The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-11-17
in THE CITY'S CHURCHES
SERMON AT THE TABERNACLE BY
REV. j. CUMMING SMITH.
Morning Discourse by Rev. {. L.
Bacon ut Roberts ~Park-Othe
Church Services.

Rev. j. Cumming Smiths theme at Tab
ernacle Church yesterday morning was
THE Vision of Chebar Tenet" Ezekiel,
l, 70; 1.-The spirit was in the wheels He
said: "Our purest Inspirations often come
from fearful or throeful conditions. The
richest poetry has sprung out of hearts
wrung with a sense of sorrow and lone
illness. Then our nature is forced TO look
up and draw on the eternal elements. When
Jews were dropping in far-away Babylon
and longing for a glimpse of the old haunts
and the old city with its thronging MEM
cries, TO them as foreigners God revealed
His guarding care. To Ezekiel sharing the
sadness of expatriation come the visions.
One was of a fame out of which rose a
form branching out into a lion to repre-
sent heroism, into a man 10 represent in
telliSence. an OK to represent sturdy plod-
ding patience, and an eagle to represent
sublimity. Denude the imagery of its gor-
geousness and this means simply, COM
pleteness and manysidedness of power. 1t
is the ideal and orbal character, the holi-
ness toward which God is urging the world.
Then a strange dream of wheels fol-
lowed, and these denote machinery. equip
ment, institutions, in brief, all the ex-
ternal forms in which the life of the
world tends to clothe and concentrate it
self. Give life a chance TO work itself
out in its appropriate forms'-this is the
underlying impulse of the ages.
And the spirit was in the wheels
Spirit alone means idealism; wheels alone
mean materialism. Both together mean
that the ultimate fact is mind, but that
mind crystaIizes in materialism-that the
basic universe is sDiritual. but that the
spiritual formulates itself In institutions.
The modern emphasis on psychic force Is
subtle spiritual side. The Complete vision
unites mind and matter and makes the
first the force working out through the
second. This is not Pantheism that merges
a God in all and all in God with the loss
of personality; 1t simply means that while
the divine personality is as separate and
clear-cut as a diamond. He Is a per,
%suasive and operative Presence through all
-one God and Father who is above all, and
through all and in you all.
1.-THE struggle of the infinite spirit of love
to materialiZe itself in nature and in laws
and In humanity is the greatest conception
the human mind can reach. All inspiration
Is but the outshining of the supreme. un-
seen power. Our immortal music and our
unaging poetry and every permanent move
ment that has appealed deeply to the
| deeper and submarine life of the world is
but an emenation from God. This was the
faith of Paul; 1t was the charm of Plato;
1t was the enchantment of Swedenborg and
Jonathan Edwards; Ii was the joy of Liv-
ingstone in lonely Africa, and the secret of
the influence of Jesus is simply that He
was connected with that fundamenta life
of God; that He felt 1t and knew IL and in
carnated it: so that He was equal to every
duty, not as a mere moralist, but as one
in whom the tides of spiritual life surged
and sought constant outlet.
MYSTICAL AND SHADOwY.
"Of course such a thought may grow
mystical and shadowy unless we join the
life and the wheels. Hence the barrenness
of so much metaphysical philosophy that
reaches back of all matter into the darkly
realms of psychical laws and loses itself
in the maze. Hence had the futility of
all monastic efforts to mortify the flesh and
disenchant our bright-hued and sparkling
world that God made so radiant with
beauty and to foster pure, unearthly spirit
uality. 1t all results in a sickly and one,
sided pietSm. Faith needs works as well
as works needs faith. The soul needs a
body to work through just as much as the
body needs the mind to inform and direct
II. And the mystic, peering into solemn
and incomprehensible mysteries requires
to balance himself and gain sanity by
touching this concrete world. Let him
marry-if a woman will endure him. Let
him chop wood with plenty of hard knots
in it to sharpen his sense of reality. Let
the wife send him, basket on arm, to mar
ket, and lecture him when he returns il
he let a crafty salesman get the better OF
him in bargains. Load as high as you
Will, but keep your feet firm on the ground
ali the while. If you deny the reality OF
hinders you denying the reality of the
mind that denied the world of maternalism.
And the repunging of mind easily leads one
step further to the humiliation of God.
Nothing Is so necessary as a refreshing
wholesomeness and salubrity in our Amer.
lean thought and life. Isms are Matching
every hour and they perch on some one
isolated fact and then they magnify them.
selves so as to eclipse every other fact. Ir
such times of extravaganza and unbridleC
speculation let us preach the gospel of q
calm and healthy cheerfulness. A steadi.
ness of mind and heart that can walk be.
tween precipices without. getting dizzy anC
falling over; an equipoise that does moi
deny the south pole because il believes In
the north pole.
1.-The spirit was in the wheels; that is. tn,
central solar life of God enters into tn,
life of man not to dwell there so much as
to work through IL and out just as the
force of the spring works up through sol
and tree and plant to realize itself i'm bloom
man must be spiritual in order TO be really
and truly a moral man. The life of Coo
within prompting a man to do what he car
toward others-that is the one Fundamental
inspiration. He who skins the outside anc
is content to perform a list of social dutie,
under the spur of a shrewd discretion ma!
escape the penitentiary. but he cannot en-
ter heaven. He lacks the interior life o.
love and the voluntary harmony with God
and, therefore, his excellence is skin deer
and selfish. Equally true is IL that a sain
who overprays and overreads and haunt.
cells Of lonely worship becomes withered
We cannot live apart from warm human
beings any more than we. can live apar
from God. The touch of a hand is infinite
IL better sometimes than a religious tract.
r REVEALS SANE?
Are r~evivals sane? They are most sane
They are according to nature. The attemp
to work up or get up a revival may Otter
be spurious simply because il magniie
machinery and minimizes spiritual reality
Again and again God refused to palm of
truth to a Simon Magus who sought mirac
ulous power simply as a means to mesmer
lie the crowd and fill his pockets. An,
Jesus again and again warned the disciple
not to boast that they cured the sick o
drove out demons, but to rejoice that thei
names were written in heaven and tina
character was more than miracles. While
however, He rebuked all cOunterfeits, moth
ing has ever equaled in depth and continu
Gus intensity and dynamic energy the re
vival Jesus began in the world. He wa
himself a revival. He was in touch wit
a Father of exuberant wisdom and foun
famous love, and through Him that sam
divine law swept as a breeze through tn
orchards, heavy laden with the perfumes
and others caught the contagion. Is an
doctrine more natural? The church is tn
symbol of Gods presence and power, an
only when 1t becomes charged as the wir
when connected with the dynamo and whe,
its spiritual life issues in benevolence an
social reformation does the church justif
its existence. Too much of such life flow