The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-08-09
DEPTHS OF GODS TRUTHS
REV. DIR. NEWMAN SMYTH'S THEME
ATTHE UNITED SERYICE.


tions in the Center Church-Sin is Ignor-
ance-We May Use Science and Art as the
Natural Aids of Virtue-The Truth of
Eternal Life.
The union service of Center and
United churches. held at Center church
yesterday morning, was attended by an
unusually large congregation for this
time of the year. Rev. DR.. Newman
Smyth preached, speaking from the
text, Psalm 92:5-"Thy thoughts are
very deep"
DR.. Smyth, after speaking of the
deepening of Gods truths to human un-
derstanding of them, spoke, in part, as
follows:
II have been lingering with this re-
Election that Gods truths ever deepen
to our experience of them, because my
sermon for this morning turns upon a
particular application of this general
observation. 1t is specially and re-
markably true that our simple and vi
tai Christian faiths partake of this
common characteristic of Gods
thoughts. They become more and more
to us as we know more of life and
death. We live through many other
things but we do not live through our
Christian faiths; rather we live into
them more and more. The lengthening
history of man does not bring us to the
end of Christianity, but into profound
er hiding places of its power.
"As we have grown UP from innocent
childhood, met the temptations Of the
world, struggled with our own worse
passions and sought to fulfil all right
eousness, have we not been learning
more and more the power of the evil
within us and over all the world
around us? AS Christian people gain
purer and loftier character, is it not
true that righteousness becomes to
them an ever higher and more august
vision of the eternal, and holiness a
deeper truth of Gods heaven above
them? Contrast with this thorough
Biblical doctrine of sin and our need
Of Gods salvation from it's power such
thoughts of it as men sometimes
have ventured to put in the place of it.
All these lighter and easier views of sin
have been seen through in the course
of human experience. Other means of
salvation from evil which do not rely
upon Gods help and cling to Christ's
cross have shown but a superficial ac-
quaintance with the human heart as
they have been worked out in the ac-
tual struggles Of men. Sin is ignor-
ance; so even Socrates thought. The
wise shall be saved. But are they saw
ed by their wisdom? Certain philanthro-
pists who would dispense with the cross
wished once to reform the inmates of
one of our larger penitentiaries by pro-
viding courses of lectures on various
interesting subjects. But replied, the
warden, we have plenty of educated
men in here who are capable of giving
lectures on almost any subject
Schiller, the poet, who seems, as has
been said, to have been born in Area
| dia, wrote finely upon aesthetic educa-
ton, and hoped for the renewal of l1u-
manity by the cultivation of good taste.
But everything was in good taste in
Eden, before ever landscape gardening
had been invented; and yet into the
garden of God the serpent crept Into
how many aesthetic homes the serpent
has crept. / am not undertaking.
these natural aids to good morals: l
would even go so far as to hold that
there may be an art-conscience which
will tolerate no false line of curvature.
or untruth of color in decoration, pre-
| ferring honest LONELINESS to painted
pretence of beauty. We may grateful
| ly use both science and art as the nat
| ural aids of virtue and allies of relig-
ion; but by these means we men are
not delivered from the power of tempta-
ton. Our very culture may become in
difference to the great crusade between
right and wrong.
Another Christian truth, of which
the same characteristic holds true, is
the goodness of God. This also is one
of the truths of life which grows upon
Christian men and women. They can
hardly tell how it grows in their minds:
their thoughts may not toll or spin
with it; but as the years come and go
this fair truth that God Is good comes
to it's flower and fruition in their expe-
| rience of life. Beaten by the storms,
cut down almost to the roots by severe
Affections, watered by tears, yet re-
newed and taking color from life's
broad sunshine and heavens sweet in
| fluences, this truth of the love of God
grows to be life's maturest conviction,
| and henceforth nothing can pluck 1t
| from the believers soul A truth which
thus grows with life and for life has in
this fact an evidence of it's divineness.
And not only with our individual expe-
| rience, but also with the history of
man. does the love of Good deepen and
broaden to human knowledge of it,
Thirdly, the Christian doctrine of
| the forgiveness Of men on earth be-
comes a deeper truth, and means more
to Christ's church as its knowledge
broadens. The history of the doctrine
of the atonement shows it to be one
| of the deepening truths of revelation.
Dissatisfa with prevalent concep-
| tions of the atonement has often arisen
from profounder moral sense of
Christs work. Thought in the Chris
tian world concerning the person and
atoning work of our Lord is growing
richer and profounder.
"One more of the first truths of our
christian faith let me refer to as mark
ed by this same characteristic of God S
| thoughts-the truth of the eternal life.
| That likewise becomes a profounder
| conviction in Christian consciousness,
| into falth in the eternal life we grow
more and more almost in proportion as
| we grow out of the many transitory
! ~ h