The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-09-23
REV. DIR, SMYTH'S SERMON
PREACHED Ar CENTER CHURCH
YESTERDAY MORNING.


Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone-The
Attitude of Church Believers-Wo of
God Are Needed-Place for it in Our City
Halls-Faith in the Gospel Imperious.
DR.. Newman Smyth preached at
Center church yesterday from the text
Matthew "A: But He answered and
said, 1t is written, man shall not live
by bread alone, but by My word, that
provideth out of the. mouth of Cod"
DR.. Smyth then spoke substantially as
follows:
People become tired Of irreligion.
Men never can remain contented long
without some faith. A fashion of ir-
religion may please people for while,
but they soon grow weary of It, Man
cannot live by bread alone. This has
always been so with man, so far back
as we can find any trace of him on the
earth He was centuries ago a relig-
lous animal, He was always finding
for himself a religion If Moses disap-
peared, at least the people must wor-
ship a golden image. If the prophet
from the Unseen Presence ceased, the
priests would set up idols in the groves.
You will find no cities, said the observ-
ant Plutarch, without temples. The
days when men have imagined they
could live together without a religion
have been short and few; in fact, there
is nothing that the people soon grow
more utterly tired of than irreligion
This is true not only of men in general,
but also of the philosophic few. They
soon become weary of any mode of I'M
belief. Any course of philosophc
thought which begins by banishing re-
ligious ideas is apt to end in endeavor
to construct some worshipful idea of
the universe. The intellect cannot live
by bread alone. Man was made to Wor-
ship; the real question with him is
not shall worship, but whom, how?
I'VE cannot help taking up again
our grand, primal Christian faiths with
renewed confidence, if our experience
and observation have impressed us
2
we need for our personal steadfastness
and joy, as well as for the help and
saving of all the human life around
us.
Our whole attitude ass church of
believers towards the world must be
one of unconquerable positiveness. We
have not our own poor wisdom or lit
tie strength, but words proceeding from
the mouth of God for the life of the
world. Repent, believe, love, worship
love righteousness, hate iniquity hope
and rejoice always in the Lord these
biblical words, these voices of the Spirit,
fulfilled in the life of the Christ are
the key-notes and elemental truths of
the whole history of our redemption; ;
remaining true to these, and letting
all our activities proceed from their
power, we can work the works of God
in New Haven, and to the ends of the
world. We need an intense and vibrant
conviction that we have gospel. Let
that conviction dominate our thought
and work together as a company of
Christian men and women. Then no
human sympathy will be limp, no effort
half hearted, no blow for righteousness
sake nerveless.
First and foremost in the church of
God. dominating everything else and
comprehending all possible human in
terests, let us keep this immensely posi-
tive doctrine of the Christ, that the
kingdom of God is in the midst of us.
When Christians are held firm and
NTH
gospel, it will be as impossible for them
to be discouraged, as it would be for
the stars themselves to be discouraged
in their shining. What are clouds and
darkness to spirits af1ame with light
from the eternal? Once through your
own experience of the grace of God
in helping you in your life get the
truth wrought into your soul that you
can live by the word of God, and you
must believe with an invincible faith
that other men can live by Gods word,
and that the life of the city, the coun-
try, the whole world shall be saved
by the same divine grace in which
your own soul grows, and triumpl1s
over evil; and in that conviction, gain
ed through your own Christian life,
you must become an optimist, an ulti-
mate optimist, that is to say, not in
deed a person who shuts his eyes to
the evil, and lazily imagines that things,
if left alone. will come out right.
Ours shall be not the easy and ignor-
ant optimism of the social quack, with
his superficial salve for deep-rooted
sin: but the optimism rather of the
surgeons knife, an optimism which
will know the existing worst, and cut
to the core of wrong, because knowing
also the laws of life, and working wise
" and patiently with the great recuper-
alive forces of nature. 1t is this kind
of surgical and heroic optimism that
the prophets of old maintained, and
that the nreaching of the gnSnel should