The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1886-08-27
AN G. OF TRUST

The Middle Ages, it is said, were the
ages of faith. The men of that day built
cathedrals, went into monasteries and de
voted themselves to religion. All people
day, and confessed their sins. Yes, there
was a great deal more of the outside relig-
ion then, but was there more of its heart?
Men were more afraid of God. Did they
love Him better?
Does love always show itself in outward
ceremonies and forms? Does it not more
often appear in perfect confidence, in entire
trust? You are a father or a mother.
most honor, and be most to your credit as
a parent-to have your children afraid of
you, and therefore come regularly with
formal expressions of respect to appease
have them trust in you wholly, lean on
your help and sympathy without a doubt
or fear, and to feel always safe, shielded
by your protection and EMBODIED in your
ioNt ANobitiiIH Sipil 1T WV Sp hAiti "a q
childlike trust in Him. This spirit is that
of the Gospel. This trust in God which
brings peace to men is also the best glory
to God in the highest.
We do not now go so much to church to
find God; but we feel His presence more in
nature, life, science, literature, art. He
is now Emmanuel, God with u.s." The
whole world is His temple. The stars and
flowers sing his praise with voiceless lips.
Yes, it is the sense of the infinite in all in
finite things; of the perfect amid all i'm
perfection; of a divine love superior to all
sorrow and pain; of a heavenly immortal
ity conquering decay and death. 1t is the
sense of something permanent amid all
that there is transient, of this steadfast,
u~nchanging, center of being amid the fast
flying phenomena of nature which enables
us to hope, and keep us from despair.
If the time shall ever come when the
| spirit Of religion shall die out of human
hearts; when men shall become merely
positive philosophers, believing only in
thihSo tO hhb ttihloiai1 III nbiNh al
faith is the unseen, the infinite, the Divine
shall disappear in a low materialism-then
men, being without God, will also be with
out hope in the world; for there is no truer
saying than that of the scripture: with
ont God in the world, and SO without
hope
Then, and only then, will human pro-
gress cease, mans improvement come to an
end. and a pale, cold despair sink like a
shroud upon the dead face of humanity.
But there is no danger of this. Such poor
materialism is too shallow and too narrow
to satisfy any human heart or mind, or to
content the demands of science very long.
So far from losing God, as science i'm
proves and the world advances, the sense
of a Divine presence is coming more and
more into all nature and all of life. God
does not now seem to come in occasionally,
and at intervals, in the way of miracles;
bnt he is seen and felt in all human life.
Without Him, not a sparrow falls to the
ground. He numbers every hair on our
heads. From Him and through Him and
to Him are all things. In Him we live
and move and have our being. We see
Him in the sun; We feel Him in the air;
we recognize Him in our joy and in our
grief; we receive the new infant as a gift
from His hand; we dismiss to His care the
dear friend who leaves our side, sure that
God loves him more than we do, and will
do better for him than we can ask or think
There is in this age less and less of for
NAL religion, of ceremonial devotion, of
prayer at set times, but more and more Of
the spirit of faith, hope and love in ali in
finite Friend, in "a perfect Father
Freeman Clarke, in Christian Life.