The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-05-26
HEAVEN FROM WITHIN
SERMON BY REV. j. CUMMING SMITH,
OF TABERNACLE CHURCH.
MateriaIistic Theory of Paradise Is
on It's Face Absurd, He Says
Heaven Is a Condition.

ing on THE Dawning Heaven" He said:
Jesus courted the great minds of earth
in due and self-respecting spirit. In the
long run the leading souls lead, and Jesus
easily argued that II the van of the race
spurned the message the masses would
soon mock II. Nicodemus fame by night
in order 10 sound the depths of our Lord
soul. He was too hurried during the day
time for a prolonged interview. What pos
sibilities there are in the solemn hours of
night, when the strain is eased and the
guards are off duty, to look into a great
mans soul. Jesus spoke at large of a
kingdom of heaven, but refuses to locate
IT. Heaven has no geography any more
than the ambient atmosphere has. 1t is a
matter of character and love 1t is an in
dwelling god. as hell is an inward flame
OF hate. Mere place is irrelevant to the
universal. If the children are squally and
unruly in the least and the mother de-
ludes herself into the idea that if she trans
fers them TO some other spot to a park
with its slopes and sunny glades and silver
plash of fountain, they will be tanned down
into little angels of peace, she will soon be
disillusionzed. for inside of a half hour
they are in a quarrel again amid the most
delightful surroundings II is their essen
tial child nature. which will flame out no
matter where you set them down. Heaven
and hell have no zone or cline, no longi
tude or latitude, but beam or burn out of
the constitution of the interior soul. Ma
terialistic theologies are. therefore, intrin-
sically absurd on their face.
Jesus was both positive and optimistic.
He revealed the kingdom of heaven as a
fact. and in His own snless and eyried
soul he carried the constant ozone and
sweetness OF heaven. But at once He was
compelled to face a problem. How were
men to reach it? He answered that they
must change within themselves to inherit
that condition. And why? Jesus was sci
enlist and philosopher. He unfolded the
quality in our nature. We are bivalve,
amphibious. We have two selves. The
under-nature is animal; ii is flesh, and can
never be anything but flesh. just as
bramble bush can never be an elm tree,
just as the floating duck can never be
poised or swooping hawk. IL is fixed
creature has boundaries TO it's being, and
can be modified only within certain limits.
Men, therefore, must be born from above.
The history of the world Is at bottom moth
ing but a slow, painful journey from the
savage and brutal and oodthirsty cunning
up and up to the delicacy and altruism and
intelligence and sacrifices of our better
being. This is the very genius of progress.
This is the only definition OF civilization.
Jesus forecast all our modern types of
thinking, and kept the mind of God close
to earth. This is the silent spiritual head
way and irresistible momentum of the
world, and ali our changes in the Presby-
terrain Confession of Faith and all our
neW-draWD codes or government are only
symptoms on the surface of the funda-
mental march of Gods world toward God s
own light and love. All culture is but tin
sell and all patriotism but the tinkling
cymbal unless they spring from this deep
root of Gods love working in the heart of
the world. Conversion, therefore, is sci
entific 1t is a generic change from the
lower man TO the higher; from the anarchy
of passion to the regency Of mind; from the
slavery of sense to the sovereignty of con-
and war and lie 10 the calm courtroom of
honor and love.
LOVE is THE POWER.
Then again were these two imperial
minds at that solitary home of communion
forced TO a mind issue. Granted that the
kingdom of heaven is fact; granted also
that a change or recast in our deeper ma
ture is imperative in order that we may
grow into that lovelier and sincerer realm
of our life and experience; grant all this
and we must ask: What is the force to
lift men up from the one plane to the
other? And at once Jesus affirms love-
In the ultimate issue we reach the dynamic
of love holy and divine. 1t is the final
leverage. The race at large is too devoted
TO the inferior passions to leave off wal
lowing in these unless some spiritual mag
netism draw upward. 1t is love, not an
amiable, gOOd-natured love, not a love
color blind TO moral distinctions. but love
strong and titanic, discerning and holy,
enthusiastic for divine qualities and en-
ploying every method of binding men to
His throne. God constitutes himself the
standard. Men may crave human exam
plies, but they will brook no final standard
inferior to the infinite.
" BE perfect even as your Father in
heaven is perfect. This command, while
exacting to our feshly infrmities, honors
the divine in our nature. The evolution of
humanity. from star chambers to open
jures. from numbering foreigners to
evangeliZing heather, from Nero to Lin
coin, from lower New York to higher New
York, from Krupp gun to the arbitration
of reason, from ferocity to gentleness. is
nothing but the absorption of His nature
by ours. Grace is the supreme beauty of
our God and 1t is the everyday of the foun-
tain of love, the surplus of His bounty
and long suffering lavished on His SHINING
children.
Love flowers out in so many forms that
we can well believe that in many instances
it was some earthly exhibition of it that
charmed some men for the first time from
their wrong course. God saves man
through growing men. Hence We under
stand the possibility of heather salvation
through some incarnation of love and pur-
ity in great seers or souls.
1T is like the sun and his flowers. He
is the one source. ever flowing and never
drained of all floral life, but his heat often
goes where the glory of his orb cannot
be seen: he warns and broods all plants
which bloom, but there ere stinted plants
in caverns or murky glens or gorges that
never saw his face but have felt his quick
ening beams And let work out the
analogy and believe that God operates
where He is unknown, that His influences
are like the gracious influences of a far
reaching American government whose DOW
er penetrates TO ignorant races that do
not know what our flag means. and while
those who dwell under the effulgence of
the noontide manifestation of God in Christ
are responsible for the reception of that
disclosure those who dwell in the dust or
twilight of religion as il family shines
through reason may have a god practically
undiscovered.
Influence often reaches beyond the per-
sonality, the bali beyond the gun that
sent il forth. Many orphan carries
about the atmosphere and presence of a
mother who died in the throes of giving
birth And so God may bless where His
name is hid. Only let us not be broad at
the price of death. Jesus was the God
incarnate and He never dallied with in
fidelity. but called all men TO surrender
as a sure stepping stone 10 their fullest
manhood. There is no other hope for you
and me than TO repent and follow Him as
our Lord and Redeemer.'
REV. AUSTIN HUNTERS SERMON.