The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-10-15
\ DECADE OF SERVICE
tcontinuea from First Page, )

folding through the fire and
 blood of the Middle Ages, unfolding in
 the discovery of this continent at
 time when, after it had been for hum
 dreds of years plucked back from the
 knowledge of Europe, it was brought to
 light when the movable type was in
 the hands of man and the Christian
 Reformation was drawing near. or
 course, there have been setbacks ap-
 parently in this history of the progress
 of the plan of God concerning mankind,
 and skeptics make a great deal of
 those, but they are only natural. This
 is a prodigious and unreturning cam
 paign; t is not 8 series of sklrmishes
 unrelated to each other, however bril-
 liant or however disastrous, and the
 evil which men see is only connected
 as an occasion with the greater devel-
 opment Of the Kingdom of God in the
 world. President Eaton, l think it
 was, the other day spoke of the streets
 of New York. l don't wonder that he
 did. (Applause.>
 As l rode over them the other day
 coming to the train, seeing the streets
 torn up, the water pipes burst, large
 areas flooded with the water and the
 air filled with the intolerable gases, I
 thought that anyone passing through
 New York for the first time might nat
 Nraliy feel that the rocky backbone of
 the city was being pierced and crushed
 and the entire city was to sink into the
 abyss; but it is all for an ampler de-
 velopment, for an ampler equipment,
 that men may ride, and women, more
 rapidly and safely over those very
 ovd HIa} f,,R, 11ofi lion
 of the city may have a finer endow-
 ment of opportunity and privilege than
 the present have.
 Men say sometimes that war comes
 fin to interrupt the progress of
 Gods kingdom. Sometimes it does.
 A war of revenge is always
 demoralzing, war of ambition is
 equally so; a war of self-defence for the
 welfare and honor of a country is not.
 I see walking these streets of New
 Haven, the blood red crimson on the
 foliage as well as the gold, and neither
 Is more indicative of decay than the
 other and both are simply prophetic of
 that verdurous spring which is by and
 by to come, clothing the lawns with
 beauty and the trees with the wealth of another years foliage; so war is sometimes the instrument of God for
 the furtherance of His kingdom in the world and we are not to complain, cer- tainly not to hesitate, certainly not to
 despond, when convulsions come among
 the nations which seem strange in con-
 nection with this mighty purpose of the
 Most High. He is working on to his result and WhensoeNer the conviction of that, the vital and energetic appre- hension of that, enters into the mind of the church, into your minds and mine, then the enthusiasm for missions is re- kindled in us, then we feel the magnti- cence of the privilege of working with God. of keeping step with omnipotence in the march toward the future, then the old enthusiasm from the time of early martyrdom, from the time of \ early missions, will be re-enthroned in our hearts and we shall see and feel the infinite privilege of men, above the privilege of angels, of working on the earth which Christ consecrated with His blood for the glory of the kingdom < of that same Christ coming in His power. (Applause.)
 And the second conviction, radical in my mind for all these years and now, is that the instrument by which this work is to be accomplished is the old 4 gospel, the gospel of life and salvation, the gospel of truth and invitation and
 promise and tremendous forewarning. You have seen, perhaps, l am sure, { many of you have, very suggestive, striking, profound essay published not long since in one of the magazines, 1 from the pen of Captain Mahan. I think that is his title, Captain Mahan.
 If thought power, and the power of T ;a lao criterion of rank in the navy, he would \ be High Admiral. In this article he speaks of the general outward impulse among all the greater nations except our own shown in the colonizations, shown in the efforts to gain territorial dominion in other lands and he speaks of the coming together of the orient and the occident on the basis of con- mon ideas, of material advantage, with & out the sympathy, the corresponding # sympathy i'll spiritual ideas, and here A he finds danger-a danger menacins our civilization--for, as he says en- < phatically, the civilization of modern Europe has grown up under the shad- ow of the cross and everything that is A best in it still breathes the spirit of the crucified and there is peril in bringing H together the east and the west on the % basis of common material advantage W without this correspondence in spiritual ideas, and he says, so justly and pro # foundly, that if this correspondence in q spiritual ideas is to be attained it must % be not by a process of growth but by b a process of conversion. You may re- member in one of the letters Of Matthew
 Arnold, written, I think to Sir Duff N Green--I am not sure-he speaks of the
 fact that the basis of things in Europe generslly and especially in England 4 has been for ever so long belief in su- # pernatural Christianity. That belief 1s he says, is certainly going, but he has X no other basis whatever to present fol N the coming civilization
 E That basis of belief in supernatural & Christianity was around him, was be- & meath him, was in the air he breathed % was in the face and heart of the friends E he met when he wrote those words, and # if it be true, as he also said that the N transformation of the individual is the s2 indispensable condition to the transfor- N nlation of the community or the nation N or the race, then there was no power in " the England of that day, as there is