Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-11
d mot tha commonly accepted answer.


of them will hold that the best that men
can do is to do right, to live honestly, to
help his neighbor, and to do his daily duty.
The best of life in the judgment of a large
proportion of the readers of this sermon, Is
morality rather than religion. Is it better
that we should love our neighbors than that
we should love the Lord God Almighty.
One of the best men know said to me
the other day in letter: "You know that
belong to family that is more noted for
their honesty than for their religion, and
personally, while not claiming much OF the
former, / frankly admit to you having little
or none of the latter"
And, evidently, the difference here in
| tended between honesty and religion IS tnat
honesty looks toward our fellow men, while
religion looks first of all to God. Now, the
most important fact anywhere in the whole
| circumference OF truth is the fact OF the e1-
istence of God. The most important being
| intellectually the most important-ln the
whole universe, in the whole range of life is
| God. God made us; God set US IN our
places in the great brotherhood Of men;
God gave us
| ALL THAT WE HAVE.
Of heart, of soul, of mind, of strength,
God keeps us in being; to God we go at the
| last. No man made himself And no man
has lived long in this world without becom-
ing aware that he is set in the midst of vast,
mysterious, uncomfortable forces. Nature
| is but the garment of God All motion is
but the movement of God. Back of every
| fact in nature, in history and in human ex-
perience, we come to God. And after
death is God. The first step in the argu-
ment is the human soul; and that means the
divine soul, God; and God must be supreme.
Over all and in all is God.
Christ sold that the noqt impnrfopf
thought that anybody can think is thought
about God; and that the supreme human
duty is our duty toward God. Whoever
leaves God out of his reckoning goes adrift
inevitably. It is more important immeas-
urably to reverence, to fear and to love God
than it is to tell the truth, to conduct an
honest business, to visit the fatherless and
widows in their afliction, or to keep ones
self unspotted from the world. No amount
of obedience paid to the last six command
ments can make up for any mans neglect of
the first four. No amount of devotion to
the second of the two Commandments of the
Gospel can take the place of disregard of the
first. No man is living right life, no mat
ter how upright or how honorable, who lays
the emphasis of his endeavors upon honesty
and is contented to let religion go. You
may think of your neighbors all day long
and spend your whole time in the effort to
be helper, an uplifter, bringer of
good into the dark places of bad
world; you may be the best of benefac-
tors, the most public-spirited of citizens,
the most devoted of all men in your love
for your family, perfectly straightforward,
Immediately honorable, the soul of virtue,
the mirror of all human graces-but if you
leave God out, do not think of God, do not
pray to Him nor worship Him, do not love
God, you have, after all, left out that
element of human life that gives it value.
Your life is like clock without an hour
hand; all that busy ticking, swinging does
not count.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FAITH.
That is a hard saying. But you know the
emphasis that is laid in the Bible upon
faith. Again and again in various ways we
are earnestly assured and warned that with
out faith it is impossible to please God.
And faith-what is faith? Not an accept
ance of the statements of the theologians.
No; faith finds a good definition in the
''great commandment" That is what it is;
to do that-to love God with all the heart,
and soul, and mind. Faith, whatever mean
ing we attach to 1t is pre-eminently con-
cerned with God. That is perfectly evil
dent. Nobody will say that faith and
morality are the same thing. Faith is the
heart of religion.
fruit of faith is all manner of good living.
Nobody can possibly believe in good and
love God without desiring in everything to
please God. And God has LETT US in no
doubt that there is no way in which we can
please Him better than by keeping His COM
mandments, by doing His will. And the
supreme commandment which follows that
which sets our love toward God, prompts
us to love our neighbors as ourselves. 1t is
11n ln IN Thar rotr1 anff
to love God without loving our neighbor,
to have faith without works. The very
sign and proof of Divine love is human
love. No man is godly man unless he is
good man. So strong is the bond, indeed,
between faith and works, between goodness
and godliness, that we hope that the first is
proof Of the planting of the right seed,
that the good life indicates a good heart,
and that the man who really loves his
brother loves his heavenly Father also.
IT'S THE MOTIVE THAT COUNTS.
But the difference between the second Of
the commandments of the Gospel and the
first lies just in this: That God looks at
the heart rather than the hands, accounts
the motive as the part of the deed that de-
termines its value, and cares supremely for
mans love. The distinction between two
good deeds. which sets one immeasurably
above the other in the estimation of God, is
that one good deed is done for the pleasure
of the doer while the other good deed is
done for the pleasure of God. One man did
his good deed never thinking about God at
all, leaving God altogether out, as if there
were no God. The other did his good deed
desiring to please God, because it was the
will of God, out of love for God.
That is not hard to understand. Every
father and mother knows the difference be-
tween an obedience which is meant to
please them, and an obedience which dlsre-
CARDS them altogether. The parent desires
the love of the child, wants the heart of the
child, measures the value of obedience by
the love that lies behind it. And so does
God.
That is why the love of God is the subject
of the great commandment. Because God,
as Jesus Christ revealed Him to US, stands
in personal relation to us, a relation of
which that between parent and a child is
but a faint symbol; God loves US every. one
unspeakably. And God wants US to love
Him No wonder that without faith it is
impossible to please Him. God is forever
looking for our love. God forever finds a
lack in every deed which shows no love.
Out of all that we can give Him, this He
sets highest, that we love Him.
WONDER OF THE DIVINE LOVE.
Do not think that God has no love for the
unloving, that He turns in the least away
from any man who looks out and not up,
and loves his neighbors more than he loves
his Father Do not think that God does
not take account of every good thing that
He can possibly find in the remotest corner
of the most forgetful heart. God knows the