The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-08-06
Nix. PENKO Els SEhMON.
BEFORE A LARGE CONGREGATIoN
SUNDAY MORNING.


! Rev. Stephen L. Penrose preached
to the usual large congregation at Cen.
trail Union Church Sunday morning.
The subject was "lhe Fear of tn,
Lord" and the principles of the dis.
course were found to he applicable t.
other as well as religious life.
The text was taken from Proverbs Ia,
which reads as follows: "rhe fear Of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. ;
To his auditors the preacher SAID:
There are different kinds of fear.
The child is afraid who Is left alone in
the dark and who imagines terrible, un.
known shapes unseen around him. A
timid person is afraid to stand on the
edge of a precipice lest an accident
might hvppen. The strong man is filled
with fear AZ the vision Of death
Such fear may be defined as dread
or terror; it is largely emotional IA
matter of the feelings.
But the old Hebrew who declared that
''the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom" had IN mind different and IA
higher fear than any of these unreason-
ing emotions. References express it
more nearly; awe is an element of it.
The Hebrew prophets were over
powered by the sense of Gods al
mightiness. What indeed dist nguishes
| Al lao ,,f Al.
ing nations is their lofty idea of God
and their realization of His power and
righteousness. Read the 93l Psalm
for noble expression of this thought
The Hebrew poets looked out on
nature and saw the handiwork of God:
they proclaimed that the earth is His
footstool; that His glory filled the
| heavens.
In all the records of all literature you
will find no such wonderful hymns
of praise to God as sang the bards of
Israel 800 years before Christ came; not
yet in modern times has the vaster
knowledge of Gods ways been crys-
talized in such verse.
There are two dangers which threaten
all religions. There is the danger of
bringing God to close to mankind and
making Him small. The second danger
to which every religion is exposed is
the opposite danger of removing God to
a distance from the world, concei7ing
Him as having no interest in man.
Let us in our religious life avoid either
OF these fatal errors. The conception OF
God cannot be great, yet He cannot be
conceived as too close.
There is sentimental way OF regard
ing God as merely the satisfer of the
Christians desire, as though the Creator
of the universe existed merely to supply
our needs-a selfish view OF providence
as ii we were the center of creation. We
are all liable to this narrowness of view
We all need to enlarge our thought OF
God.
1t is well for the human mind tc
grapple with big thoughts. 1t is good
thing for every one to stretch his powers
to the utmost and strive to. comprehend
Egreat ideas, generalizations of science
laws of nature-for we are all inclined
towards intellectual laziness, and We
lose the natural elasticity OF our minds
What is your idea OF distance? W,
measure it by miles. But think of light
which travels 1856 900 miles a second, OF
more than seven times around the worlC
while you count two, and then remem
Der that the nearest star which glitter
in the heavens is so lar away that
beam of light takes three years to com,
/ from there to us.
The ray which will fall upon your ey,
, tonight left that star three years ag,
and has been travelling toward you a
the rate of 1856, 900 miles each second
, this year. 1894, but you would continu
to see it for three years; that is, to 1897
I And that is but the nearest of the stars
, Who can say how far off is the farthest
(; We think chiefly of this earth, and o
this solar system, in which we whir
around once a year at a tritiing distanc
' of 81, 600, 900 miles from our central sun
f Yet this whole solar system, with it
: eight planets and many moons, is itsel
!. wheeling around another center W
scarce know where; and that milk
way which sends pathway of ligh
across the sky is in reality composed o
millions upon millions of blazing suns
each one perhaps bigger in diamete
e than our whole 81 stem, and each itsel
the center of separate system who's
planets are too remote to be seen at a
y from our little earth.
What is your idea of time? Tn
= world, said the Hebrew poet, was mad
IS in six days. The chronologist of tn
middle ages calculated that the creatio
took place exactly 1904 years b. c., c
5S9S years ago!
But the discovery of human remain
in certain strata of the earth makes
e seem probable that man has lived upo
Il the earth for over forty thousand year
and we know that before man was
; long period of animal life, and befo
:, that long period of vegii able life, al
that thousands and hundreds of thou
ands of years must have come and gol
il before the molten earth had cool,
1t sufficiently for any life To exist upon
And if it took so many millions of yea
for our little earth to reach its prese
u shape, think of the ages of those 9th
V and greater starry systems whose bu
- is so much vaster. And think til,
re what eternity means, of time witho
q. beginning and without ending, al
i rise to the thought of an infinite al
eternal God who has ma de this univer
with its countless whirling suns al
" stars, who has watched the changes
u universal history from the days