The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-01-15
AMERICAS OPPORTUNITY
REV. DIR. FRAZER's VIEW OF TUE
DESTINY OF THE UNITED STATES.
Our Ninety NationaIities and Some of
the Things the Church should
Do for Their Elevation.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.

Frazer. d. D., pastor of the Presbyterian
Church, to-day delivered a sermon on
Americas Opportunity" Taking Esther
iv. 1i-"Who knoweth whether thou art not
come to the kingdom for such time as
this?" he said: Providence, that unseen
hand in human history, put Esther in the
throne of an Oriental monarch in the very
niche OF her peoples necessity; and right
well did she profit by the solemn exhorta-
ton that If she did not improve her oppor-
tunity, deliverance would come to the peo-
pie from another quarter. but she and her
fathers house should be destroyed. One
fact Is ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS is coming spir-
itual deliverance, to the worlds people. BY
whom Is another question. Those who are
put In trust with the gospel and prove un-
faithful TO the obligations, shall succumb
and drop out of sight, but those who are
faithful shall long continue upon the
throne.
1t looks as if America had come to the
kingdom for such time as this. Amer
ica," says Emerson, lis another name for
opportunity. We live in a new and ex-
ceptional age. Our whole history appears
like the last effort of a divine Providence
In behalf or the human race.
/ consider North America as the theater
for the conversion of souls and the build
ing of the church. It's situation is as STRAIT
egic as that of ancient Palestine. 1t is
midway between the civilizations OF Europe
and the heathenisms of Asia, with the
ocean for a thoroughfare, ready paved with
opal and noiseless beneath its gliding
chariots. AS the artist completed the shield
for Achilles. so nature has done for
America.
Now the, broad shield complete, the artist
crowned
With his last hand, and poured the ocean
round;
In living silver seemed the waves to roll
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound
the whole"
1t is the trysting place Of the nations,
whittier many shall come, from the east
and west, and north and south, and sit
down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in
the kingdom.
FAvORING CONDITIONS.
It's climate is most favorable for the de-
velopment of all that is best in man and
mind. No torridity of the tropics, no fri
gidity of the arctics. no enervation of it's
inhabitants, and no Information. A land of
milk and honey, of hill and dale, land
which the Lord our God looketh upon from
the beginning of the year even unto the
end Of the year. Patriots Of other nations
may love their native soil, but they come
to ours-the Scotchman from Ben Nevis.
Ben Lewis and Loeb Lomond; the Huguenot
from his vineclad hills, and the Walden
sian from his valleys of the Piedmont.
Its water supply is extraordinary; great
fresh-water lakes, enormous rivers, noun
tains ordained TO catch the clouds and pre-
cipitate their riches upon the soil beneath
for the strength of the hills is His also
watersheds for the irrigation of the East
and the West. Vast solitudes full of latent
water or the planting of vegetation
adapted to their peculiarities.
Its resources of wealth-agriculture and
horticulture, each more productive of gold
than the mines of California. God is hus-
bandman; His pastures are covered with
flocks and His valleys with corn. What
with grazing and timber and minerals-S3,-
100000 acres of unbroken forest in the
South alone-with fisheries along the coasts
and manufactures along the waterways,
industries that compensate and balance
eac-- other, there can never be general
failure. The United States is now the rich
est nation on the globe, and. in spite of our
multi-mllionaires, its wealth Is the best
distributed. Evidently Providence has
something in hand for us and has girded US
for the task Here is hint of our mani
fest destiny.
Its territory is richer and vaster in ex-
tent than that of imperial Rome. The sun
| never sets upon u.s. ere it has suffused our
Aleutian isles with it's evening glow its
morning beams have smitten the stars and
stripes on the sands of Porto Rico. For
every acre east of the Mississippi river we
have two and a half west. If all our TO-
000, 900 were packed into the State of Texas
it would scarcely be as thickly settled as
Germany. Stephen A Douglass used to
speak of Kansas as the center of the United
States, but California is the halfway place,
or farther out, in the sea, you will find II.
Very interesting ii is to us of Indiana that
| the center of their population is i'm our own
State, just this side of Greensburg, and
moving steadily toward our own little city.
| 1t may emphasize our Christian patriotism
| to know that We occupy the pivotal point.
Boston is no longer the hub.
| This continent, the oldest geologically,
| first raised above the waves. has been kept
under lock and key for predestined hour
| and predestined people That people was
| to be Protestant, not Catholic. Discovered
by Catholics, il was settled by the fol-
| lowers of Luther, and Knox, and Calvin.
| Our forefathers were secluded here In
preparation; then the Nation sudden
| ly lifted out of its seclusion, and is fast
becoming a world power, with grand
| for $500 years controlled the course of
| civilization Is TO be eclipsed by the great
| Republic of the West. america holds the
| future, says Matthew Arnold.
DESTINED TO RULE.
Consider it's population of seventy-five
| millions, Of over ninety nationalities.
| There is the dominant Anglo-Saxon, des-
| tined to rule wherever they go. and des-
| tined to control the world. Their language
| Is akin to all; the words most used, father
| and mother. are found and understood in
| all tongues. 1t is made out of all others,
| to bespeak its kinship to all. 1t is evil
| Gently to be the vehicle of the gospel to
| make a brotherhood Of all nations under
| the fatherhood of God Ii is TO be the
1 language of Canaan. OF five million Pres
byterianS i'll the world four million speak
| the English language This is the shib-
| boleth in making American citizens Of all
| who come; they must frame the mouth 10
| use our speech and their wills TO adopt
| cur institutions or provide better. TIC
| ChriStianiZc America we need. first, to
| make sure of the ruling nationality.
| An aboriginal population 100000 strong
| settled on one hundred reservations and in
| Alaska; the original proprietors of this
| country. the savage tribes among them
| rapidly disappearing in primitive ignorance
| without their primitive virtues, the civilized
| not decreasing, but increasing. An enamel
pated population of eight millions, sable
| with the shadowy livery of the FURNISHED
| sun, but capable of furnishing a valedic-
| torian to Harvard College, and conducting
| one hundred newspapers for their own race
| In fifteen States they hold the balance OF
power They are increasing at the rate OF
three hundred day.
An immigrant population OF proportions
| unprecedented in the annals of history
1 SSH he hOrdeS Of <