The herald., 1895-12-30
The Presbyterian Edifice Opened
There Yesterday
SERMON BY REV. A.. ii. CURRIER
Who Came From Santa Barbara for the
Purpose
and Is a Beauty-The Congre CATION
Eleven Years Old Yesterday

| and Michigan avenue, was opened for pub
lie worship yesterday morning. The
formal dedication of the edifice will how
ever not be held for some little time yet.
Rev. A. H. Currier, pastor of the Presby.
terrain church at Santa Barbara. preached
the sermon, taking for his text the sixtieth
chapter, thirteenth verse of Isiaah, reading
as follows:
The glory of Lebanon shall come unto
thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the
box, together to beautify the place of my
sanctuary; and l will make the place of
my feet glorious,
The minister said in part:
1t is not matter of Indifference in what
kind of house God sha, be worshiped.
God may no doubt be acceptably worshiped
under the open sky. In early Scottish
days the coveuauters were driven to this.
In early settlements. from the Atlantic
across the continent to the Pacific shores,
Christian people have made a convenience
of necessity and have gathered together
wherever they could, under sheltering
trees, or in canvass tents, or in capacious
barns. The primitive Christians in Rome
found the catacombs the partial security
for their worship from the red right hand
of persecution. But who would make a
temporary necessity a religious perman-
epcy?
True. Christ told the women of Samaria,
"Womau, believe me the hour cometh,
when We shall neither in this mountain nor
yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. But
the hour cometh and now is when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in
spirit aud in truth: for the Father Seeketh
such to worship him." True, the martyr
stephen said, "Howbeit the Most High
dwelleth not in the temples made with
hands; as, saith the prophet, heaven is my
throne and earth is my footstool; what
house will We build me? saith the Lord or
what is the place OF my rest?"
Must we therefore Judge that God has no
care whatever where or under what cir
cumstances we worship him? Some per-
SONS are fond of saying that they prefer to
worship God in the open fields amidst the
springing grass and flowers rather than to
shut themselves within the walls of
churches. They tell us that they look
through nature up to natures God. They
say that the subiirnity OF the mountains
stirs in them an emotion of reverence.
They walk upon the sea shore and in the
grandeur of the ocean contemplate the
majesty of the Creator. But We become
through force of circumstances suspicious
of the quality of this sentimental and
peripatetic worship. We come to fear that
shipped in spirit and in truth as is as
sumed by these Sunday ramblers.
While Samaria or jerusalem truly
enough may have no monopoly of Gods
presence, and while no temple made with
hands may be exclusively the place of his
rest, we do know that he has hidden us
not to forsake the assembling of ourselves
together, and we do believe that this is to
be under conditions of comfort and adapta-
ton proportionate to those of our home
life.
1t is sometimes said GOD must love to
see what is beautiful, he mas so clothed the
world with beauty" That he is not in
different to it with reference to the appli-
ances of his worship let many expressions
in his word attest. Though spoken as if of
an ideal temple let these words of his from
the pen of Isaiah not fail of their emphasis:
Il will lay thy stones of fair colors. and
lay thy foundation of sapphires. And |
will make thy windows of agates, and thy
gates of oarbuncles, and all thy borders of
pleasant stones. And all thy children shall
be taught OF the Lord: and great shall be
the peace of thy children
If through the poverty of any church its
place of worfhip must have but the barest
conveniences for sheltering and seating the
worshipers, can believe that in the sane
tity of its services God can recognize a
spiritual beauty infinitely more accepta.
bic to his heart than in the most faultless
pile of architecture without it.
A log school house in frontier settle
ment with band of devout men and wo-
men gathered in it ON Sabbath causes his
heart 10 warm towards it. But the log
school house finally becomes reproach to
its Sunday inmates if. with increasing
means, they have built for themselves COM
Portable and elegant houses and yet con-
tinue to do nothing to bring Gods house in
harmony with their own.
Built upon ,he foundation of the apostles
and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being
rhia Of Stn n v,yhn n 10
building fifty framed together groweth
unto a holy temple in the Lord; in whom
ye also are buiided together for habita-
ton of God through the Spirit.
One of the older English poets-Edmund
Spenser-gives US this highly suggestive
thought concerning the power of the soul
to transform its material surroundings:
"For OF the soul the body form doth take;
For soul is form and doth the body make"
This edifice is the well-adapted body
which YET is to be Informed by the spirit of
the worshpers.
Every church worth the name has an in
dividuality of its own. 1t has its own at
mosphere. just as you judge in the case
of acQuaintances, so you judge of q church
by certain tokens tibet are indeed infallible
often. AS we characterize persons by
various terms, such as warm-hearted or
cold, sunny or sour. distant or accessible,
naughty and supercilious or genial and
humble. so IN some degree we form our
judgment of churches. No matter how
grand or graceful the architecture of some
edifice, no matter how artistic the singing,
no matter how faultless the oratory of the
preacher, you feel somehow not at home If
a casual visitor; you go forth somewhat
depressed, as though you had missed the
inspiring influence of the community of
SAINTS. Though everything was extremely
decorous and the doctrine undeniably
orthodox, somehow the walls did not seem
redolent of salvation nor the gates to
vibrate with soul-touching praise.
In some other instance sense of cheer
full fellowship with all the worshippers
took possession of you at once. You felt
in happy accord with them from the mo
ment Of the kindly greeting of the usher at
the door onward TO the pastors benedic-
ton and the friendly recognition OF your
self at the close by the fellow occupants of
the pew, and their neighbors on either
hand.
Your former walls we're not wide enough.
They had vibratcd with salvation until so
vibrating they issued in expansion. And
if here, all the building fifty framed to-
gether Groweth unto a holy temple in the
Lord, so that i'll an eminent sense, ye also
are builded together for a habitation of
God, through the spirit, these new walls,
which may serve you many years, Will yet
not limit the range of what you shall do in
this community. and of what you shall do
for sod iii the world.
For mind you, you can by no possibility
make your walls salvation, and, as such,
have them signify nothing to those outside
OF your own company. Every true church
has walls that widen, and ever widen, re-
~ "a RI CT fCVnt nf nm