St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-02-04
SPIRIT AND TRUTH.
God Must Be Worshiped in
Both, Says Rev. Samuel
G. Smith.
AM INTERESTING SERMON
Delivered Before a Large Con-
gpegation at the Peoples
Church.
MUCH OF THE WORSHIP
Rests Wholly Upon a False
and an Unreal Basis,
He Says.

There was large congregation at
the Peoples church last night, in
spite of the cold weather, to listen to
Rev. S. G. Smiths sermon on 'The
Human Element in God" Mr..
Smith took for his text John w., 90:
God is a Spirit, and they that wor-
ship Him must worship in spirit
and truth" He said:
It is to be feared that to most
people God seems like a dreamy
abstraction or at least a far-off and
an unknown being. 1t is the object
Of worship to cure all this. We
meet together on our Sundays. We
sing our psalms. We set the soul
free from the earth. We wing our
way to God, and while the magma
ton is active and the emotions are
warm, we say, God is here, He is
my Father, and I love Him." But
the morrow comes to Us. The Sab
bath quiet is lost in the rush of a
new day. The Sabbath emotions are
crushed by the harsh impact of
new cares; and we say: ooh, if L
could feel as 1 did yesterday How
sweet it would be if poetry and faith
were ever with me-" But it is pre-
cisely the object Of religion to trans
form and glorify our common life.
Jesus went up on the mountain for
holy communions; but He came
down again in that strength to cast
out devils.
The great trouble is that very
much worship, while good enough in
itself, rests wholly upon a false and
an unreal basis. We worship not
through ritual, or psalm, or temple,
or Sabbath, save as these are subor-
dinate aids to a real worship. We
find God through the spirit. We wor-
ship him in truth. Even Isaiah or
John, with all their burning words,
could do no more than lead men to
The Affairs OF God.
Communion with God cannot be
done vicariously; every man must
worship for himself. Even the
bright-Winged seraphs Of heaven,
though they come and sing to us
their sweetest songs, can do no more
than open the gateways through
which the soul may, if it will, pass
to the glory of Gods holy of holes.
Much that passes for worship is not
worship at all. 1t is the stir of the
sentiments, the pleasure of the emo
lions, the humming Of birds Of fancy
drinking nectar from the blossoms
Of poetry. All these things may &C
company worship, but they are not
worship, for worship, the deepest,
loftiest and most solemn glory of
human life, consists in finding God.
They who worship must worship in
spirit and in truth.
The fundamental trouble is that
most people make God too different
from man in His nature, and then
dwarf Him until He is too small for
the throne of the universe. I say
that most men dwarf God, and this is
evident by the way in which they
argue about Him and the terms in
which they think of Him. Says one
man, I believe in God. [ believe in
a first cause. The world could not
have come into being of itself, and
God made it. But the first cause"
of what? The first cause of this
world, of the solar system, of the
system and spheres all have their
limits. Far off indeed is the shining
star dust scattered through the sky, |
but it still has it's limits, and God, |
Who is described simply as the first |
cause of
A Finite World.
is Himself finite, for the measure of |
cause is found in its effect The |
thinker who thinks of God simply |
in the terms of cause and effect, |
dwarfs God. Says another: I be-
lieve in God as mind, for 1 have seen |
intelligence in nature; there is |
method in the world. Creation bears !
marks Of design. But in what divine |
intelligence does such a thinker be- |
lieve? The intelligence that has dis |
posed mountain ranges; that has |
spread out the seas; that teaches |
the wild fowl how to fly, and that |
orders the motions of the stars?
This is all very lofty, and gives a
wide field for our thoughts, but the |
design in nature can be no larger |
than nature itself, and since nature |
is finite, such an intelligence is finite, /!
and he who thinks in the terms of |
design alone, dwarfs God. But says |
another: I believe in a Supreme |
will, and that the final secret of |
being, as well as the source of the |
universe, is to be found in that power |
which says, II WILL" and all beings |
and all forces are compelled to bow. |
But this supreme will is supreme |
over what? Over finite creatures
and finite worlds. A sovereign is
measured by the extent Of his king
dom, and the conquest of the finite
only measures the extent of finite
will. They who think of Him in the
terms of will alone,
Dwarf God.
All finite existence cryS aloud for
something else to depend upon. The
rose says: my beauty is not in me-
and you trace it's life to the rose bush.
and the rose bush says: Its beauty is
not in me-" Would you find the secret
of the rose in it's roots spreading
out in darkness, then they say, 'Surely
the beauty of the sweet color and frag-
rance is not in u.s. The rootlets as they
drink in the rain cry aloud to the
clouds in the heaven, and the leaves
nourished by the elements in the air
call to all the zephyrs of the sky, and
the petals painted by the sunlight
whisper of love messages borne by
the biography of light, and SO a single
bIushing rose tells US of the forces
that made it's being, and the ice and
fire and water that prepared the coil,
and in itself is an epitome of the whole
history and development of the world.