The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-07-27
REV. MR. MEANS ATSr. PAUL,S.

Exchanged Pulpits With Rev. MT. Phil
 lips-A Wrong Idea of Belief-Different
 Views of Pain-The Meaning of Pain and
 suffering-An Able Sermon.
 Rev. Mr. Lines, rector of St. PauPs church. is now in Nahant, Mass, on his summer vacation. and in his ab sence the assistant rector, Rev. MT. Phillips, exchanged pulpits yesterday with Rev. Mir. Means of St. Johns church. MT. Means spoke from the text II. Corinthians, iv., +, 1S-"For our light affliction, which is but for moment, worketh for us far more eX- ceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal"
 MT. Means began by speaking of be- lief, saying that we use the word in very weak and unreal sense, in which it does not mean for us that inward conviction by which the life grows, or the expression of the depest and most profound faith of the soul but it sim ply means that we accept this without understanding, or caring to understand, that which we say we believe. When man says that he accepts the Bible from cover to cover without doubt or hesitation he is trying to get out of the demand which God makes upon us to use our judgment and reason. Such an attitude is cowardly and evasive. He said that the reason why St. Paul is not admired and read by the average man very much is because he has so much to say and he sees so far that he confuses many people, and they either frankly doubt or simply turn away from many things which he says. To many people these words of St. Paul do not appear to have the ring of truth. If we are to understand him we must attach every importance to each word, but more than that-we must try to get there where we can see things as he sees them, and then his words will ap- pear not only not exaggerated, but the simplest and most self-evident of truths.
 As suggested by the words of St. Paul. MT. Means asked his hearers to consider the relation of suffering to the highest revelation of the gospel. Pain he referred to as "part of the variety and richness of life" saying that the flat and monotonous tones were reliev- ed by these deeper and richer hues. This is the young and inexperienced view of pain. The time does come, as men live longer, when the words of St. Paul lose their old poetic and sentimen- tai truthfulness. It is in this newer aspect of life in which there is some thing overwhelming.
 When the fact of pain has once pene- trated deeply and inwardly into the soul 1t has left life different forever. In concluding MT. Means said:
 Death is there at the end of all for us as it seems and yet above all this loneliness and sorrow and toll, in spite of human forgetfulness and neglect, there Is that in the life chosen so hes itatingly and distrustfully that be- comes daily stronger and stronger, and we are sure that the inward man, the man after the image of Christ is re- newed day by day and with this con- stant growth comes new delight. It tues liOL clldISe ally Oi Iile ldclSJ IL only changes our relations to them and our interpretation of them. All life has become greater. Sorrow and suf- fering and pain and death do not mean less, but more, as we have become larg- CT and more sensitive and better able to feel them, yet on the other side, too, life is larger still. The ordinary con- captions of character are infinitely ex- banded in Christ, and the joy of the highest being comes first to us when we enter into Him. The relation of these things, which we now feel, we see to be such that they do not touch the final or finest springs of life. They are are in Christ, and not in death, and so, seeing it all, one can still say with new meaning and greater force, Our light affliction, which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at things which are seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal