The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-07-15
WHAT THE PREACHERS SAID
Bishop Joyce Talks About the Positive
Teaching of Christ and Its Effect.
DR.. Keen Does Not Think Professional Base-Ba BAL
an ~Elevating observation-disclosures That
Threaten the Success of Young Men.

yesterday forenoon at Grace NJ. f. Church,
his theme being what God Is to Men"
He took as his text the two words "Our
Father" from the ninth verse OF the sixth
chapter g Matthew. Jesus Christ" said
the Bishop, was a positive teacher. You
will not find in anything He said during
His entire ministry anything tina you can
possibly cOnstrue into a doubtful meaning,
or that He himself had any doubt about.
There are libraries of hundreds of volumes
on the teaching of negatives, books that
say this is not so, and that is not so. There
is one single subject ON which there are
twenty-five large volumes, trying to prove
the thing is not so. Everything that Jesus
Christ said can be put into q three-cent
tract, so small you can carry it in your vest
pocket, but that little tract of positive
teaching is having more effect, producing
larger results than all the libraries of
the world on the sayings of negations.
There are times, when we think of
the services of Jesus Christ as rem
dered to us, that we place our thought al
most entirely on the Savior side of the
questions; that when He died on the cross
we and all the races went free. No man
can magnify that phase of Christ's work
too much. 1t is well, however, to take
another view of it. and look at the intel
iectual service that He has rendered the
world. You and 1 are exceedingly happy
this morning in belonging to q class of men
and living In an age when no time need be
spent In settling first principles. That
pialn. humble man who taught and
preached l,NO years ago settled all that for
US. we came into this intellectual inheri-
lance by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
He opened to us such a view of God that
the mind settles ON that fact and we never
discuss 1t. The question whether God is or
Is not was settled long ago.
"But jesus Christ was also o descriptive
teacner. He knew men did not live in alb
s,rastions. We can picture to ourselves
the Divine Father as a moral abstraction,
Du5 while you and / can do that there are
Inlllions that cannOt do it. 1t is said that
hungry. every night. What time have such
people TO live In mental abstraction Lon
don has nearly 100000 of people, and
pretty nearly 100000 of them are paupers
and have to live on charity. What good to
go to them and preach distractions. to tell
them that God is a being without body and
without partsf They could have no more
idea what 1t meant than they would nave
OF a great mathematical problem. So Jesus
Christ IL q descriptive teacher and tells us
ABOUT God, gives us a pleasant view of
GOD, presenting nothing repulsive or horri-
DIe' and says that when You pray. you
are to say Our Father When we lave
something pictured to our thought we see
we think of Him in all the relations of q
father. 1t is q great blessing to have a
pleasing knowledge of God. That is the
beginning of all things: We need spend no
be. There are ten thousand things / would
like to know, but life is too short, and
there is not capacity enough to understand
them. But this revelation has settled all
things. An great ideas have some phase of
the God idea in them: There is not a big
idea anywhere outside of this divine con-
ception of things Anything that is purely
q human projection will wear out and be-
come useless. Every great thought that
has p%lohghed the conscience has had some
never moved q hairs breadth ex-
cept there were two phases in it.
One was God and the other was con-
science. The revolutions that lift up the
have been questions in which conscience
was involved and some idea of the Divine
Being projected into it. The movement
grows out of this revelation that Jesus
Christ has given to us. The idea that
thrills men to the bottom Of their con-
science Is the idea that they are responsible
to God, and INST answer to Him by and
by. When a man becomes in perfect accord
with God he has perfect mental rest and
great peace of conscience.
Il have been asked what class of men
are doing the best thinking, and from what
class OF men do communities get the best
help. The answer is, from men whose con-
sciences are not disturbed, but at any time
In the twenty-fOur hours are at their best.
The human mind lives on what it
gets from God the same as our bodies live
on what they get from the earth and the
air. Intellectual men live on what they
get from God. and any study that leads to
God makes q man q better man. The
crudest creed of any theolOgian has done
the world far more good than the blackness
of atheism, an everlasting negative that
brings men down. The crudest thought
that leads to God makes the world better.
There cannot be any great theme when God
is left out of the circle of mans thinking.
Anything to be great must have some of the
infinite in it. The mind of man is a. Off
spring of God. Every man feels heis born for
something better than he now is. No man
is satisfied with himself morally. That
aspiration of the human soul is the pulse
beat of immortality.
The church of Jesus Christ is the moral
guide-bOard of the nineteenth century.
The way to give men the right direction is
to give a right view of the character of
God. and Jesus Christ said the way to pray
Is to say Our Father 1t means that God,
our Father, guides MS. protects us. trains
us, transforms us, .elevates us. Take the
human view. of it. / think there is no
circle on earth so sublime and grand as a
Christian home. with father. mother and
children. What would you think of a man
who did not provide for his boys mind to
growi Even the State comes to the home
and compels the education of the child.
Shall think God is less than an earthly
fatherf This is the day when we glorify
the human intellect. We admire the man
who can walk up to a great problem and
solve it. We glorify mind. From the
humblest cabin in the land the way
is open to God Almighty's throne.
If a man can think to God, he can live to
God. AS naturally as the sunlight dances
on the earth does the mind reach out to
God when il understands God. When this
truth has it's full influence with men there
springs up the desire to talk to God. When
o man gets a clear view of God it is as nat
ural for him to want to talk to God as to
drink when one is thirsty. Must we con-
clude that the wisdom of God and His love
exhaust themselves on flowers, and birds,
and fishesi Must l conclude, as q sensible
man who shall answer to God, that His
love, and wisdom, and skill exhaust them
selves on flowers and birds? No. no. The
flower on its plane, the bird On its plane,
but the man on a higher plane. God takes
care of man on his plane. He is a father
an infinitely gentle, loving, tender father.
he cares for us every day."
At the conclusion of the sermon the
Bishop announced that an effort would be
made to clear the church of its debt, s., 200.
The audience was not large, but more than
half the mount required was subscribed.
and at the evening service enough mere
was subscribed to make sure the payment