The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-03-31
ETERNITY in THE PRESENT
EASTER SERMON BY THE REV. J.
CUMMING SMITH.
After He Rose Jesus Had the Same
Philosophy and wounds That
He Had Before.

The Rev. ]. Cumming Smiths sermon at
the Tabernacle Church yesterday morning
was as follows:
Jesus rose; there is no fact In the story
more fortified by evidence and no fact more
pregnant with meaning. The high desti-
MES Of the race were at stake as the
friends of Jesus walked at dawn toward
the new grave in the rock and found it
empty. 1t was an actual demonstration
OF Immortality. II was not an inference. but
a manifestation Our sincere seekers for
some certainty about continued life here
after are peering into the misty realms of
spirits and s%training every sense to catch
their voices and claiming that there will be
in the near future an actual physical dem
onstration of the reality OF the unseen
state. 1 answer that If Jesus entered the
other yelled world and then returned TO
Galilee to complete His ministry then we
have an actual demonstration than which
none can be stronger. If it be answered
that Jesus was so strangely reticent about
the secrets of the other world the reason
may be that the other world is difficult TO
explain TO our present intelligence and at
any rate that one world is enough for US
~ hAON at d lliue, especially SuCH d III
and fascinating world as this world is.
The vacant tomb assures our heart of
immortal life. Next to the question Of God
Is the question OF another existence. These
two are win questions. If no God. then
no future: il no future then no God. II
neither, then no soul. We are but phe-
nomena that flash for a moment and then
disappear. We are dreams t~rooping to the
ni1lNuv a~I tA1~ NJ -1.A
We are a shadow creeping over the land
scape only to cease with the cloud that
cast the form. We may imagine we have a
divine power and possibility within us. but
we are laboring under an illusion, and life
is full of beautiful illusions. The dreams
that enchant our childhood wither as We
pass into grave maturity. The mellowness
OF old age looks wistfully back to the years
OF visions that return no more. And the
repulsion Of God. together with the faith of
continuous life blights every dream of the
soul and makes the drearest hope of the
soul but a fraud and vain enticement; 1t
cannot be. The soul rises UP and resists
the dreary negation. Hope trims anew its
is sore at heart and looks into the vacant
sepulchre this morning to receive a per-
feet of its own inviolable in
stinctS and yearnings.
UNIVERSAL TRUTH.
TT is not, however, q mere affair of re-
ligion in the limited sense. Indeed, no
| great truth can De limited. GOQ Is not sec
tartan, but universal and cosmopolitan. I'm
mortality is not a problem for c~loisters
and colleges. but for humanity at large.
These imperial issues form a syndicate and
rise or fall together. Let me ask if it is
conceivable that human liberty would be
possible of maintaining twenty-four hours
if the faith in his mortality would flame
out: Under our government he is the bed
rock OF the divine government. Under our
Constitution is the imaging granite founda-
ton of the infinite constitution. Efface
human belief in the high issues of life and
the Towering hopes of a life TO come and
by that act you remove the very cement
and cohesion of society.
II admit self-interest forms at present
the main motive of the world, but if you
rob a mans breast of the expectation of
! continued responsibility farther on beyond
the bourne of time, then you will open the
sluice gates to infinite madness and reck-
leSsnesS and suicide and anarchy. God has
ordained that the two worlds shall be so
interviewer and SO interlocked that if you
loosen the one you will loosen the other.
1t is not a matter of churches and noisy
sects, for Jesus belonged to the world and
His truths were meant to reassure the uni
verSal heart. He rose. and the doubts that
gloom the heart take flight. We place
wreaths of tender remembrance on the
graves of those we love without any fear
haunting us that we are being duped by
our own hearts. We are sure as God can
ever make us sure of any experience beyond
$3.50
or indirectly emancipates. Immortality
holds the forms and forces of life together.
1t alone gives warmth and beauty and per-
ennial Inspiration to life.
LIFE A DESPERATE STRUGGLE.
"Analyze the world as 1t is and even the
coolest statistician will announce that
three-fourths of men find life hard and
CALLING. 1t is a desperate struggle for the
majority. For the large percentage, the
present world, looked at in itself. is a grim
and sometimes a CHASTITY enterprise. Even
some high classical minds have wondered
how a good and reasonable God ever
founded such a planet. 1 am an optimist.
but to me. if this world is all. IL is clear
that a cruel God alone could have hoated
such a scheme of struggle and inequity
and silent sorrow and kept il UP through
the long. grinding centuries. In other
words, / would be an atheist, for a cruel
God is a contradiction in terms. If. how
ever, we suspend the problem till some
future time. when evolution has worked
further, and we look in the empty grave
and see another life coupled on to this and
the plan of the ages carried out into noble
and righteous futures, then we can hold
fast our faith in Gods love and a holy con-
summation to the angry conditions of this
whirling world.
And with the return of this faith comes
the return of the principle that sweetens
the hearth and dignifes labor and beauti-
fes childhood and conserves governments.
If the majority of mankind were agnostical
progress would be an utter impossibility.
1t is always the positive class that sus-
tains all forward projecting causes, and the
negative minds are at bottom parasites.
They draw even their hindering life from
those who have hope hardly enough TO go
forward. The strong make history and
carry the weak. Unbelief by a law of ma
ture suckles on the breast of belief. We
require a critical class, but only to guard
the progressive class from going ahead too
fast. All advance comes from the reason
that trusts the noble promises God speaks
everywhere and goes forward, hoping the
best and achieving the best. And you never
knew of a large soul that took God at His
word and repented ii at the solemn mo-
ment when his life ebbed out toward the
open sea!
of Jesus, after He rose, intrinsically diff
ferent from what IT was before? Was He
not the same grand man and soul? Was
/ His philosophy not the same? Did not even
His body bear the print of wounds and the
scars from thorns? Did He not eat a morn
ing meal on the sandy shore? Was not
His soul emphatically the same as when
the cross ever doomed up darkly before
Him? In other words, is not great life
the same in all spheres? Is not eternity a
present realization? If | walk out Meridian
or Pennsylvania / find a little joy I'm the
street: but that little curve is soon past
and these streets continue on. Death is
but a slight jog or turn In the street, but
the street goes on essentially the same as
before"
Mr.. and Mrs. Bailey Coming.