The Sully County watchman. (Clifton, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1894, 1893-02-10
DIVINITY IN HUMANITY.
Rev. HOlp Finds Many Evidences
Of It---SOme Good Points
Made.
Good Things Are Contagious
And God Made Them So.
---Man's Goodness,

This is the old story of the shields;
here stands shield and on either
side of it a knight. One declares
that the shield is gold; the other that
it is silver. Both men are right in
what way they affirm; both are wrong
in what they deny. They are look
ing at different sides of the same
thing.
Here stands man eminent in
goodness, equally eminent in wicked
ness. AS one great man looks upon
him he says, "Man is a God" As
another great man views him: "Man
is a devil" How are we to reconcile
these different statements concern
ing the same thing? Only by saying
that man has both a divine and a
diabolical side, and that the critics
are not measuring the same side.
The Bible doesn't undertake to prove
the existence of God, of sin, nor the
immortality of the soul of man.
Christ always treated men as though
they were immortal. He treated his
life as though it were but a fragment
of that greater life to come. If the
Bible can take so much for granted,
we certainly are safe in taking
improved the diabolical side of man.
We see enough of it; we know
enough of it already. Goethe wanted
no mans doubts. He had enough of
his own, but he should be thankful
for anyone who gave beliefs that
were strengthening and soul-saving
We know enough of the wickedness
of man,-let us look this morning
upon his divine side.
Mountains and stars are among the
great wonders to man, but man him
self is infinitely the superior in won
derment of the greatest mountain
and the greatest star.
Joseph Parker says, "Knowing
that / can put the loftiest mountain
of the earth under my feet. stand
upon it and lift my hands to a height
it never climbed, l am greater than
the mountain"
Great Pascal said to the sun, 'I am
greater than thou; thou couldst fall
and crush me, but l should be con-
scious Of defeat, whilst thou would
be UNCONSCIOUS of victory"
l pick ur little shell from the
ocean side, place it to my ear and !
am told the singular rolling sound Is
that of the ocean itself. Man is the
shell which reverberates the sound OF
two oceans,-the ocean of time and
the greater ocean of eternity.
When Socrates said, "know thy.
SELF" he taught man to know that
which was best and greatest in the
universe, saving only God.
| The hero of an ancient love story
was said to possess human body
unanimated by the divine spirit
Perhaps after all, mans physical
being, wonderful as it is, tells only of
a human body without a divine
spirit. However, when we think OF
the pyramids, those great petritleo
histories, petritied prophecies: when
we stand in St. Paul's and behold
it, crystallized worship; when we
look upon the Brooklyn bridge, that
visible bond that unites in marriage
the city of New York and the city Of
i. Brooklyn; when we view the Greel
Slave OF the Artist Powers, and looE
upon the mastery canvas Of {
Wagner; when we sit entranced fo]
hours listening to the impersonatior
tot 'Hamlet" and Macbeth" by ;
Booth or a Barrett: When we drink ir
the oratorio of "Elijah," "Creation.
1.-The Messiah" as produced by thu
unequaled orchestra and chorus OF
, Theodore Thomas: when we lool
throlgh the telescop. into the
heavens above and realize that tn
power of the eye has been hu. 'areu
of times magnifed; when we hold 1. 4
telephone to the ear and behold that
It's power OF listening has been
hundreds of times multiplied; when
a man in his own private home San
place his finger upon little buston
| and start in circulation the gfeal
machinery of a National Exposition, !,
we must feel of man in general az
Miranda felt when she locked upon
Ferdinand, son Of the King OF
Naples. ~ might call him thing.
divine; for nothing national I ever
saw so noble.n
Daniel Webster's success in tne
United States senate, in the supreme
court of the United States, before
great popular assemblages was some-
thing almost unequalled in the
history of eloquence, and yet no
triumph that he ever won seemed to
require the whole of his resources
or to drain the hiding places of his