The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-03-23
* SERMON. }a
CONTENT AND Discomfort.
by REV. CHARLES g. CONNER.
Lacrosse, Wis.


daughter-!n-iaw, his son Abrams wife; ana
thew went forth with them from Ur OF the
Cbaldees to 90 into the land of Canaan; ana
thew came unto Harsn, and dwelt there" Cen
esis XII. 81.
Terah was an old man when he
first heard of the good land of Can
aan westward. He and his family
lived in a small place. Tradition
Saws that he was maker of molten
gods. While all the inhabitants OF
the land about him were worshlpers
of idols, his occupation could not
have been very lucrative, for the rea-
son that one set of gods would serve
generations. No innovations would
be tolerated by the priests, and the
gods of their youth, or of their fathers
and of their fathers fathers, would
be preferred by the people. Doubt
less the young men of the household
particularly Abram, had talked to
the father of a change. The old man
himself might not have thought OF
moving away from Ur. As for him.
self, the old place and the old way
had been good enough. But the
younger men were not satisfied with
it. Abram began to dream day
dreams of land westward, or south
westward, that should be great op-
portunity for him and his posterlty,
where he and they should live large
free life, and worship not deaf and
dumb gods which mans hands have
made, but the living God, maker
of earth and heaven and all
things which in them are. We may
think that Abram went to his father
and said, "You are getting old; you
can not be self-helpful long; the
business that has supported you and
yours is insufficient longer to meet
the charging wants of our family;
YOU have lived with conscientious
faithfulness your life, and have done
well your duties to your household
and so long as you live you shall be
father unto us and shall be honored
by us; but let us go to yonder land
of Canaan of such large promise;
there you may see your son in the
way to prosperity that must sooner
or later become his individual respon
sibility; there you may lead him I'M
to the opportunity may be, unto
the prosperity,-and may see in pros
pect the great blessing that shall be
his and the heritage of his children"
Any way, Terah took the family and
moved out of Ur and started toward
Canaan. But he went only days
Journey to Haran, and there the old
heart refused to take him farther from
the old home, and, while he would
not turn back again, there within a
DAVIS march from the familiar scenes
of life he was content to live and die.
But Abram was not content there,
and after the death of his father he
marched onward, now well on in life,
to realize the dream of his youth, to
refresh life in hopes mirage, and
to multiply the promise of God unto
him.
In this ancient story are the ele-
ments of the subject for the morning,
Discomfort. We see here the good
and evil of content; the evil and the
good of discomfort. For the subject
is itself paradox. 1t is good and
an evil at the same time; good to
one age, an evil to another; good
when affecting ones life one way, an
evil when affecting the same life an
other way. Discomfort was an evil
unto Terah in his old age; it was
good unto Abram in his youth and
mature manhood. 1t was a good
unto Abram as it caused him to for
sake the limited sphere and the ig-
noble-to him ignoble-vocation and
to seek largeness of opportunity and
a more useful and helpful life-work.
But it would have been an evil to
Abram had it strained relations be-
tween father and son, and caused son
to be untrue to father, or true, in a
sense, to be complainingly true, to
fret and fidget at the delay of fortune
and to embitter life for ones self
and others.
In these suggested aspects let us
consider our subject.
In old age discomfort is an evil,
content a good, in that discomfort
could not now move unto the enlarg
ment of activity and fortune and
bring the life to bear new blessings to
the world. We may call discomfort
punishment, well meant, with which
our life is disciplined and our powers
are taught larger use. In old age, or
at time when it would urge life in
vain IN on forward tn hear new and