The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-06-06
THE NATION LED BY GOD
DIR. HAINEs.s VIEW OF THE BROAD
ENING MISSION OF AMERICA.
Compar iaOn with the Past-Dr. Lucas
Believes in Remembering
the Maine.

Last evening, at the monthly service or
song at the First Presbyterian Church. the
pastor. Rev. NJ. L. Haines, took for the sub
ject of his sermon. Divine Guidance in Ma
tional Life" Among other things he said:
Our American Nation is making history
rapidly in these days. AS a people we are
moving forward swiftly into new conditions
of life, new relationships with other races,
new responsibilities and new perils. What
far-reaching world problems are facing us.
And our wisest statesman are not willing
TO predict either what will be or what
should be our course as nation in regard
to all these new questions. We id not know
as yet what we will do in regard to the Phil
ippines. or how far we will go in an Anglo
American alliance in the direction of an al
lance of the English, German and Amer
lean peoples. The fact is, we are travelling
along path that no man can foresee where
it will bring us.
81 asked a naval officer how it was that
Commodore Dewey sailed into the harbor Of
Manila that dark night; was it light enough
to see the buoys marking the channel? No,
he answered; there were no buoys or, if
there were, they were misplaced. He felt
his way, by soundings. through the gloom
of the night And that is the way this Ma
ton is now going forward to new condi-
tons. Things are¬ clear very far ahead
We are feeling our way. 1t is the best we
can do.
Il wish to call your minds to a great
promise of God that seems to have special
application to the providential experiences
we are now passing through 1t is found in
Isaiah xiii, 16: i will bring the blind by a
way that they know not 1 will lead them
in paths that they have not known This
promise, given through the patriot-prophet
seven hundred years before Christ. was adj
dressed to the Hebrew nation. Preceding
it and leading up to it is the assurance that
God has been with them in their national
history-who hath wrought and done it.,
calling the generations from the beginning?
l, the Lord, the first, and with the last-I
am He And so He declares that from the
beginning He has been, and even in the far
future He will still be directing and over
ruling in their affairs. 1t was a great thing
for men away back in those twilight CEN
turies-long before Socrates and Plato-to
have laid hold of this high conception of the
guiding providence of the infinite God Con-
trast with this conception the Greek idea of
a dark, blind, resistless fate as shaping ma
tional and individual life, or the conception
of Epicurus. everything the result of for
tuitous concourse of atoms and events; or
the modern conception of agnostic material
ism-all things the necessary resultant OF
intelligent forces. In contrast with these
doctrines the Bible revelation of the all
controlling and directing providential guild
ance of Almighty God. His most holy, wise
and powerful preserving and governing all
His creatures and all their actions is far
grander and more satisfying to the reason
and ennobling to the life. And what is
especially emphasized in the text is the
truth that Gods guidance of His chosen
nation land any nation that chooses God is
~ hat
to them. Matthew Arnold paraphrases the
promise in these words: i will bring my
faint -hearted, incredulous and undiscerning
people safe through the desert to their own
land And God fulfilled that promise. He
brought the Hebrew nation back to their
own land from their captivity In Babylon
by series of proVidences that were a sur
prise to them. He led them in many ways
that they did not understand at the time
But they had faith and courage enough to
go forward and do the next best thing.
He said: L will make darkness light before
them. and crooked things straight, and lie
did so eventually. But they could not see
path Neither can We
1.-THE great truth is that the all-wiSe God
Is leading us in ways which are in part mys-
FERROUS to us at the time; whose meaning
and full results we cannot clearly discern.
Has this not been true of this American Ma
ton in all the one hundred and twenty
three years of its history? When the Con-
tinentals gathered to resist the tyrannical
exactions of the British officers and soldiers.
w
declared that their purpose in this resort to
arms was not separation from the mother
country. but only a redress Of grievances.
When our civil war broke out how emphatic
were the declarations of those high in au-
thority at Washington that the war was not
for the freeing of the slave, but only for
the maintenance of the Union. In Abraham
Lincoln's first inaugural, what has been
called the most vital utterance of that adj
dress. that in which the declaration of pur-
pose is given, is in these words: The power
confided to me will be used to hold. occupy
and possess the places and property belong
ing to the government and to collect the
duties and imposts, but beyond what may
be necessary for these objects there will be
no invasion, no using of force. against or
among the people anywhere. Yet how soon
the government found itself travelling along
a path which necessitated its widening that
purpose in many and important ways. was
not God guiding our Nation as II felt Its
way along that dark and blood-stained path,
and bringing us out at the end a new Ma
tion-purged from the awful curse OF hui
man slavery?
And again in this struggle upon which
we have entered with Spain. we entered
upon it for the sake of suffering humanity.
As a Nation we felt that we could no longer
refuse to listen to the cries of the oppressed
and the starving. But in the declaration of
war we solemnly disclaimed any disposition
or intention to exercise sovereignty over the
Island of Cuba. except for the pacifcation
thereof. Only few weeks have gone by.
and now we find ourselves brought face TO
face with things that were remote from our
thoughts--or were at most of secondary i'm
portance. Now they are showing them
selves to be of primary moment. We find
that we can no longer take parochial view
of this war We must awaken to our en-
larged responsibilities. Americas broaden
ing mission is more and more clear. We
can no longer be a hermit nation or remain
in our Atlantic isolation. 1t seems that we
have been at school long enough. Now we
are called upon. in Gods providential lead
ings' that we have learned our lessons and
are prepared to show to the world that we
are worthy of our exceptional training and
advantages. The text then, furnishes the
truth under which we are to go forward to
meet these enlarged responsibilities, not in
a spirit of self-con1dence based upon our
own resources and wisdom. but lin humble
reliance upon Almighty God and His present
day leadings. ever seeking, as each new
duty confronts us, to meet it in a way to
honor Him. So not with fear. but in high
faith will we go forward believing that God
has higher purposes for this Nation than
we have even yet recognized.