Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1900-09-25

CLERGYMAN.
" God Has Expanded U.s." Says
Bishop c. II. Fowler.
A Powerful Sermon on Expansion and
the Duties OF the Hour. Preached
by tie Noted Methodist Divine.

All men now begin to recognize the
providential character of Abraham Lin
| coin. We see him as one of Gods
| prophets.
| History repeats itself. One generation
stones the prophets. and the next, their
children, build them monuments. Only
nize living prophet. These prophets
neither dress nor act like the old proph-
| cts; that would be mere charlutanism.
! Every prophet must be fitted into his
! comes as pilgrim. like Abraham; an
other as hired man and herdsman. like
Jacob; another as leader and lawgiver,
like Moses. Another as warrior, like
Joshua; another as an executioner, like
Elijah; another as a scholar. like Paul;
each man fitting his own age.
To find prophet, we Inuse not take
the grave clothes of the dead seers. and
run through the mart, trying to find some
man whom they will fit. We must so
read events as to recognize the man who
league with events. Napoleon on St.
Helena said: AT Waterloo events desert
ed me-" He dropped out of the nick of
time. The prophet must be Il history
maker. To find our prophet. we must
find the trend of events; then we can
easily find the hand that is making the
bend in the stream of history.
This hand we find in. the White House.
President Mckinley may not fit the
clothes of the old prophets. but lie is
fitting the trend of events in this age.
He so stands in the midst of the worlds
forces that he reaches results in ciyiliza-
ton. He is bending the streams of his
tory in the right direction. Sink down
into the undercurrent, down below the
party strife on the surface, down into
the great stream that sweeps on through
the sea of the centuries bearing the races
up to higher latitudes and levels, and
catch the moral forces that are evolving
the worlds destiny, and you will find that
this statement is not politics, but relig-
ion-God's religion, that moves always on
in one direction.
The three greatest missionary events Of
the Christian era since the crucifiXion of
Jesus are: First, the conversion of st.
Paul. This opened the door to the Gen
tiles; this was our chance. Second, the
firing on Fort Sumter. This made the
Saxon race fit for evangelical uses. Third,
the blowing up of the Maine. This uni
fled the nation and sent us out about
our work.
1t melted the American elements in the
furnace of war, and made all Americans
one The son of Gen. Grant and the
nephew of Gen. Lee marched side by side
40 nd
emy.
These Saxons are said to be bad neigh
bers We have some dark spots in our
history. The Saxon sometimes has made
a bad record. Yet it must also be said
that we have never enslaved a race, with
out leaving it freer than it was before we
enslaved it. For the ages through and
the world around. there can be found no
such liberties anywhere else as are found
under the Stars and Stripes.
The blowing up of the Maine was an
eye-opener to US, and soon to all the
world Our great Washington 1--WE should
never speak his name but to honor iU,
our great Washington said to us, as a
little strip of Atlantic colonies, Beware
of foreign entanglements." 1t was the
height of wisdom. 1t suited our infancy
like a bib He pinned this bib upon us
and said, 'Keep in the middle of the lot,
or the boys on the next lot will throw
mud ON your bib So we kept in the
middle of the lot. and grew till we out
grew the lot. We grew from three mill
ions to seventy-fve millions. The bib
was too small for US. 1t looked like a
cotton patch on the breast of our uni
form. We had more beefsteaks and silk
dresses, more spelling books and New
Testaments, to the thousand people, than
could be found anywhere else in the
world.
We were as much under obligations to
help the poorer and more ignorant races
as ever. St. Paul was to go 'far hence
to the Gentiles'; but we stuck to our At
lantic waters, coasted by our shores. we
held on to our little bi4 contented, ex-
pecting to stay always in our western
waters.
But one day the Spanish touched off
magazine under us. Then the jig was up.
Come what might, we must fight to the
finish. We went up into the air, and
came down everywhere-to stay.
This sent US out about our providen-
tial job; this made missionaries of us.
We are in Manila. We are ready to help
China.
God has expanded us; we can't help it.
You might as well try to catch yonder
eagle perched on a crag of the mountains,
pluming his pinions to wrestle with the
whirlwind and then try to crowd him
back into the little eggshell out of which
he has broken, as to try to throttle this
American race and crowd it back into
the thirteen original colonies. Some Of
the old gentlemen on that old soil of some
of those old thirteen colonies, who have
never left it, may think it would be a
good thing for our great contfnent-em-
bracing people to come back home. But
it is impossible.
God has expanded us.
Long years ago, back in the forties,
Thomas II. Benton, United States Sena
tor from Missouri, standing in his place
in the Senate, pleading for Pacific rail-
road, pointed toward the setting sun and
cried: "See there, gentlemen. there is
the Eastw
To-day we catch up our papers and
CONTINUED at bottom of sixth column.)