The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-04-16
AN ABLE EASTER SERMON
Delivered by Rev. j. Cumming Smith
at the Tabernacle Church.

II aOC
The Easter services at the Tabernacle
Church were we'll attended yesterday morn
ing. The sermon was delivered by the pas
tor, Rev. ]. Cumming Smith. He said in
part:
standing one day on the platform of
a station in the heart Of British Column
bia / observed the quick curve of the rail-
road track and soon the train came from
the mysterious mountains OF the west.
stopping for a few moments at the depot
to receive a solitary traveller and then fol-
lowed the curving track out of our view to
wind in and out among the mysterious
mountains and gorges of the east. such a
From the awesome mystery of the past we
emerge for a brief while In our world and
then we disappear In the awesome. yet fas-
Sinaa.hs mys.ets % N e. s.ratchin9 for
ests. But our race was made to pierce
through these mysteries and the poetry or
philosophy of the hoariest periods try to
unriddle the enigma of existence. Socrates
inferred from the indestructibility of mat
ter the industructibility OF mind. Plato
pried into the exquisite and delicate quail
minds deathlessness Arguments thronged
to prove Ii. Even materialism that re-
duces mind to matter of the finest sort can
not but see that matter and force are
never wasted, but change their form alone.
Jesus came among men already looking
up beyond the stars for God and peering
beyond the grave for light. Jesus has been
called a diseoverer. The phrase REQUIRES
we're not new to the world. He came, not
to create nor discover. but to reaffirm and
hallow the best convictions of men. Orig
inal He was In a matchless sense, but
originality does not mean that the man
see what no other man saw. but that a
man see as no other man can see. Jesus
caught truths as old as time, revoiced
them. refined them. glorifed them and
lent the halo and power of His own divine
nature to those peerless truths. Great men
do not create. they seldom even discover.
You might as we'll imagine that the train
Is made up In a prairie town for a man to
board. when as a fact the train has rolled
through from far coasts. Jesus simply re-
articulated the imperial messages of the
fsrthest past. In passing we might sug-
gest that there Is a hectic flush. a sort OF
measles In our modern ambition some
times to reach out for some truth never
dreamed as yet.
"As we'll ask spring to bring forth new
flowers. as IL our eyes were weary of the
old! We want not so much new ideas as
a fresh and joyous welcome of the old,
sane ideas. Only those who cherish the
simple enthusiasms of childhood are able
to see old facts with an unfaded sense of
welcome. Jesus came to fulfill what al
ready existed. He was neither liberal nor
conservative because He blended them
both In one large originality. Take the old
word life for xampl 1t is old enough.
to be sure. but how one age varies from
another in the grasp of what il is to live.
How one man differs from another. Here
Is one blase. spent and played out, per-
haps, by the secret drain of a nameless
vice. Over there is a cold. cynical eye
looking out on life as a run of chance, and
a cruel chance at that. Here is a vague,
abstract monk In the cloister who wonders
why God made roses to bloom or made
man with such a hot quest for pleasure.
These men make life squalid or sterile.
But a new mar comes along whose pulses
beat strongly. with warmth and color and
l nlRn-Strung nervous organization and
crowning all. a splendid culture. He is
In earnest. To him nothing presents the
charm and meaning of that drama that
stretches between the two points of birth
and death. He looks down beneath the
giddy surface and spies the glorious sig
nif1cance of life. Can we say with rever-
ence that this man Is the Christ? He was.
Never was Jesus morbid. Never did Jesus
defame the world. He loved life, saw its
unfathomable currents and illimitable pos
sibilities. / remember once a man looking
at the whirling eddies of the surface. but
lowering the lead so many fathoms down
that soon IL reached a current setting I'm
from the sea and sweeping the boat along
In a direction opposite to the surface cur
rents. Such was Jesus. He saw what
other men saw. and would have been a
dreary pessimist II He had not sunk the
lead down TO the deeper currents setting i'm
from the sea of the great life of God. Other
instances could be given TO show that
Jesus was not a discoverer but a reafirmer.
HE took the old and made II new. The
need of morality. the law of sacrifice. the
two natures In man, the love and holiness
of God. the purging virtue of affection.
these facts show forth in every old poem
or philosophy, but when as old seers saw
them too much in the dim abstract Jesus
wrought them into the very hbre of his
mortality. He taught purity and was
purity. He taught atonement as a law of
the universe. just as others before Him
; taught. but he was atonement. He taught