The herald., 1898-12-12
IN CITY PUlPI1S
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At St. Paul's Episcopal church, the Right
Rev. Bishop johnson read his text from
Philippians, AS: The
The Lord Is Lord is at hand"
at Hand The bishop said. in
part: A change is
to come either by our death or by thesecond
advent of Jesus into the worio,
but of which we really Know
very little. The main fact is that Christ
shall become not new factor, but factor
under new conditions, SO that we can say
with St. John: "Whom our eyes have seen
and our hands have handled What we
really are will become apparent then by the
contrast with the character of Christ, as a
shade of color heightens or pales by con
trast. and as the tone of gem is frightened
or dulled when placed by the side of an
other. So will the presence of Christ in
tensify the difference between ourselves
and him. The law of repulsion, which
scnarates the good from the bad by nat
ural process in this life, will create. a bar,
rier between that which is evil in us and
him when he comes.
The duty in our preparation tor ChrlstIs
second coming suggests another thought. II
we were spirits without bodies we might
not need to think of the earthly life and ITS
work. But these bodies, marveously en-
dowed by God as they are, bring us In con
tact with other men, and the duty to man is
as imperative as the duty toward God.
Here we find ourselves in social, political,
mercantile and professional life, and we
have no right to ignore the claims OF one or
the other, and the duty to man will keep
that thought ever in mind lie is best
fitted to receive Christ when he comes who
has made the most OF his body, and his
brains, and has done the most for humanity.
'Bessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God" Matt. 5-S, were the words
chosen by Rev. Burt
The Vision Estes Howard as the
of God basis of his sermon to
the congregations of
the Church of the Covenant.
To see God is equivalent with most OF us
to glimpse of thrones, and dominions, ana
mowers. and a being of awful majesty and
aorsum;nr holiness. The God that
shapes itself in our thoughts is a creation
Of our own, an exalted manhood that We
have builded out OF our own best concep-
tions and seated on the throne Of the uni
verse. The impression creeps into our
minds that if we are holy and clean-souled
some day in the life to come our eyes shall
look upon the splendor of the great white
throne" and on the face of him who sits
thereon. We are all the time trying to
translate things into terms of our personal
benefit.
To see God was the cause ofblessedness, or
a state of happiness. The seeing OF God
was not the definition of the blessedness
that was to belong to the pure IN heart; 1t
was the occasion of it. The word OF
Jesus was equivalent to saying that If
man kept his heart white and spotless there
would come to him divine inshinings that
would make him rich in spiritual blessing
The whole field of this beatitude is right
here in this present world. To see God Is
to see something of Gods goodness, and
truth, and love, and righteousness in the
things that are about us every day ana
everywhere. For a man does see God
when he sees a bit of good, in, anything
God and good are not two, but one. There
is no good in the world that is not bit of
Gods glory that has found rift to shine
through.
The tendency of these days is to put out
our spiritual eyes. Because we have found
the quill and the ink horn we have no eyes
for the author. Now Jesus is trying to
get people to cultivate their spiritual per-
ception. He wants to develop a capacity
for seeing good everywhere, and this car
ries with it an incapacity to see evil. There
is so-called "seing life,' which is
only seeing the baseness and the
shame of life. There is a kind Of
knowledge that the more a man has Of it
the more he ought to be ashamed of having
it. There is no force in the world so
mighty in its effect on mans life as HIS
own mind. 1t is his mind that seizes on
the things that his senses bring him, and
ont of them creates his universe.
Rev A. A. Rice the ma stor or the I'M;