The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-07-06
The Great Ocean Is a
Symbol of Separation.
An Expedient of the Divine
to Emphasize Unity.
Sermon by the Rev. Wallace Nutting
at the Union Church.

yesterday the Rev. Wallace Nutting
preached on the tueme. "The Sea and Its
Wrecks" taking as his text "The sea is
no More,' Rev. xxi:l:
On a recent Aloncay, said Rev. Mr..
Nutting, visited that point which
our pilgrim ancestry appropriately named
judith, after that dangerously alluring
character, corresponding to the beathen
Scylla. For this New England terror OF
brated than the Italian promontory.
Nothing Is more beautiful than the soft
sea playing with the shore. II seems the
most harmless thing in nature. The long
white crests that fall foamiDg are more
fasci mating perhaps than any other thing
that God has made. What myriads, in
creasing yearly, feel the thraldom OF the
ocean, and make pilgrimages to lay
their "hands upon its name, as we 90
here" How many OF you have already
this season, spent or planned long
summers day listening 10 its garralous
tide-lisping so softly so many things
that you always knew must be, though
you had not thought of them; but prov
ing so silent on those other themes
about which you question 1t i'm vain.
Ii is easv TO understand how the ancient
peoples became idolators. i question
whether some of our yacht CLUB men,
bers, who do not think much about
God, are not becoming reduced 10
making a God Of the ocean. Men of old.
with only the SKY above them, worship
ped oil the host OF heaven, because
there was spread before them the i'm
mense, the mysterious, the beautiful.
1t Is better thing to worship than
money. So also. they who went down
to the sea in ships. committing them
selves TO that strange restless element,
whose depth had not been fathomed by
their simple instruments, and whose
shores were to them infinity and
chaos-they also, human as they were,
and possessed OF passion for power,
libations into its tide-perhaps it was
only pouring oil on its waters after the
modern fashion; they prayed to 1t, pas
sed tremulous over its minor reaches and
thought themselves well approved men
II they even dared to pass through the
pillars of Hercules, cast one bold glance
on its vast waste, and hasten again into
the comparatively narrow Mediterranean.
For then as now, men knew the cruel
~, treachery, fickleness and crime of
its waters. For what is this that we saw
on Point judith? A great wreck LOOM
ing as high as in the first dock-yard. For
the vessel returns again, rushing back
shattered out of the oceans reach with
a haste and intensity that rivals her
leap at the launch. And there on the
Point the great ribs rise bare and
corpselike, the monument of their ves-
sells past; the witness, perchance OF some
human life also lapsed into the ocean
OF eternity. And the waves, as they
come on, seem to murmur their regret
that they have cast their prey beyond
their teeth.
John was on the isle Patmos, for some
reason separated from the fellowship OF
the saints, and as he tried TO pierce the
faint distance over the water TO the homes
of his churches how keeniy he felt the
intervening sea But not so when Selkirg
in his south Pacific refuge looked in half
doubting hope FOR passing sail. Not as
when Napolean, imprisoned in the South
Atlantic, felt the irrevocable past, not
as when the faitbless hard spirit looks
out for the last time above the sinking
pirates deck-not SO did John look ont.
With another vision. steadier hope, and
a'sweeter philosophy ne could feel the
lap of delight as he said; ~ saw
new heaven and new earth and the
sea Is no morel'
For the soa repr,ssnts the sad mystery,
the bitter reality, the broken fellowships
of human life. / have placed Shelley's
lines over against my memory of the
wreck on the Point:
"Unfathomable sea, whose waves are
years,
Ocean-of Time, 'wnose waters of.deep woe,
Are brackish with tho salt of human
tears.
Thou shoreless food, which in thy ebb
and flow
Claspsst the limits of mortaiitv,
And sick of prey, yet bowling on for
more,
vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable
shore.
Treacherous in calm and terrible In
storm,
Who shall put forth on thee, unfathom-
able sea?"
For these wrecks are but the common
place evidences of these deeper horrors
that lie beyond. While we lament the
work OF cyclones In cur Western land,
while we moralizo on an old wreck on
Rhode Island shores il seems that the
num- mpors OF victims from Japan's earth
quake and tidal wave OF late occurrence
amt unts to the horrible total OF twenty
five thousand. An article in magazine
y few years since gave us the only ac-
count by an eyewitness OF that East
Indian terror. which caused the death 10y
sea and neither fire OF perhaps two
hundred thousand human creatures.
The sea ~ one tomb. Since Beecher
preached on the loss OF the Arctic men
have ceased TO score on the tablets OF
feeble memory the category OF death. We
then. blessed with John by a like eternal
hope wish TO see in what we may proht
by his thought, "The sea IL nosUore,
I. The ses Ia the symbol OF separation.
Separation shall be no more. The human
love learning TO cling and then bcing
torn away Is the common tragtdy OF
humanity, and its commonnoss causes II
to lose none OF its bitterness. its appalling
loss.
God made us and said: "Love one an
other" We fulfil the command, and
10 the other whom we loved Is gonel
past beyond seas, whore swift Atlant.
ic liDcrs pass not. Tho human soul
looks up, surprised, shuddering, ggieved,
tortured with doubt, into the face of God:
"You bid me lovc--you tore my beloved
away. You gave me lovo; the love
gives me Its painr' Almost none OF
Us reach physical maturity before family
ties aud friendships are severed by that
sea.we cross, tut cross once. Is IL wellf
Il there good In separation9 Why, then
DO we suun III Did say they cross that