The Farmville herald. [volume] (Farmville, Va.) 1890-1934, 1901-09-06

In this discourse DIR. Talmage
raises high expectations of the day
when that which Is now only dimly
seen will be fully revealed; text, Joh
26. IA: "Lo, these are parts of His
ways. But how little a portion is
heard of Him? But the thunder OF
His power who can understand"
The least understood being in the
universe is God. Blasphemous would
be any attempt by painting or sculp-
ture to represent Him. Egyptian
hieroglyphs tried to suggest Him by
putting the figure of an eye upon a
sword, implying that God sees and
rules, but how imperfect the sug-
gestion! When we speak of Him, it
is almost always in language fgura-
tive. He is Light" or "Dayspring
from on High" or He is a High
Tower" or the Fountain of Living
Waters" His splendor is so great
that no man can see Him and live.
When the group of great theologians
assembled in Westminster abbey for
the purpose of making a system of
religious belief, they first of all want
ed an answer to the question: "Who
is GOd?" No one desired to under
take the answering of that overmas-
tering question. They finally con-
cluded to give the task to the young
est man in the assembly. who hap
pened to be Rev. George Gillespie. He
consented to undertake it on the con-
dition that they would first unite
with him in prayer for Divine direc-
ton. He began his prayer by say
ing: 30 God, Thou art spirit, in
finite, eternal and Interchangeable in
Thy being, wisdom. power, holiness,
justice, goodness and truth" That
first sentence of Gillespies prayer
was unanimously adopted by the as
sembly as the best definition of God.
But, after all, it was only a partial
success, and after everything that
most strain and all we can see of God
in the natural world and realize Of
God in the providential world we are
forced to cry out with Job in my
text: "Lo, these are parts OF His
ways. But how little a portion Is
heard of Him? But the thunder OF
His power who can understand"
Archbishop Tillotson and DR.. Dick
and Timothy Dwight and Jonathan
Edwards of the past and the might
TEST theologians of this young CEN
tury have discoursed upon the power
of God, the attribute of omnipotence.
And we have all seen demonstrations
of Gods almightiness. 1t might have
been far out at sea when in an
equinoctial gale God showed what He
could do with the waters. 1t might
have been in an August thunder
storm in the mountains when God
showed what lie could do with the
lightnings. It might have been In
South America when God showed
what He could do with the earth
quakes. 1t might have been among
the Alps when God showed what He
could do with the avalanches. Our
cheek was blanched, our breath
stopped, our pulses futtered, our
whole being was terrorized, but we
had seen only an instance of Divine
strength. What was the power of
that storm compared with the power
which holds all the oceans? What
was the power that shook the hills
compared with the power that swings
the earth through all the centuries
and for 5000 years and in forma-
tive and incomplete shape for hun
dreds of thousands of years? What
is that power that sustains our world
compared with the power which rolls
through immensity the entire solar
system and all the consultations and
galaxies and the universe? The
mightiest intellect of man would
give way if for moment there came
upon it the full appreciation of what
omnipotence is.
We try to satisfy ourselves with
saving: at is natural law that con-
trolls things, gravitation is at work,
centripetal and centrifugal forces re-
spond to each other" But what is
natural law? 1t is only Gods way of
doing things. At every point in the
universe it is Gods direct and con-
tinuous power that controls and har-
monies and sustains. That power
withdrawn one instant would make
the planetary system and all the
worlds which astronomy reveals one
universal wreck, bereft hemispheres,
dismantled sunsets, dead constella-
tions. debris of worlds. What power
II must be that keeps the internal
fires of our world imprisoned-only
here and there squirting from a Coto-
paxi, or a Stromboli. or from Vesuvi-
us. putting Pompeii and Herculaneum
into sepulcher, but for the most part
the internal fires chained in their
cages of rock, and century after CEN
tury unable to break the chain or
burst open the door. What power to
keep the component parts of the
air In right proportion, so that all
around the world the nations may
breathe in health, the frosts and the
heats hindered from working uni
versal demolition. Power, as Isaiah
says, "to take up the isles as a very
little thing" Ceylon and Borneo and
Hawaii as though they were pebbles;
power to weigh the mountains in
scales" and the hills in balances"
-Tenerife and the Cordilleras.
To move a rock we must have lever