The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-03-28

of our text. We are laborers together
with God. Briefly then, for the hour Is
small and the theme is large, but that
we may be clear aswell as brief. We
are not instruments, mere tools, like
insumate atoms or unintelligent forces.
We are not passive and helpless clay
in the hands of the omnipotent potter,
but we are potters as well whose hands
are busy in the clay moulding it after
our own thought and purpose into hon
or or >dishonor, into beauty and glory.
or into ugliness and shame. That is
to say, as the end of these long pro-
cesses of evolution God has produced
in man being who, in his sphere. is
free as he is free, who can help him
or hinder him; aid him or thwart
him, who can look up and lift up, or
degenerate and drag down. We are
not instruments, we are agents, self
originating, causal, creative, empow-
cred to aid or to retard the evolution
Of the race, and be laborers against
God or laborers together with God.
Whether we are laborers against
God or with God, God has a place for
us in his plan and place which no
other can so worthily fill, so that every
man may say if he will as Jesus said
of himself, To this end was T born and
for this purpose came into the world.
Every misplaced man is the defeat of
God. This may seem strange to us
that God should count on us. We may
not understand all that is going ON
around us. We see the multitudes of
men coming and going, toiling and
striving, busy with their small, person.
al purposes and pursuits, like ants
around an ant hill. We see much con-
fused activity but little apparent
meaning and purpose, and sometimes
wonder whether there is any meaning
and purpose. 1t is because we are so
ignorant, see so little. We go down
the street: we see men cutting stone,
mixing mortar, laying brick and put
ting up scaolding, hearing hammering,
saving, and we wonder what is the
meaning and outcome of this. activity
There is one place where everything is
clear, where every workman has his
place; it is in the thought and place of
the architect and every laborer is Ia
boring together with men.
We go into the battle; we are
marched and countermarched, we are
ordered here and there; we form col
umn and we deploy into line; we hear
the thunder of the captains and the
shouting, the screaming shells and
singing bullets; we stand in thick
smoke. begrimed with powder and load
and fire, load and fire, and cannot tell
what is the strategy or purpose or how
the battle is going. But there is one
eye that sweeps the whole field.
There is one place where everything i
clear, where every soldier has his
place; it is in the thought and pur-
pose of the commander-in-ch chief, and
every soldier in the shattered ranks o
the charging lines is fighting together
with him for the honor of his country,
for the welfare of his native land.
The best, the chiefest thing in life is
to get into the line of divine purpose, is
in being in our place and doing the
work the Master has appointed and
laid out for us. This world is SO or
ganized that it helps up is our place,
binders and hurls us out of our place.
In our place we are laboring together
with God and all divine forces and
agencies are on our side. Allies to help
us on, agels to bear us UP. All things,
all potences and powers work together
for good to the good, In this and in all
worlds. Out of our place the stars in
their courses fight against us. In our
place, laboring together with God in
the regeneration the evolution of the
race, we are partnered in all that Is
great and lasting and permanent in
the universe; partnered forever in the
immortality Of our work, currented in
that divine purpose which in spite of
all eddying and swinging and SEEM
ing setbacks will ultimately find the
sea. What new meaning and dignity
does this lend to life? What magnifi-
cent composure, what splendid cour-
age, what unlfaltering hope is ours.
when we are laborers together with
God, the supreme architect, the uncon-
querable commander. the author and
the finisher, the first and the last. The
ultimate reward is measured not by
the size of the place but by the quality,
the fidelity of the work. These words
We're not spoken to the gifted and the
great, the influential and the powerful.
They We're uttered into the Ghetto of
Corinth to little company of humble
men, most Of them slaves, all of them
grimy toilers on the ground floor of
that great Roman world. To these
weak Christians Of Corinth, st. Paul
taking into the compass of his inspired
thought this tremendous line of
divine labor, and divine evolution said:
You are laborers together with God.
What must have sounded strange,
marvellous, preposterous to them still
sound strange to usThat God wants
us, needs us, that we are indispensable
factors in the evolution of the race
that everyone Of US is helping or
hindering, advancing or retarding his
purpose, we are still slow to APP
prehend. That Moses, David,
Isaiah, Paul, Augustine, Calvin, Luth-
err, Wesley, that these great leaders,
and princes and preachers of the
church were the agents of the AL
mighty, we can well believe, but that
we who are plain and common men in
the dust and CRIME Of daily toll, are
laborers together with God seems an
idle and preposterous dream. But
nothing is surer than this than any
man or woman of us all who is MAX
ing life easier, cleaner, happier for
other people, who is doing his duty as
God gives him to see his duty is an