St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-03-19
Rev. S. G. Smith breaches to
a Congregation That Fills
the Opera House.
A Sermon Full of Interesting
Pictures Taken From Ma
lures Great Book,
By Which the Preacher Illus
trated the Truth He Had
To Tell.
Enlightened Spiritual Eyes
That See Where the Unen-
lightened Are Blind.

Every seat in the auditorium of the
Grand opera house was taken and the
balcony had few vacant chairs when
Rev. S. G. Smith began his sermon yes
terday morning. He preached an inter-
esting discourse, taking as his text:
BLESSED are your eyes, for they see"
He said:
1t is a fine thing to have good eyes for
sight, but far better is it to have that
quality of soul which men have learned
to name insight. Yonder is cliff some
hundreds of feet high, made of rock and
crowned with yerdure. One passing by
sees only dull and heavy outlines, a
sense of light and dark, with spray of
foliage; but the poet passes by and the
strength and glory of those heights
speak to him. The great solemn
pines upon its crest, the tangled
wilderness of vines that cover up its
ragged rents, the moses, the lichens,
the flowers, hanging here and there,
the gnarled ahd knotted roots clinging
with an almost intelligent strength, the
great background of quiet blue sky,
and the foreground of shining waters
all speak to him. The cliff becomes to
him picture and poem. The geologist
comes and traces the strata of rock, de-
cides the probable skeletons of life
which lie imprisoned III that unex-
plored museum, and tells the age far re-
mote through which this hillside has
passed. To him it is history writ in
stone. The builder comes by and de-
cideS it is limestone, OF sandstone, good
and bad for use. and once quaried out,
how many great buildings might be
fashioned from this cliff. The civil
engineer looks upon it simply as
so much resistance to be overcome or
circumvented, he calculates whether
his railroad would better be tunneled
through Or sent around Ill sweeping
curves.
AS is this cliff, so are all things in
earth and sea, mute or vocal, full OF Wis
ion or wide waste of desert. according
to the power of sight that is in us. To
those, His disciples, who had gathered
some message from the words He spoke,
Jesus said: BLESSED are your eyes, for
they see." He spake in parallels, not
as some brutal slanderers would have us
think, that He might conceal His mes
sage from the multitude, but rather be-
cause it was only through such picture
of life that the truth might reach their
hearts at all. He had
THREE CLASSES OF HEARERS:
the dull and heavy, to whom no ministry
seemed possible. Then there we're
those who, listening to the parallels,
saw some outlines of Beauty and power
and gained some truth; but there were
also those of seeing eyes, upon whom
came the highest blessing of Christ.
The parallels were a way OF teaching
truth in its deepest sense. The whole
Bible, with it's lessons of history and
biography, is but vast parable to teach
that mightiest gospel, which has ever
been written i'll the heart OF man and Ill
the structure of human life. And sothe
prophets, those men who were called
Seers by their generation, were only
typical men, promising that time when
the Spirit should be poured out upon all
flesh, and when all men should rise to
their level to receive His benediction,
BLESSED are your eyes, for they see.'
Jesus taught by miracle the picture OF
power, and by parable the. picture of
truth. Mathew busies himself most
with the stories. Mark, with the con-
ciseness of Tacitus, gives his record of
action, but the gospel of John, we'll
called .'the heart of Christ" bids both
miracle and parable step back into sec
Ond palace, while man comes face to
face with truth and God. All men must
be taught by parable; SO God has spread
a sky with its abiding calm as the pict-
ure of his own eternity, so he has put
us into world of sense and action.
which reveal the stately movements of
our God. There are parallels of action;
our busy life is one of these; it is par
able or it is bedlam. The eager ambi-
tons of youth, the quieter, but far
stronger passions of manhood, the COM
ING and going of forces, the rise and de-
cline of policies in society and business,
are all elements in Gods parable.
There is not manifestation of trade.
there is not an upheaval Of forces, there
is not new departure in literature, but
each and all are actors in that mighty
pantomime of God, which he has set
upon this
WHOLE PLANET AS A THEATER,
and which will require for its playing
out the sweep of ages. So history be-
comes the symbol of Providence. As
men come to recognize this, their
hearts are fed by hope. They cannot
faint, for they look up and say to God,
wondrous mystery Of human life.
Happy, my friends, are those of you
who have gathered any sense of its
mighty dignity and solemn meaning,
BLESSED are your eyes, for they see."
Then there are parallels and knowl-
edge for every human soul. 1t was a
great gain when men began to find out
different departments OF science in
which they might pigeOn-hOle their
observation of Natures single life.
1t has been of highest moment to
us that devoted men have ranSacked the
earth, and wood and sea, that they have
explored things of life and things in
animate, and have come back to us to
report truly what they have found; but,
believe me, clearer than any deduction
written down in books is this widest
deduction which is now in the thought
of all earnest and cultivated men.
Nature can never be exhausted: there is
in her an uneXplOrable mystery; there
is a fullness of life which the finite can
not fathom; she is wrapped about in
the embrace of wider life than any
that is tangible; there is no final eXpla-
nation in definitions and formulas. The
light flung out by human knowledge
shows that her abySSes are unfathom-
searching can find out God?" Nature is
THE PARABLE OF THE DIVINE.
The awakened soul Of man has the
power of wisdom. Our comprehension
of truth will always depend largely on
our relation to it. In the darkness Of
night you lie in your quiet chamber,
when the air is startled by the shrilI
whistle of the policeman. To you it is
sound of comfort, you are watched
over and protected; but it is like the
thunderbOlt of earth to the prowling
thief whose stealth and villainy it
brings to bay. SO the presence of God
is comfort or threat according to our
spiritual attitude.
In order to see truth there must be
preparation. The camera is unmeaning
unless there be behind it a sensitive
plate; so there are visions of eternal
beauty and truth that pass and repass
before our souls and have no meaning to
us, but when once prepared by the Most
High, they are caught upon the pages of
orr hating hpart and hpo0mp orr noc.