The Newtown bee., 1902-08-15
GOD AND CIRCUMSTANCES.

A SERMON BY REV DIR HOBBS, PASTOR
 OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
 JAMAICA, l.. l., PREACHED IN THE
 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, WASH
 INGTON, JULY 27.
 Text. What doest thou here, ElijahS"
 Elijah, Gods right hand man, caught in a corner,-that is the picture. It is case of righteousness versus rotten ness, only he who represents the right is temporarily insane with nervous timidity. For the moment iniquity is supreme, while innocence hides: for Jezebel, Judah's '"bloody Nary" has scared Elijah, the Tishbite prophet, quite out of his wits, since she has vowed the sturdy reformer's death in "A hours. So he takes to the woods, where, under a juniper tree, he prays for stroke of lightning, gulting earthquake, a smiting pestilence,- anything to blot out the probable mor' row. This photograph of the tired, lonesome, fear-struck soul, suddenly summoned to better, tighter senses by Divine question-coming no matter hOw-has to do with the curious and testing problem of God and circum- stances. Caught in the hard grip of the unrelished and unexplained our disposition is to drag God down to the level of our circumstance. We try to account for His connection with them as though He were some overgrown man. That is why we blame Him, deny Him power over circumstances, limit'Him to our arm-reach, and talk of His part in life's turmoil and toll with the tone of contempt that ig- norant familiarity breeds. The textual question hints to us that God is always superior to what we call circumstances.
 Elijah had let God, as factor in his immediate life-problem, slip out of his calculation. His very first meal in the woods was intended to emphasize his mistake; it taught him his first
 LESSON IN DIVINE ECONOMICS,
 that God could feed him in a foOdless desert. The Book reports that the ravens fed the famished, fearful man with clocklike regularity. Whether those ravens were traders travelling that way, or whether Elijah hunted and robbed ravens neStS,as one nimble exegete suggests, or whether he took his food directly from the birds beaks matters nothing to us. It ought not UO UC SO vel lOl CO UCIlCfC the Book, or to feel the case involves much of miracle.
 It is the common experience of all who watch Divine walkingS and work ings that God is not cramped or limit ed by ordinary conditions. He makes them serve Him. If there seems any discrepancy between that statement and actual fact, it is because we fail to study the facts very closely. Pref udice blinds our vision. The discrep ancy is in us, not in the facts.
 This is the more apparent because in these days we are constantly stumbling upon people who decide God is weaker | than circumstances, that He must wait their convenience ere He can dc His will, and that when God and cir. cumstances seem to be in harmony, it is only lucky coincidence. Such thinking locates the faithless and fear. full; it accounts for loose and careless talk, and explains much of the divorce of the human from the Divine, entail ing distress and ruin.
 Our usual thoughts about God are fairly scant and superticial; they are dictated mostly by things and events. When conditions are conveniently comfortable, and circumstances are not striking frequent alarms; when peace breathes widespread benediction and prosperity fills our pocketbooks, it is human nature to join in the Christians Doxology, 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow" Hear ing that chorus even the pessimist forgets to criticize, and the atheist holds his tongue.
 But circumstances alter cases, as John B. Cough used to say.
 T L,r coNDJrJoNS GRAND AND ISNART happiness curdlc, comfort change to a bed of nettleS, disaster threaten or death rob, and we too often forget that "The Lord reigneth. When inan- innate things prove their total de- pravity," disappointmentS sting, and former friends show their backs, we are likely to vote David dreamer, when he sang, "The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing willie with hold from them that walk uprightly." " Then we crown ''luck,' and chatter about the inequality of life and it's grim features over which God has no control. Let us remember that Chris tianity is no mere fair-weather faith.
 He is less than half Christian who plays the vane when the wind blows contrary to human wishes. And he is only an animal who would bask in perpetual sunlight aud Snarl at the storm.
 The beauty and power of religion are to be found in letting it keep us from being "driven by the wind and tossed, " and tO realize that grace does not br2~y