The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-07-25
LIES ESSENTIAL TRINITY.
Rev. George Wallace breaches at PIy.
mouth Conversational Church.


Rev. George Wallace breaches at Ply
mouth Congregational Church.
The Rev. George r. Wallace, of Saginaw,
Mich. preached yesterday morning and
last night at Plymouth Congregational
church in the absence of the Rev. Wallace
Nutting, who is on his way to Boston to
spend his vacation.
Mr. Wallace is native of Ireland and a
graduate of the Theological seminary of
the city of Belfast. He is 80 years of age,
tail, and has pleasant features. AS
an orator he possesses unquestioned
abilities. He came to America
ten years ago and began his
active ministerial career as an assistant in
plymouth Congregational church of Chi
cago. Accepting a call to the First Con-
gregational church of Saginaw, Mich, he
mas labored there ever since. He does
much literary and lecture work outside
the pulpit and is one of the speakers en-
gagged Tor the Chautauqua platform, his
address being on the programme for
August 3. He is accompanied on his visit
here by Mrs. Wallace and family. They
will be guests while here of Mr. and Mrs.
William T. Wickware, on Seventh street,
| between Union and Pike streets.
Congregations limited only by the ca
pacity OF the church attended both the
morning and evening services. The
preachers morning subject was ''Life's
Essential Trinity" His text was:
Thou, o king. sawest and behold great i'm.
age. This great image, whose brightness was
excellent stood before thee.
The images head was of fine gold,
his thighs of brass, his feet part of
iron and part of cay.-Daniel IL xxxi:2-a
He said:
In one of the Arabian stories we are told OF
sight-seer who beheld a long, bright cloud
reaching out over the sea, like column OF
smoke from Il volcano. As he watched it began
to condense and hide itself away in a copper
vase on the beach; u vase which fisherman
could have carried In one hand to his hut.
Often the truth which spreads itself over the
infinite heavens can be studied in the limits of
pebble or a flower. law which is
universal in its application can be compre-
hended by its illustration in the individual.
The most Insignificant fact of life is a circle
surrounded by enlarging circles of greater facts,
until enrolled in the worlds circumference, and
bounded by the circle of the universe. All facts
at last stand encompassed by the infinite lite of
God. The passage selected for our text refers
primarily to national events. Here in piano.
ramic vision the student of history sees pass be-
fore him some of the greatest nations of past
ages The mighty Babylonish empire being the
ahead of gold" The GrecIan empire with its
leader, Alexander, represented by the "thighs
OF brass" The vast Roman empire, in its east.
| ern and western divisions, forming the "legs of
| iron" The many nations into which the
| Roman empire divided forming the "feet part
| Of iron and port of clay"
| Interesting as would be the study OF the text
controlled by this conception of its meanng,we
| find in 1t an equally interesting and accurate
| description of individual life. Not merely do
20 n i,,tx IA oh fbar~
| represented by golden or brazen or iron condi-
tons but the truer fact that each individual life
| has at one and the same time all these various
| conditions existing in it. Life is complex. When
| ali the complex parts of life are true to these
highest possibilities, then the life is golden in
its results; in it there 10 witnessed the perfec
| tion of life. When in its conception of lifes
possibilities, its convictions regarding LIES
| duties and its active fulillment OF those con-
| captions ana convictions, 1t is true-then the
| golden age of life has been reached.
| Every life is formed of trinity. This trinity
is composed of ideal, conscience and action; or
/ of conception conviction aud the carrying out
of both. To put il differently, life's trinity is
made up OF Dreams duties and the doing of
them; but the dark fact stands before us that
! while many lives are golden IN their dreams
and Ideals in their convictions they have de-
| generated: and in their deecs, IN the actions by
| which they carry their ideals and convictions
| into the reality of life and make them of value,
| they seemed 10 have degenerated into the iron
! mixed too often with the mire and clay.
The preacher then proceeded to show
| that thought fingers too much In the
! realm of the material parts OF lie. lie
| meant the separation of the ideal from the
real trend of life and being.
| AGAIN DIR. Wallace showed that the Sec
| ond factor in life's essential trinity Is con-
science He said:
| A life in which conviction Is not equally
| strong with conception is lacking In the grand
est elements of manhood; and its story Is with
| ont the record OF the earnest ana useIul deeds
which would mark its pages were duty as en-
! phaticaIly part OF its nature as dreams. ideal
! ,,.ithout conviction never crystsliiges into
| setion The story OF reform, of moral advance
| ,neut of sacrifice and martyrdom Tor truth
sake, Is the story of conscience emphasizing us
| mower upon life. Every blazing martsr-staAe,
every thrilling word uttered by the Chrssostohis
| and sovouaroias. the Eliots and Pyms, the rat
! ,ick Heurys and Wendell Phillips, have only
| hssn CLEANS of light from that second star sci
! in humauitvs diadem, the blazing star of con-
| victiop. the Others being ideal and action.
| We too often, perhaps, think of conscience
| merely as a retributve force, aud 100 seldom DIS
| Droiactiye power. Conscience Is the power
! ,hat floods u,emory's "reminiscences with pict-
| ',ras nj mast crimes and lost opportunities.
| Cr,scianca II was that made the murderess OF
| snakespeare's creation walk the moor ana cry rs
| sba rubhed in vain 10 cleanse her hands:
Vet here's spot out, damned spot!
az Blood still; al. the perfumes OF
Arabia will not svee.eu snis
Little hand. On, on, on
Yes, conscience is the great retriputl agen'
! ,xhics Milton rightly calls ''the he'll within -
Of which he says: conscience wakes despair
| that sIu,nbered: wakes the bitter memory OF
what he was, what he is, and what must oe
| worse" - ,,.,.
Nav have had to cry with Milton:
! - .,...i.,c.s into W ia, ohyss of fears
! sn1 horrors has thou driven me; on; OF whieh
ia ~, wav from deep the deeper plunged
! R,,, conscience is primarily intended as
| the protective or motive power oi hie.
! Cn,t-oItnr LIES impulses. Checking lis
| - sasf-es and impeliing 20, yea
! opne7,inS the performance OF those duties