The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-02-24
To Make Use of What is
in Us.
The Lord Fits His Creatures
to Fill Their Sphere.
Sunday Evening Address by Rev.
Wallace Nutting.

At Union Congregational Church last
evening the pastor, Rev. Wallace Nutting,
based his Sunday address on the follow
ing text, from which the address follows
in full:
Ex. 4a2-i4. Snow. therefore 60, and will
be with thy mouth, and teach thee what
thou shalt speak. And he said, Oh. Lord.
send | pray Thee. by the Hand of Him
whom Thou wilt send. And the anger o:
the Lord was kindled against Moses.
Did you ever think of yourself as po-
tential Moses? We remember that when
we studied physics we learned that en-
ergy was of two kinds--potential and
actiye-what force might do and what
it does. Now, every boy is like an un-
explored country-there is no telling what
is in him. The average pessimist will
sourly say that the devil is in him.
Acting on this supposition the pessimist
usually lets the devil take him, and use
him, for pessimism is born of the devil
and is not likely to interfere with the
DEVILS plans.
But anyobdy that knows that God Is
father Will say that there is spark OF
divinity in the boy-a spark which needs
nursing and feeding until at last 1t fiames
up and trans6gures his life.
sometimes in the schools children trem-
BILE in fear lest their teachers shall de-
mand something of them that they can
not do. We cannot be sure OF one
another's abilities, and many heartache
is caused by demand of something that
is beyond our power to furnish. One OF
the sweetest spirits i ever knew was rem
dered miserable by the ezactions OF
father who overestimated his sons abil-
titles. Now our Father who Is III heaven
never asked more of man than the max
ing of potential Moses into an active
Moses. We may define Christianity as
the power that makes the most OF man.
Let us look first to ourselves. Are
you not potentially something more than
you are actually? VIII the divine law of
economy ever be satisfied until all that Is
potential -rau-become- -actiye?- You
have never taken an honest inventory of
our powers, perhaps. Do not men fail to
give God the credit for the capital with
which he has furnished them? We pet
ourselves, and start sympathetic thrills
from our wrong heads till they extend all
over our bodies because we are such poer,
weak creatures, with so little power, so
few talents, such n degree OF ignorance,
and such general condition OF unfiiness
to live in the world. We allow ourselves
TO forget that God formed us TO live in
fit us; that he furnished us with all that is
necessary and even more. We virtually
tell the Lord that He has made mistake.
We are not fitted for ctr sphere. He has
done what he could to ut us, but lie Is
poor workman, and we positively can
not fill our place. Is il any wonder that
the Lord is angry? How many of us have
ever taken an account of stock? Have we
rummaged in our faithless heads for the
forces that are hidden there? Are we not
charging God with folly when we go
about saying 81 can't" TO duties laid upon
as by One who knows to a nicely what our
powers are?
The human soul is an unfathomed
mystery. No man has ever dropped the
sounding line into its extreme depths; no
man has clim bed to its loftiest sun-lit
heights, above every storm cloud, aud
swept the horizons verge of being. No
man has a right TO ssy what he can or
cannot do, alter he has heard the voice
of God speaking to his soul and saying
EGO" The world harbors still potential
Moses, an incipient Savonarola. an in
choate Washington. Standing over a
headstone In any country burying place
we moralize with good warrant: "Some
mute, inglorious Milton here may rest.
TIE greatest thing but one that a man
can do is 10 discover himself. Myriads
are born and uie and never find out what
their life means or may mean. The fail.
Lre Is chargeahle partly to themselves,
partly 20 their surroundings. Men wake
10 dream, and dream TO wake OF them
selves-strange, uncouih, iumbled, un-
known powers, like the wind, darting
now here, now there, thev know nor
whecCe they come anu whittier they go.
--EoM many acas did savage tribes wan
der shivering over the coai beds that
might have warmed theml Beasts and
men have laid their burning limbs TO
scorch on eserts where artesian fountains
now throw their spray. Poverty in rags
has tented unwittingly over the richest
veins OF precious metals. Place an Eastern
man on the sancs OF Western desert and
te HIM that he must get his living there
or die. and he would straightway give
directions for his funeral Aud yet men
grow rich on thst very land.
This world IL fen OF potential energy.
There is not one atom more OF energy IN
IL now than ~ the days when ii lay a
wilderness. The rusning energy of the
locomotive, the subtle power of the chain
ed lightning. the wealth of the harvests
Were all here latent before n human foot
trod this shore II it has required two
hundred generations of men to discover
what the forces OF nature are, how long