The herald., 1897-01-25
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
The Glory of a Present Worth or the
Hope of Future.

The Glory of Present Worth or the
Hope of Future.
The congregation yesterday morning
at the First Presbyterian church was
very large. The pastor, Burt Estes How
ard, preached from the text, II Tim,
i:12, following up the line of thought
which he developed partially last Sun
day A synopsis Of the sermon is here
given.
Great ideas create great peoples
Great convictions create great men. Be-
hind every aggregation of families that
have become organized into national
life stands a positive ideal of which the
political and social fabric is but the
utterance In visible form. Back of every
man who has pushed out from the neu-
trail level of the multitude and written
his personality on times, there rises a
mighty thought of which the man is
the organic expression. In this iron age
of meterialism the world Is losing
sight of the power of the ideal in the
life of men and nations. Clamoring for
what they call facts, the men of today
with their vaunted scientific spirit, are
becoming blind to the real truth which
which makes these facts possible. For
the actual is not the truth. 1t is the
part of the truth that has been attained
The ideal is the truth-tht whole truth
Gross in our sensitiveness to reality
we fail to distinguish between the truth
which Is the spirit, and the fact, which
is the incident of the spirit So in the
writing of history We confine ourselves
to events, and in writing biography we
are content with the acts and words
forgetting or ignoring une convictions
and ideals which are the true origins
of both history and biography.
There Is tendency to credit all that
appears In the life of man to his en-
vironment. Carlyle delivers himself Of
rugged sense in this passage from his
Hero Worship: Show our critics a
great man. Luther, for example, they
begin to what they call account for
nim;' not to worship him, but to take
his dimensions, and bring him out to
be little kind of mani He was the
creature of the time they say; the time
called him forth; the time did every
thing-he nothing-but what we, the lit
tie critic, could have done too! The
time call forth! Alas, we have known
the times to call loudly enough for their
great man, but not find him when they
called! He was not there; Providence
had not sent him; the time, calling its
loudest, had to go down to confusion and
WIeCk DtCduSe lie WOulu not come Wnen
called. But liken the common
languid times, with their unbelief, dis
tress, perpiexity, with their languid,
doubling characters and embara ssed
circumstances to dead fuel
waiting for the lightning out of heaven
that shall kindle it. The great man,
with is free force, direct out of Gods
hand is the lightning. All blazes around
him now, when once he has struck on
N1a< <5,-xr
dering sticks are thought to have called
him forth. They did want him greatly
but as to calling him forth! Those are
critics of small vision. think, who cry,
See, is 1t not the sticks that made the
fire.
The great man acts on his times and
sets them glowing. But in that the great
man who kind1es the age into action
Is the great idea that burns and flames
IN his soul. 1t has been said by some
one that every institution is the length
ened shadow of man. 1T is equally true
that every great man is the incarnation
of a great conviction. The potential en-
ergy of mans life cannot be found in
his times or in his environment 1t lies
within him. Every man is the product
of his faith. The times he lives in and
his environment are only the store
houses of his opportunity. They do
not create his greatness. They furnish
it's mode of expression.
Take the life of any man who has left
the world heritage of larger concep-
tfons and holier activities, and you will
find at the center of that mans power
some dominant conviction that seized
him and made him it's own. Do you
ask for an illustration? Then find it
in the pages of our own history, so re-
cnt that the writing is still wet. For 1t
Is not necessary to travel back over the
long, dusty road of the ages to find the
working of the Divine Spirit in the af-
fairs of men. God is no less interested
in the history of America than he was
in the history of the Hebrews. The same
Spirit that stirred in Moses and trem-
bled in Paul burned in the heart of
Lincoln with the flame of holy inspi-
ration. Says President Schurman: 1T
is happy circumstance that our first
American, as Lowell calls him, leaves
us in no doubt as to the fact of his
faith in God or as to the power which
that faith gave him in doing what his
tory. I think. will pronounce the su-
preme work Of the nineteenth century
Indeed. Lincoln talked with such su-
preme faith that some persons called
him superstitious. Certainly the veil be-
tween the natural and the supernatu-
raj was for him neither thick nor opaque
God ruled the world in Righteousness.
and men were the servants and the in
struments of his rule. Such was the
faith that hrilled in every drop of Lin
coins blood. I know he said to his
friend Bateman. not long before the
war, I know that there is God, and
that he hates injustice and slavery
And again: Douglas don't care whether
slavery Is voted up or down, but God
cares, and humanity cares, and care,
and with Gods help shall not fall
He took his stand on principle, he did
what was right, and the right approved