The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-03-25
THE VOICE OF THE PULPIT
.,te <cIEs OF TODAY. THEY ARE
NUMEROUS, But NOT RECOGNIZED.
short sermon by Rev. Adolph Roeder,
ID. ID. New Jerusalem Church
Cswedenborgian), Orange, N. J.

IF We have faith as a grain of mustard
seed. We shall say to this mountain remove
hence. and II shall remove. xvii,
The day of miracles is past? No; we are
living in a world so full of miracles that
they actually overthrow the edges. and
the strangest thing about il all is that we
so often fail to recognize this fact. L think
sometimes that we are like the people that
crowded about the Great One on the shores
OF Galilee. There were many among them
who were looking for the Messiah to come.
and who did not know that He was stand
ing in their very midst. 1t seems as though
We were looking for a great many things
20 come that have already taken place.
The text quoted is an illustration of this.
i must be that the faith here mentioned
IS not exactly the kind of faith you and I
expected. but some kind of faith has re-
moved mountains. And it was not a very
large faith either. The Great One charac-
terized it properly when He gave it a small
name and spoke of it as "a grain of mus
tard seed"
Suppose l were to come to you with a
mass of wood chips and soiIed rags in one
hand and several sheets of fine white paper
in the other and tell you that I had made
just such paper out of just such material,
and that l had done so by faith. The mind
Is just a little inclined TO take a magical
view of things IL permitted TO do so. We
did that when We were children, you and L,
my friends. and since we nave grown to be
larger children we have not got over it
entirely. We wondered in our childhood
days how paper was made from wood and
rags and by what kind of magic the thing
was done. and we are looking for some
magical removal of mountains now that we
have come TO be, perhaps. white-haired and
grave children. How swift folks are to
think that the scene our text portrays must
needs be some strangely mystical scene.
And how swift we are to think that the
faith we mean is some faith which we must
needs at some future time or in some flu
being moved all around US and are being
moved by an ever-present faith.
GOD-MADE LAWS.
When | spoke of the paper being made by
faith 1 meant faith in the laws of chemis-
try and physics. Oh. says some one, 1
thought you meant by faith in God. Is
there any difference, really? Who made
the laws of nature? Whose laws are they?
Did men make them? Are they man-made
laws? If 1 have faith in the law of gravi-
tation, in the laws that govern electricity
and all the other natural forces. in whom
am 1 having faith? In myself? In men?
In nothing? In nature? In nature and i'm
natures God, for the laws Of nature are
the laws of God.
And here have we been having this kind
OF faith In God for years and centuries
and we did not know 1t. How fortunate
for US and for our souls that He did know
it. We have such a persistent and such an
unfortunate way of repeating history, and
doing just what the Jews did when they
were looking for a Messiah TO come. while
He was walking in their very midst. So
do we look for a faith to come when il has
been in our hearts for ages. -
And 1t has moved mountains-both igu-
Iatively and literally. 1t has not picked
them up from their foundations. but 1t has
moved them out of the way. Between Us
and the far West. in these dim days of the
'fOrty-niners," there lay an impossible
barrier. The Rockies spread their huge
self between us in giant scorn. But we
have removed them. Between Italy and the
surrounding countries lay the Gotthard, the
mount Cents, the Alps. but we have re-
has not deceived us by even an inch. WheT
the two sides OF the tunnel met in one case
the difference was not more than an inch
So true is God to man in his faith. in the
theOdolite, and the hand that holds then
and the eye that reads them and the brain
that notes them.
We have been separated from the ole
world by a mountain of time, but We
have laid a cable and We talk across the
ocean now in spite of that mountain Of
time. Between the great centers Of
civilization there lay, in the days OF yore
81 mountain of distance, but We have re-
moved 1t, and our railroad trains and oul
ocean grayhounds have been annihi.atine
time ami space. the twin giants OF old. tn'
Cog and Magog OF science. We have
caused the giant globe to dwindle dowr
into n~Othingness, almost, for we have
wired it and ironed il. and shod 1t with
speed never before attained. And we di'
IL all by faith. by a present faith. Not b!
q faith in and OF the future, nor by
faith in and of the past, but by the faiti
OF to-day.
POTENT MANIFESTATIONS.
And strangely small. yet potent. ar
the manifestations and revelations of thi
faith The farmer plants corn and he ha
faith that when it comes up it will be corn
and not watermelons; the astronomer fore
tells an eclipse within a fraction of tim
the eye OF the man at the helm is fxe'
upon the needle that trembles under tn
pinnacle light, and into the voiceless dark
rtss of sea and sky he sails without
qualm or fear. Why? Because they hav
faith. Faith in the unchanSeableness o
the law. faith in the eternity OF the law
IaltE IN the Hs1nlly Ol II Jaw -hAN
that observation-disclosures, that innnlty. Una
eternity. there be added the thought .
hunanity-Day, OF a divine humanlty-h
ii been In any way weakened or made les
eternal. less infinite. less Interchangeable?
Look over the ground of civilization, o
architecture, of language. or customs, o
science. Note the details OF the mug
structure. 1t is everywhere permeate
with humanity. Does the fact OF the pres
ence of that humanity in any way curtai
hamper or limit either of these vast reaI
flies? Is the little earth on which we liv
fin any way made less subject TO the law,
We have faith in the men and in the man
hood OF the men that live upon IT? And
the great world I'm which we live IN an
way made less subject TO the law, II "
have faith I'm the manhood that makes MS
tory and in the divine manhood that ma
made history possible? Not one whit.
Now carry this everpresent faith owe
upon the ground of ethics, of morals, OF II
ligion. Look back along the lines whic
men have written in their own blood upo
the background OF the past, and have calle
it aIl-history. Look back to the days b'
fore I76. What has become of the mour
tain called monarchy in American domlr
ions? Back further still; back OF the day
OF Salem; what has become of the moui
tain of superstition? What has become
the mountain OF dense ignorance that la
like a cloud OF miasmatic gases upon II
record of the middle ages? What has %