The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1895-01-10

Of plant life, animal life and human
| life has been step by way of some Cal
vary. Under every result is long series
| Of Calvaries All the way through ma.
| ture we find disposition Of tho forces
Of nature TO make cross. A great force
runs hither, another force runs thither,
each with divine impulse, and there is
cross. And at that point there comes
some form of life that is very marked in
the development of the history of the
plane, and that life torn at that Cal
vary by these preceding and seemingly
antagonistic forces.
Away back there, in the age of slime,
"the tiny spark Of being" as the poet
| calls it, that has most, of the future in
il is the spark that has the most of pain
| in it. The seed that the farmer has sown
this autumn and now lies underneath
| the soil, that through the winter will be
sending up its green into the snow, get
ting out of the snow all the fertilization
that the dun heavens have held, even
that little seed, by exactly how much it
has future in it, has pain. The pain
less seeds have no tomorrows. And the
| whole life of man as he looks back up
on ID through nature, the whole existence
of the planet as it seems to be the an.
oient history of man, or the prophetic
story Of q coming King to live upon his
throne-all that teaches this-that that
throne has come to be a throne of sacri-
! fee.
Truth From Above.
II each force were intelligent we
| would say that it brought about it's re-
suits by the apprehension of larger truth
for which something has stood and
which something has brought down
from above into the life below. The
| whole of nature seems to be a series of
forces that are looking up and bringing
out from above and into the realm below
at cost to themselves rare vision of a
better and richer planet. Upward the
J circles ran, but these are circles of fire.
Danto's circles were not so burning On
| ward the great course Of being goes, but
that course Of being is by path of sac
rifiCe.
God did not, on Christ's Calvary,
| that there outside Of Jerusalem made
heroism divine create some entirely new
| thing in his universe. All tho way
through he had been preparing nature
for that Calvary, and the world iS the
world that it is today because of the
earthquake, the fires and floods, because
Of the agonies and suffering through
which it has come, and the tree on
which Jesus was nailed was the out.
~ Fo1 1xya,. hot
up all their meanings in that sublime
hour when Jesus gave himself for you
and for me.
Oh, today, my friends, as we look into
the marvel of nature, how we find and
feel more and more that the whole story
is the pathetic story Of grief and toll and
pain; that the great gospel of sacrifice
is written deep in the rocks and upon
the surface OF the seas that God has
put his gospel in the very clouds Of the
air, and in the blue sky, and the flowers
The Cross OF Jesus Christ.
The most truly natural, yet the most
sublimely supernatural, fact in the uni
verse is the cross OF Jesus Christ, our
Lord. 1t is the fact that runs its rays Of
illumination back through the ages Of
our entire planet. And whenever see
scar in rock, whenever behold some
deep abyss that was made when the ur-
gent forces split the new earth in its
pain, say: That is a way mark to-
ward Calvary. The meaning Of it all is
in that sublime fact that yonder the
whole world Of man was brought back
in the sacrifice Of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ
Still more is it true, II we look at the
fact, that the great thing upon the
planet is not the planet itself, but man,
its king If we appeal from the throne
on which man sits to the king on the
throne, we behold still more clearly how
truly Jesus Christ today is the light
Of the world, for man himself is a
greater problem to his own spirit today
than he was 1000 years ago. Our timo
is not only time of revolution, but it
is time Of deepening mystery. Says
President MoCosh, THE larger your cir
Gle Of light, the larger will be the out
standing circle of darkness. +" Make man
so illuminative that his brain and his
heart and his life are all one transcend
ent, full orbed circle, and you will only
make the contrast between what you
know and what you do not know the
deeper. If our light be blazing splen-
dor Of noon, there will be an awful mid.
night of darkness hanging upon its edge.
Divine Pedigree of Man.
II am the light of the world. " God
has given us redemption that lay in
his own character when he created us in
the life and personality and work Of our
Lord Jesus Christ Man is created the
son Of the living God. He is that to be-
gin with. He has a divine pedigree.
Whatever circumstances Of life, what
ever blunders Of his career, whatever
iniquities of his soul may have como
and operated to make him misrepresent
himself, nevertheless he himself in his
true life is Gods best creation. He is
Gods son. Jacob is the lot Of my in
heritance. THE Lords people is his
JOY"
The soul of man is Gods grandest,
dearest thing in this universe, and he
has created it for the light. Just as the
eye today would be such lie that it
would rend Gods universe apart if it
pretended to be universe Of truth, un.
less the eye had the light by which it
bould see, so the soul Of man is the thing
that God has left quivering upon this