Los Angeles herald., 1891-11-30
THE CHURCHES.
FEATURES OF SOME OF YEsrER.
DAYS SERVICES.
DR.. williams's Thanksgiving Sermon.
Notes About Various Sermons That
Were Preached in the City Churches
Yesterday.

DIR. A. @. Williams, pastor of Univer-
sity Methodist church, preached his
Thanksgiving sermon Sunday morning.
He talked ON the reasons for our Chris
tian Thanksgiving, taking for his sub
iect Divine Providence, and his text
this sentence from the Lords prayer
''Give us this day our daily bread"
cit is common thing for worldly peo-
pie, especially skeptics, to make fun OF
our Thanksgiving; therefore," said the
doctor, 81 propose to consider the
ground for our Christian Thanksgiving.
If our daily bread comes from God then
thank Him for it, but if we receive it
from nature, it deserves our thanks.
This skeptical and materialistic hon
oring OF nature has tended 20 the dis
honor OF God, and has driven many to
doubt the existence of God. If electric
ity and other things in nature are inde-
pendent OF the supernatural, then men
are fools to ask God for their daily
bread.
1t necessarily dethrone the super
natural if we place nature above it. In
the realm of things God is supreme
ruler, but in the realm of mind He is
self-limited.
On Thanksgiving we should step out
side of the enumeration of things for
which we should be thankful and find
out if we truly believe that God is the
giver of all these things.
The doctrine of Divine Providence is a
reasonable one. If matter and mind
have not the same author, then there is
no Supreme Being, and why not, then,
worship the sun, the crocodiles or any
thing else in nature. If God is not in
nature, why fear Him. Does it seem to
reasonable being that God is outside
cf nature, watching the protoplasm of
matter but not controlling it?
The doctrine of miracle and special
providence must stand or fall together.
God used His power in nature to con-
vince people that He exists, by perform
ing miracles. The speaker went on to
show how the prophecies of Moses about
the destruction OF Assyria had been ful-
filled by quoting from the writings Of
Volney, an infidel who travelled through
that country 3000years after Moses made
his prophecies. Are we right in having
Thanksgiving, or do we mock intelli-
gence? We see the wonderful changes
in the physical world, but they are sys-
tematic, orderly changes, as if controlled
by master mind. Nature is dumb,
and cannot of itself do these things.
Some might say that God sets nature a.
going as machine, and let's it go as we
do a clock. But would machine watch
the little happenings of life and gauge
them to oar ultimate good? The laws
of nature are Gods mode of action.
They are not the agent that works the
wonders in life.
Nature has no feeling, no motive, no
will. Ii it had these things it would not
be called nature, but God.
Nature is matter; mind is force /;
matter is inertia; force is action. Has
man, outside of mind, found birth
place of force? Nay.
Mind cannot be transferred to matter /;
yet this must be SO if nature runs itself.
1t is gravity that runs the clock, and
Isaac Newton said that 'gravity is the
power OF God" Gravitation can pull
down buildings, but it cannot build
them.
Science can never step back OF the
Bible-the first verse of Genesis, I'm
the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth" II can conjecture of
the origin, but it cannot be positive.
Science must have a beginning from
which to begin.
Law is Gods mode of action. The
law OF attraction binds the earth and
the sun together, not by bands OF steel.
but by Gods Interchangeable way of bind
ing atoms OF the earth and the sun
When the earth and sun are no more
this law will cease to exist. The intelli-
gent Christian does not claim that God
annihilates His laws to answer prayer
more than the carpenter destroys bis
tools to build your house.
Nature is an obedient servant OF G. cd.
God does not put us into this machine
} OF nature and stand outside helpless.
He had suspended laws for our good,
but the laws of nature have been adapted
to our needs by the everlasting hand OF
God. We may never fear to ask. Car
lyle's final message to man, after years
OF doubling, was to serve God. This
life is a school for our development. So
long as God fills our thoughts we do not
doubt Him, though our view of Him be
DIM The more we study this question
may we learn the more to ask with a
firmer confidence: "Give us this day
our daily bread"
THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
Service was conducted in the First
Presbyterian church by DR.. Stewart.
He took for his text the eighteenth
} chapter of st. Luke, ninth and tenth
! verses, and also referred to part of
Eccesiastes. The doctor preached a
religious sermon, clearly showing the
many defective points in the worship of
the exclusive set of church people.
What he believed in was an apostolic
church. Hs cited an instance OF the
failure OF a minister after twenty-five
: years of preaching, and ascribed it to
the fact of his believing that all people
out of his church belonged to the devil !;
and thus with one fell stroke he severed
the bond of sympathy between himself
and the people. Such a pessimist has
an evil influence both over himself and
over the object. What We want is
preaching direct to the people, and not
! to be cooped up in your own church or
belief. Preach as the Savior and the
Z apostles did. That is apostolic church
,, and succession.
The laity Of England have risen
: against the utter exclusiveness of their
church, and the time is not far dis
tant, as Gladstone has said, when the
needed reform will be granted.
The doctor pictured clearly at all
times, in his own original manner, the