The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-07-17
Listened to the Sermon.

|
 Listened to the Sermon.
 Rev. George Fl. Ferris of Calvary Baptist church preached a strong ser
 mon yesterday morning, A large con
 gregation assembled in the church de-
 spite the unfavorable weather. Rev. MT.
 Ferris text was taken from Proverbs
 xxix, IS, "When there is no vision the
 people perish,' and spoke as follows: l It is not uncommon to hear men speak | slightingly of visions. They are often | looked upon as mere moonshine, good enough for dreamers who grow their
 harvest in the clouds, but of little value | to practical people, whose common sense
 tillage demands drudgery and fertiliz- 1 ing Children, it is to be expected, will cry for the moon, but grown people have learned to be content with loaf | of bread. 1 am sure you are familiar | with this philosophy. It makes much 1 of utility. It tests everything by laws l of prudence It insists that the unknown and the unexplored must be for us the l useless and the non existent It has
  not wear a harness and the summit of it's ideals is life that runs on to the end of it's routine existence without slip ping a cog. As against this wisdom of the world' I would like to urge this morning the ancient proverb Where there is no vision the people perish. 1T the ideal of the moralist could be real ized and human existence could be laid out as definitely as diagram, if our souls could be managed with machine like precision and the element of un- certainty could be eliminated. lt obed- fence to laws of prudence could make the human will beat with steady stroke of habit, punctual and precise, then, I grant you, no disturbing deeds of wickedness would shatter the routine of our obedience no uncertainties and precipices would frighten our faith and cause us to walk timidly, and we should grind out a large grist of moral deeds to pour into the bags of society. But in such a world no prayer of penitence no hymn of praise, no cry of attn would ever be heard. It would be a visionless world, and the punctual plod- ding of it's unbending mechanism would never have occasion to turn aside to lift up one who had fallen, would never find it's footsteps quickening under the impulse of love All that is deepest and best in life would drop out in such a world, and the unimpassioned lnhapi- tants would labor on with their blows and harrow in the fields of utility, blind tn the eternal hills upon the horizon. The garden of the individ- ual would be for him the boundary or the universe, and no footfall of a being from another world would disturb the dusty surface of the field of duty.
 The other night, as I was looking up a inc stars the thought occurred to me that those heavenly lamps "for millennia gray with antiquity had played an im- nnrtant part in the spiritual develop rnent of mankind. What if there had heen no stars. What if we had lived inside the earth instead of upon it's sur face! How low our vision would nave been! How much we should have lost of the spiritual wonder. Men would have gone to sleep as if they belonged to the clod. The little child never would have been taught to say. with the hrsS lisp of faith Twinkle, twinkle, lttle star, How I wonder what you are!' And> in after years. despite his added knowledge and experience, he never would have repeated the old words "How wonder what you are! what if there had been no stars! But, lnueeu' are there not multitudes of human De- ings for whom there are no stars They 60 on to the end of life, without an up ward look. Rhizophagi. Root eaters Having no ships at sea they have no oc- casion for a guiding star. Not being al manac makers they see no use in study- ing the heavens The Pleiades ana Orion cannot be harnessed to a blow, and so they are of no use to them Sunposing a tadpole were to think ms puddle everything; were to ascrlpe ereatness to it's muddy life alone; ana were to regard the vast, pure atfnos- phere above, with it's flowers and plrds and human beings, as untenanted anu ron-existent If you could ta'k Wllh these creatures, and could tell them about our homes and our books, and our paintings, and our churcheS, you would probably find a blank look Of 1n- credulity come over their faces, as tney wondered what these things had to do with a mud-puddle. The next round on the eternal ladder would seem to them like irving to mount upward by stepping upon moonbeams In Switzerland there are neopIe who milk their cows and make cheese, at the base of immaculate Anime peaks of calm sublmity ana who laugh at the tourist if he cries out in wonder. If he buys their cheese they will restrain their laughter, for mercan- tile reasons, because they have frequent lv found that the mountains are good thing. but they despise him just the same in their hearts. What foollshness it is to spend so much good money to see such common things! "1 will lift up mine eyes to the hills, whence com eth help" said the Psalmist. Do you not suppose there were some who won dered what he saw in this act of faith? There are people who put the eternal yerities of God to the same test that the peasants of Switzerland put their mountains. They can see no use in them save the cheese that is found in them. You remember the description Milton gives of one of the spirits who fell from heaven
 For even in heaven his looks and
 thoughts
 Were always downward bent, admiring