St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-26
RELIGION AND NOT SCIENCE Is
/, OUR HIGHEST AND BEST
TEACHER.
PRACTICAL AID TO THE SOUL
PITY IN THE HEART OF MAN
PROVES MERCY IN THE
HEART OF GOD,
HE ALONE FAITHFUL AND JUST.
Out of the Decay of Old AItarsn
Men VIII Make Room for III
Timer Forms of Faith.

Rev. Smith preached yesterdaydoh
''The Worlds Hope" taking for his
text Isaiah, xxx, "a, "They also that
erred in spirit shall come to under
standing, and they that murmured
shall learn doctrine" The church
was we'll filed to hear the very eX-
cellent discourse. He spoke as fol-
lows:
1.-THE seers of old never stopped
with the thought of evil, though they
saw that clearly, but they always
looked for a better man, and for a
happier time. This strength of hope
is not only quality of the great
teachers of the world; it is also the
characteristic of the race itself. Such
facts as recurrent hunger of body
and needs of life which we satisfy
only that they shall be even more
lmper1ouS again would have damp
ened all the ardor of men had we
not always been sustained by the
ideal ends of life which men have
felt When they could not see. So
ful fact of death which should long
ago have quenched the activity of
the world had not the practical DOW
er of an endless life been urging us
with whip and spur to still higher
endeaVors. There is perhaps no ex-
ternal fact in support of immortal
1ty greater than that the wheels of
the world have not stopped turning
long ago. If death ends all. the
race should have struck ages since.
That they did not proves the abid
ing conviction of men that our Di--
vine Master and Employer would do
better for us when he could. This
life of the world may be called our
unconhclous obedience to the de-
nands which our greatness lays up
on US. 1t is deep calling unto deep
the divine in man answering to the
divine in God. The evolution of the
physical process has left upon every
man the mark of the universal his
tory OF the struggles of life, but the
evolution of the spiritual process
which is the real soul within the
oody of the visible order, has left
upon every man the impress of the
spiritual victories of creation. This
is why we rise again from our dis
asters. This is the secret of the
worlds resurrections When this
unquenchable human force becomes
self-conscious, we call it religion
When it simply works without know
ing why, it is business But both re-
hs1on and business, when rightly un-.
derstood, are of one piece, for the
Whoie world is Gods world.
THIS IS GODS WORLD.
The greatest proof that this is Gods
"orlu does not lie in philosophical
arg ments like cause and effect, nor in
physlcal adaptation indicating purpose.
put rather IN the tremendous fact of
progress. Life cannot stay in the sim
PIE cell Out becomes more and more
complex for higher uses. Savage man,
suffers under the liberty of chaos in all
MS activities. He makes an order of
oespotlsm which is strong enough and
good enough for him to stay in a little
whlie after chaos, but he moves out of
despotlsm into a reasonable order
perfect government with absolute lib
erty. SO the ends of life from being
merely animal become human, intel.
lectuaf, artistic, then moral and spir-
1tual. The most important fact of
progress is the changing ideals of what
is desirable which have been cherished.
by men age after age, until now the
spiritual uses of life are clearly seen.
roll uia
ence is our highest teacher. Let sci
ence tell us all it can of the origin of
things. 1t traces back the history of
the worlds through thousands of ages
and tells us how motion in the fire
mist of primitive matter made worlds,
But why motion began, and why the
process began, science cannot tell.s
She really needs the hypothesis of an
eternal existence of the present order.
and that thought would destroy pro-.
gress. 1t is progress that calls for the
/ spiritual nature of the worlds as their
only explanation. <.
Then science cannot tell how motion.
on inorganic matter realizes itself as
organic life. Science needs the spon-
taneous generation of life. But the
spontaneous generation of life would
necessitate the eternal genera ton of
life, and that also would destroy the
thought of progress, which is funda-
mental to both science and religion
But the most significant departure in
human life from the pre-humanworid
order is the development of pity into
a law. This is the subjugation of pow.
er by love. This makes the cross SUI
preme over the battleaxe. This is
Christian. We recognize that civili-
cation as the most perfect in which
the weak and the incomplete are given
the largest possible life. But the pro-
cess of power calls for the death of the
weak, and the destruction of the i'm
perfect. Life moves like a pirate ship
with black flag through the seas of
opportunity and gives no quarter.
Pity in the heart of man proves mercy
in the heart of God, and this is a mes
sage of religion.
PRACTICAL HELP OF MAN.
But science needs religion in the
practical help of man. Science can
give us much. But there are human