The Newtown bee., 1899-05-26

| low Jesus RleaSeQ Ills rather
A SERMON BY REV HENRY L. SLACK OF
BETHEL
Text, John 8. 49, "He that sent me is will
me- the Father hath not LETT me alone; tor
do always those things that please him"
The thoughtful world hangs upon the
lips of Jesus with breathless at.
tention. His message grows larger and
more luminous with the years. We have
lived to see the splendid streams of NOR
ais and religion issue from the simple
sayings of the Mount or from the su.
preme tragedy of Calvary. But it ia
when we meet the man, Jesus, and feel
the throb of his inner life,-a great hu-
man heart beating cOnsonant with our
heart,-and when we discover the divine
Presence that was with him, that he re-
veals our life and inspires us with his ex.
ample. We think of Christ in His divine
character, but this is to think of Him in
ious destiny. 1t is our greatest privilege
so to regard Him in His distinctive divine
relation, and it provokes in US the no.
blest spirit of worship. But to think of
Jesus in human relation, to feel the pow
er of great, worshipful manhood, ard
'ay he Is like US, one with us, except in
moral blemish, is to make him the known
and potent factor of our lives. Uutil we
have thus discovered the human heart
Of Our Lord, and entered into its spirit
and what the Father was to him and
what He did for him, we fail to under
stand what God may become to US and
what He will do for as.
Texts like the one from which
We have quoted, bring to our view
the human life Of which jesus
was conscious. We touch his own
inner experience of the Fathers pres
ence, and we ask, is this experience poe-
7lble to US IN any measure. When he
utters the words we have repeated, he is
forced to such a meditation by the pres
sure of criticism. He would Justify his
course by facts of which he was con-
scious. This he feels as the truth uf hu-
man experience, "He is with me :"
"the Father bach not left me alone"
Then he voices the reason for divine
Presence-a reason go practical that it in
wolves every condition upon our part of
spiritual uplift and resence-'For | do
always those things that please him."
This consciousness of Jesus of the
Fathers presence and the reason he
gives to Justify it, is our theme.
l. 1t Is the anxious first question of
every soul, Have we Heavenly Father
who is in communion With us?" Is God
10 personal contact with men, is He in
his world? Let us put the question with
reference to Jesus of Nazareth; Did he
commune with the Father and was he
conscious of his presence?
We can afford to study the matchless
Gospel narrative with this question alone
before US. 1t is not a question Of suppo-
sition or of theory, but of fact. Has any
man ever lived in touch with the Unseen?
heavenly communion? Did he pray /?
Did he know GOD? Could he really say,
The Father hath not left me alone p"
Was his life divinely filed and divine
ly Illuminated life?
OUR MODERN MODES OF THOUGHT
are less satisfied with signs and wonders.
The deepest evidence does not lie in mir.
acles, as once. Not that any Christian
may discount the miraculous element as
1t appears in the biography of Jesus :;
still his mighty works are testimonies of
himself; but the real evidence ia in his
own consciousness, IN the motives and
earnests discovered, in the current of
sympathies we may understand, in the
sublime practice of his life. The infidel-
ity OF our day finds itself expressed in
an IMPLYING naturalism. Nature is God,
unknown and unknowable in any person
al relation. 1t is the reign of law, rem
dered Ineligible in part by our science,
unintelligible in part by our ignorance.
The only friendly relation a soul may
sustain, looking beyond his social en-
vironment, is the friendship of the phys.
ical force Of the air, the land and the
water. IL you would not be crushed
stand aside from the descending ava
lanche. ~ II you would have health in
body and mind, study hygiene and phil
osophy. There is no health-cure for
souls; indeed the soul ia not heir to dis
ease. In face of this naturalism it is
wise to refer the candid inquirer to ma
lures element In Jesus of N zareth. La
that unique life, which we all accept
alike, which the skeptic accepts in iss
beauty and purity and honesty, is there
any unusual factor manifest in his ex.
perienct? Is there evidence of a person
al acquaintance with the personal being
we have called God? Surely the life OF
Jesus was of such dramatic Incl
dent and 30 remarkable as a force
OF that day, and Of every day
slice the beginning of the Christian
centuries, that it demands explanation.
And IL divine intercourse may be affirmed
OF one life, the life of Jesus, it may
be affirmed Of other lives, and there be
reality in the witness Of sainted lives,
lived since. his time, who have born ties.
timony to the integrity of the divine
Presence and communion.
WHAT MORE SIMPLE OR REASONABLY
THING
than to take the word of Jesus In
explanation of hts own prof found con.
sciousness, that the Father was with
him? What shall we do with the witness
he bears concerning bisown earthly ex.
nnrtnnnoeQ Ho dnalaroa la ga L. .n.At,