The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-11-26
PUBLICLY GAVE THANKS
UNION SERVICES IN THE CHURCHES
YESTERDAY MORNING.
Rev. C. E. Bacon Talks to the Merid.
ian-street vi. f. Congregations
The Other Sermons.

The congregations of Roberts Park and
Meridian-street NJ. f. Churches united for
Thanksgiving services at the latter church
yesterday morning, where Rev. C. E. Ba-
con, pastor of Roberts Park preached. Con-
sidering the dsagreeable rain the attendance
was good. Appropriate music was well rem
dered
DIR. Bacon preached from Psalm ky, II:
Thou crownest the year with thy good
ness, and thy paths drop fairness" DIR.
Bacon began his sermon with the quotation:
"A transient thought is too mean for con-
slant mercy" And So" he continued,
''the Jews had their feast of the tabernacles
and we have our annual Thanksgiving day
"a monument of a nations gratitude.
Many observe the day without religious
emotion or benefit but Thanksgiving, I be-
lieve never fails to have a salutary effect
on public thought and conscience.
And in perpetuating the practice of our
Puritan fathers, who at close of the year
made it national thanksgiving, we are
acknowledging our faith in God and our de-
pendence on Him. So 1 select my text
which beautifully portrays the presence
of God in all nature. Thou crownest the
year with thy goodness The Lord him
golden coronet on the brow of the year. Or
we may understand that Gods love enriches
the year as with a crown, each month a
gen. and each day pearl
1T is the divine agency that want to
emphasize. God sets the crown of the boun-
ties of nature on the brow of the year. He
has set it with the yellow corn and the
luscious fruit and the fluffy cotton, the
fieecy wool and the golden grain. He has
set the priceless gems of His mercies and
favor in the circlet of His love with which
He bounds your life this year, not only
each month and each day having its rare
mercies, but each grace in sorrow, each
conquest in temptation, and each discipline
enters jewel into the crown with which
He has crowned this year for you. One rea-
son that infidelity puts God behind imper-
sonal law is because it fails to measure the
infinite capacity for detail that belongs TO
infinite mind. Man is between two infinites
Infinitely as below as we'll as above u.s.
and there is as much essential greatness
in littleness as there is in largeness.' We
naturally think of God as doing the great,
swinging a star in place, setting bounds to
the sea or ordering great systems, but that
He could hear the prayer of child and an
swer it by exercise of definite power seems
too small work on His part. And when
consider / am but a speck amid great ag-
gregate, a mote-earth drifting in boundless
space, find no hope but when look below
me and find God has been at work on mi
mute and munificent creation, and that my
life rests on the shoulders of all former
creation l see my life is simple. and sig
nificantly important. We allow God can do
few great things, why not do many little
things. And does not the infinity below us
prove it?
Again, God is not far from every mans
material prosperity. The seed with its life
is His. The soul is His The sunbeam
from Gods far-off bank, with its chemical
and light forces is His. These have the di-
vine superscription and image and for these
pennies bases of all our wealth, we should
return thanks.
I'VE know not want in this broad land
of many chimes and SURPRISING fertility. The
soils yield has been superabundant this
year. We have been Egyptian greenhouses
for the nations of the earth. God has given
us the gold from the mines and the noun
tains and these marvellous resources enabled
war and has furnished elasticity to
spring quickly back into prosperity after
every financial depression.
God has blessed the church and from
1t has flown streams of healthy thought
through all life. There have been easily
marked tendencies, from atheism to theism;
from scholastic to vital truth; from philo-
sophical to biblical ethics; from meager to
greater benefcence; from Christ discarded
to Christ honored as never before in the
worlds history"