The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-08-30
GOD WITH US EVERYWHERE
HELPFUL SERM0N BY REV. FRED.
 BRICK LYNCH, YESTERDAY.


 perienoes and Tenn mptations-Men To-dny
 as Dull as Philip-Large Congregation
 Present.
 The United church and the Center church congregations held a union ser vice yesterday morning at the formers meeting house, Rev. Frederick Lynch, the able assistant of Rev. Dr. Munger, preached a sermon full of thought and helpful suggestion. A large congrega- ton was present and the comments made by a number of those present showed their appreciation of the preachers effort
 Mir. Lynch took for his text John 14 S-9 Philip saith unto Him, Lord show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" The preacher pictured the daily life of Philip with Jesus and how we were apt to think him blind and stupid that he did not see that he was living with Him who was the perfect incarnation of the Father. Yet how often the same
 words might be said of us and the same question of Jesus be put to us In it's perfectly just tone of gentle re- buke. How often is the Father walk | ing with Us to-day and we know 1t | not.
 MT. Lynch showed how, in partial | manner, God was near us in nature, In all the beauty of earth and sky and sea.
 | Then he spoke as follows
 How rich life is in experiences. Life | is the sum of them. To some they are
 larger and richer than to others, but | to us all how manifold; how divers! | How fruitful they are in knowledge; | how they deepen and broaden charac- | ter, building up manhood and lead into | wisdom. How varied! How tleeting! | Joy rising to the heights of heaven; | love comprehending all the breadth of | life; sorrow carrying us through the 1 deep waters. Poverty, riches, tempta- 1 tions, losses, sickness, ambitions. the struggling toward ideals, the attaining | and the missing, the coming of souls | from God at birth-their returning to | Him at death, these-and a thousand other things that make life the won- l derful comprehension of heaven and
 earth. The experiences of the race, too, 1 the rising and falling of nations, the | coming and passing of peoples. the | wars, the strifes and enmities, the
 struggling of religions, what never ending pageant of realest most serious
 experiences history has been.
 | Out of these individual and racial
 experiences has come great part of | our knowledge of God. Through them have we come to know the Father, in them have we seen Him and His won-
 drous ways. They have taught us pa l tience and endurance have made us
 wise and strong, but more than this, | they have carried us back through | themselves to the Father. What is our
 Bible but the record left us by great
 men of the knowledge of God they ac- quired and the visions of Him they att l tained to through the every day ex- periences of their life. And the book l has meaning unto us just in the degree | in which it helps to us interpret our own | life and shows us how to see God in it's | happenings. Until we can find Him | through these things it will not mean I I,
 means nothing to one who has not i loved or been loved here The sacrifice | of Christ does not touch our hearts | till we have suffered for others. The | Fatherhood of God is a meaningless ex-
 pression to one who has never experi- enced Fatherhood. We are beginning
 to realize this more in these days than | before and the chief characteristic of
 what is strangely called the New The
 ology--for 1t is as old as the prophets l is that it bases it's knowledge of God
 on experience rather than on texts of
 the Bible, it's knowledge of God is
 through and by lfe-the life of to-day
 as we'll as the life of the past-and it | looks for new revelation of God with
 every new experience of the race and | hopes for some new vision of God with every discovery of science, awaits some new message from every child that is
 born. What more natural attitude for
 us to entertain. Why should we not | find God as did Isaiah and Jesus. Is l He dead, or did He leave His world
 two thousand years ago that we should
 not see Him in His world as did the
 older prophets?
 l "Where could Isaiah find and see Him
 except in the experiences of His nation | and His own life? He had no Bible to l turn to. Yet how deep and true his knowledge of God. Where did Jesus | find him? In the prophets? No. How l infinitely transcendent his knowledge of | God to Isaiah's He found Him In the experiences of His life. Every experi- ence was full of Him. He saw His l hand in every changing event He l found out the Fatherhood of God from 1 no book, but because in his lonely, i eventful, struggling everyday life he | felt and saw it and lived in it and died | in 1t and rose in it. Has God changed?
 Have men changed so that the relation l between God and man Is different to- | day? No. Shall not we then look for | Him and see Him in all the events of
 life. as did Isaiah and Jesus? Certain
 ly We must, and how great knowledge | should be ours and what resplendent visions In each event of life how | clear. indeed, His guiding hand we
 shall see. How real His all encom-
 passing love shall be found; His re-
 pose our resting place in life's long
 battle What a Bible is daily being
 writ in the joys and sorrows, the
 achievements and the failures of our
 race? And shall we not read it and
 find it as full of God and fraught with
 as divine and holy messages from Him
 as any holy book of old. There shall be
 H. n .l.J