l Now, for Christ to have entirely rejected
 this idea of a kingdom, to have told His | hearers it was all a delusion for them to | hope for an earthly sovereignty, and thus | to have crushed their fondest hopes would
 have been a needless cruelty. His only re- source was to take the words as he found them, spiritualize and enlarge their mean 1 ing, and lead his oountrymen, step by step,
 to the true upbuilding of the kingdom of
 Heaven. And yet we are not to suppose,
 as so many churches have, that he went to the other extreme, entirely spiritualizing away the old Jewish idea, teaching king dom that was to have no outward, earthly, embodiment, that it was to consist of truths and principles merely, and to be realized only after death in some unseen and far-off
 world The real difference between the
 
 the one his countrymen were looking for, was not so much in it's nature or locality as in the order in which its two parts, the temporal and spiritual, were to be related to each other. The Jews expected to be- gin with the outward form, with it's insti- tutions, laws and government all complete, and then have these bring in, among them selves and over all the earth, the reign of truth and righteousness, while the Naza- ycY1t tn Qt Ky ta end. He began with ideas and principles, began with intoxicating the recognition of a universal Gcd and a universal brotherhood in the human heart, and left these to work out their own embodiment.
 It is the only practical way, as the
 worlds experience again and again has shown. Every real kingdom that earth
 has ever known has been, not govern
 ment made to order, but a growth out of | some inner life principle. Russia is des-
 potism to-day because the Russian people have in themselves, in spite of all Nihilist rebellions, the ignorance, the abject servil- | ity, the imperial religion, and the ter thous- and little tyrannies between man and man,
 out of which big tyrannies grow.
 Why is it that the laboring men of America, with the ballot in their hands and
 the perfect right and freedom of organiza- tion and cooperation do not rise up at once and secure for themselves fair wages, i and bring in on earth the reign of complete
 temporal prosperity, rivalry, selfshness,
 and want of fairness among themselves. | With these within, there Is no amount of | legislation, altering constitutions, or tear l ing down the frame work of society, can | give them what they want And the most | hopeful thing about labor movements to- l day, the one which is the best defence of | trades unions and labor associations, and all these agitations and discussions of | which the social air to-day is full, is the grand work they are doing in uplifting the workingmen themselves, planting within | them the spirit of cooperation and uniting | them as brother to brother in common,
 unselish interest,-the sure herald of their 1 final triumph.
 So with establishing the kingdom of Heaven on earth The old Jewish method
 of an outward kingdom first, and an inner l one afterwards, could never have been | otherwise than an entire failure. Jesus,
 with supreme wisdom, began at the other
 end, began by establishing the principle,
 the idea, the living germ. The kingdom of | God as he first preached it was, indeed, en. 1 tirely spiritual. It was to be within the
 human soul, like the leaven, or like the mustard seed. Its capital was to be the
 human heart, it's boundaries the lines of
 right and truth, its states, faith, hope,
 meekness, peace and chastity, it's riches,
 the silver and gold of noble deeds, it's wor-
 ship that of spirit and truth.
 But because it was thus started in the
 human soul as simply ideal spiritual
 entity, it does not follow that it was meant
 to keep always and only it's ideal existence.
 The very object of placing it as seed in
 the human soul was to have it spring up
 and grow and become a real, living, out ward material, institution. The kingdom
 of heaven is to be in it's completion not a
 dim shadowy realm, free of nature and
 natural laws, but one in which all forces,
 moral and material, intellectual and physi-
 cal, shall work together in harmony for
 the common good It is to be a tree in
 whose branches all the birds of the air, that
 is, all the interests of humanity are to come
 and lodge. Its boundary lines of right and
 truth are to take in actual countries. It
 is to have cities, towns, houses and streets,
 steams engines and telegraphs, work shops
 and counting rooms, ships and railroads, are all to help in it's work. Men and l women with actual human forms, with
 strong limbs and nerves that never ache,
 are to dwell in its homes and walk it's
 streets. It is to differ from the kingdoms
 which now are, not so much in its outward | form, as in the extent to which the spirit ] of heaven. is to penetrate all it's parts. The