The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-30
REV. DR.. LASBY RETURNS
CFNTR AVENUE CHRISTIAN RE
OPENS WITH A BIG CONGREGATION.
DR.. Van Anda breaches at His Old
Church-BishOp Chatard's Work
Highly COmpIimented.

A large congregation welcomed Rev. G. c.
Lasby pastor of the Central-avenue M. E.
Church. back to his pulpit yesterday morn
ing after his six weeks vacation. The audi
.ence listened appreciatively to a discourse
from Matthew xxi. $780, Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart and
with - thy soul and with all thy mind
and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy
self"
Dr. Lasby said that God is love and
Christianity is a system Of love revealed
tremendously through the ages. The his
tory of religion passes through several
stages such as the worship Of things and
persons, before arriving at an adequate
conception of the deity. To recognize the
worth of God is true worship and consists
not in tawdry tinselings and posings before
high affairs or in cringing and fawning and
self-deprecation. The home life is the type
Of the true relation of the believer to his
God. What father would desire his son
always to approach him with stilted form
of expression and present requests in a
monotonous repetition of expression. The
believer is at home with God amidst the
tossing of pillows or famed by mountain
breezes, and everywhere it is his privilege
to exut in the felt presence of his Father
who is in Heaven. ITO serve God with all
thy heart is high spiritual experience"
said the minister. Sweet saints have
poured forth their delicious love lays as
they have leaned hard upon the heart of
God. The thoughts of Pascal that burn
like stars in the darkness of the medieval
night, the high strains of a Bernard of
Cluny, the soft tender hymns of a Wesley
attest the value of the experience. There
is difference between serving God from
duty and enjoying the privilege of high
communion. a man may pay his taxes but
he rarely rejoices in the TACT that he is
compelled to do so; so people may serve
God from a sense of duty but they have
no heart in it. The service of the soul is
one of enthusiasm rising to the height Of
the old Jew who said: If l forget thee,
Jerusalem, let my hand forget her cunning
The command to love God with all tiny
mind is a standing rebuke to ignorance and
superstition. In every age lie has selected
the Wisest and most skIllful to fulfill His
purposes. For millions of years He was
engaged in building the starry dome and
shall man not recognize its beauty and in
quire concerning its secrets? To love God
with all thy mind signifies a disposition to
investigate, to inspect, 20 study the ways
of God that we may arrive intelligently at
the expression of the psalmist: All thy
works praise thee, God
The second phase of thought set out in
the text, love for our neighbors' was
dwelt upon at some length by the pastor
He declared that religion is interviewer
with all relations of life. A divorce between
religion and morality, he said, has been
the bane Of the centuries. The Christ has
made the highest revelation of this love
and stands rebuking science in its pitiless
dictum that the weakest must go to the
wall, he builds hospitals for the I'M
fortunate and erects homes for the incura-
bles. The standard of judgment at last
shall be: "Inasmuch as you did it not unto
one of the least Of these. you did it not
unto me-" To do the will of the Father
is true religion and involves the, loving of
fellow-men. DR.. Lasby asserted that the
honest man outside of the church who has
dealings is much more religious than he
that cries Lord, Lord in the sanctuary
and goes forth to deceive and take ad-
vantage of his fellows. He that minds his
own business outside the circles of pro-
fessed Christians is more truly Cody than
he that becomes a tale-monger IN the
church The world is full of sorrow. Trials
are on every hand. He that doeth the will
of God dries the tears of the weeping and
lifts the burdens Of the sOrroMful