The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-07-24
SERMON.
IN THE LOWLANDs."
BY E. L REXFoRD, d D.
Columbus, Ohio.

rough places plain; and the glory of the
Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall
see it together. Isaiah Il. 4, D.
A n unequivocal statement OF an
IA overmastering and all-compell-
ing faith is this! A transcendent Wis
ion of moral results when the only
enduring forces of the universe shall
have won their legitimate supremacy
and shall dictate the law and order of
things to an obedient world! This
vision filled the soul of the ancient
Jewish Prophet, as it has filled the
souls of all the true seers and proph-
cts since the world began. st. Paul
looked out over the same scene OF dl-
vine harmony and life, and he wrote
of the time when the Good Spirit
should be the one supreme law. He
writes of the universal cong uest of
the Christ and then says: "And when
all things shall be subdued to him,
then shall he also himself be subject
unto him that did put all things un-
der him, that God may be all in all"
Il. Cor. XIV. 2S.)
And to all these ancient voices OF
the ages Tennyson replies from this
present generation, with conviction
as certain as theirs, and word as firm
and unhesitating and even more elab-
crate. He sings this faith:
ooh, yet, we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of i'll,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt and taints of blood.
That nothing walks with aimless feet,
That not one life shall be destroyed
Or cast as rubbish to the void
When God hath made the pile complete.
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.
Behold, we know not anything;
l can but trust that good shall fall
At last-far off-at last to all,
And every winter change to spring"
These great words, heard at long
in tervals in the earlier times, but re-
peated more frequently in the later
years, come from thesummits of faith
far above the average heights where
on the common masses have been
content to rest their beliefs. The
majority faith of the world among all
the religions and in all ages has been
a compromise between good and evil,
so far as the destiny of the people
and the world itself is concerned-a
compromise between light and dark
ness, right and wrong; compromise
between God and the prince of dark
ness. 1t has never been quite ortho-
dox to believe in the absolute and
final triumph of the right, the abso-
Lutte destruction of evil and the en-
thronement of universal good. The
bright gods of the pagan world had
their antipodes in the dark gods and
Olympus itself, on whose SUBMITS in
the pure ether the deities had their
abode, pressed down upon the abodes
of Pluto and Proserpine. The Per-
sian world had it's dual government
and it pleased the genius of Zoroas-
ter's discipleship to have double
throne in the universe wherein they
seated the good and the evil deity re-
spectively. The world has always
called for its Ormazd and its Ahri-
man. Evil has always challenged
and won the recognition Of the peo-
pie as an eternal reality, and even to
this day we are often met with the
amiable criticism of our faith that
"no theology or church can thrive
without devil aud hell 1t has
always been held as heresy by the
masses Of the people thatgood should
finally and universally be.
The thought of such beatitude as
a final fortune, however, has not been
entirely absent from the world. In
the history of this larger faith in our
own age and country, certain indiyid-
uais and small groups of individuals
appear here and there affirming it in
the early DAYS. Such were Bishop
White, of the Episcopal church in
Pennsylvania, during the early years
of the last century, and DIR. George
DeBenneville, of Germantown, in the
same state, and various small frater-
mites among the German Baptists,
but there was no concerted movement
inaugurated for the PRONUNCIATION of
this faith till the year ITO, when
John Murray commenced preaching
this faith of Isaiah and ST. Paul and
Tennyson, which have quoted.
The Universalist church as a con-
tinuous movement and institution,
sprung from his work, and today
numbers a thousand churches and
has in its colleges and schools and
papers and church edifices and other
;nyastad funds. fourteen millions of