Connecticut western news. [volume] (Salisbury, Litchfield Co., Conn.) 1871-1970, 1901-06-20

rEe eartn as well as here, and God
must be there and here TO take suppl
cations which are offered thousands of
miles apart. Ubiquity! No one has II
but God. And what an alarm to wick
edness, an everywhere present Lord,
and what q reinforcement when we
need help! God on the throne and God
with the kneeling child saying his even
ing prayer at his mothers lap. God
above you, God beneath you, God on
the right of you, God on the left of you,
God within you. No pantheism, for
that teaches that all things are God,
but Jehovah possesses all things, as
our souls possess our bodies. God at
the diameter and circumference of ev-
erything, as close to you as the food
you put to your lips, as the coat you
put upon your back, as the sunlight
that shines In your face. Appreciation
of that, If through Jesus Christ, the
atoning Saviour, we are right with
God, ought to give US a serenity, a
tranquility, that nothing could upset.
Would it make us gloomy? No, for
God is the God of JOY and will augment
our happiness.
Gods Infinite Love.
We have all been painfully reminded
In our own experiences that we cannot
be In two places at the same time, and
yet here comes the thought that God
can he In all places at the same time.
Nader, the astronomer, went on with
his explorations of the heavens until
he concluded that the star Alcyone,
one Of the Pleiades, was the center Of
the universe and 1t was q fixed world
and all the other worlds revolved
around that world, and some think that
that world Is heaven and Gods throne
is there and there reside the nations Of
the blessed. But he is no more there
than he Is here. Indeed Alcyone has
been found to be In motion, and 1t also
is revolving around some great center
But no place has yet been found where
God is not present by sustaining pow
er. Omnipresence! Who fully appre-
ciates it? Not / not you. Sometimes
we hear him In whisper; sometimes
we hear him in the voice of the storm
that Jars the Adirondacks. But we can
not swim across this ocean. The finite
as Job did after finding God in the
gold mines and the silver mines of
Asia, saying, There is vein for the
silver and a place for the gold where
they fine it." And after exploring the
heavens as an astronomer and finding
God In distant worlds and becoming
acquainted with Orion and Mazzaroth
and Arcturus and noticing the tides of
the sea the inspired poet expresses his
incapacity to understand such evil
dences of wisdom and power and says:
"Lo, these are parts Of his ways? But
how little a portion is heard of him?
But the thunder Of his power who can
understands
So every system Of theology has at
tempted to describe and define the d.
vine attribute of love. Easy enough
is it to define fatherly love, motherly
love, conjugal love, fraternal love, sis
terly love and love of country, but the
love of God defies all vocabulary. For
many hundreds Of years poets have
tried to sing it, and painters have tried
to sketch it and ministers of the gospel
to preach 1t, and martyrs in the fire and
Christians on their deathbeds have ex-
| tolled it, and we can tell what 1t is like,
but no one has yet fully told what it is.
Men speak of the love of God as though
1t were first felt between the pointing
of the Bethlehem star and the pound
ing of the crucifxion hammer. But
mol Long before that existed the love
Of God.
The nature Of God never changes,
and from all eternity that holy passion
glowed in the Infinite, and 1 think he
was throwing out worlds into space
| and inhabiting them and more worlds
for the application of that love. He
| may not have told the other worlds
| what he did for this world, as he has
not told us what he did for them.
| think the love of God was demonstrat-
ed in mightier worlds before our little
world was fitted up for human resi-
dence. VIII a man owning $4,000 acres
of land put all the cultivation on q
half acre? Will God make q million
worlds and put his chief affection on
one small planet? Are the other worlds
and larger worlds standing vacant, un-
inha bited, while this little world is
crowded with inhabitants? No, 1t takes
| universe of worlds to express the
| love of God. And there are other ran
| SONS and other rescues and other re-
| demptions, as there may be other mill
lenniums and other resurrection morn
| ings and judgment days than those Of
| our world. But in the space of six
| feet by five was comprised the might
| est evidence of Gods love that any
| world ever saw or ever will see. Com
| pressed on two planks Joined together
| as a cross, there was enough agony
! there concentered, If distributed, to put
whole nations into torture. That God
| allowed the assassination of his own
| Son for the rescue of our world is all
( the evidence needed that he loved the
world. Go ahead, o church of God!
| Go ahead, o world, and tell as well as
| you can what the love Of God is, but
| know beforehand that Paul was right
/ when he said, "It passeth knowledge"
Let other poets take up the story of
| Gods love where William Cowper and
Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley and
Horatius Bonar left 1t, and let other
| painters improve upon the "Sistine Ma
donna" and the Alteration Of the
Magi' and the "Crucifixion" as Ra-
| phael and Titan and Claude and Cor
reggie presented them. Let the Ger
| man pulpit orator take up the theme Of
| Gods love where Frederick Tholuck
| left it, let Italian pulpit take it up
| where Gavazzi left 1t, let French pulpit
orator take up the theme where Bour-
deloue left it, let the Swiss pulpit ora
tor take up the theme where Merle
D'Aubigne left it, let the English pull
pit take it up where George Whiteield
left it, let the Scotch pulpit take 1t up
where DR.. Candlish left it, let the
Welsh pulpit take it up where Christ
mas Evans left 1t, and let the American
| pulpit take 1t up where Archibald Alex
ander and DIR. Kirk and Matthew
| Simpson left it. But the world will
J TOD f,,Il, ro1