The Indianapolis journal., 1903-09-21
REV. STANsFIELD'S SERMON.
He Interests the Congregation at Me-
ridian-Street Church.

He Interests the Congregation AT Ne
ridian-Street Church.
Zone could cite from the business world
both practices and spirit not alone un-
christian and goddess, but positively wick
ed, murderous, fiendish," declared the Rev.
Joshua Stansfeld, pastor of the Meridian
street Church, yesterday morning in the
beginning of his sermon.
THE spirit of avarice, the cut-throatism
of competition, the ofttimes slow murder of
| a so-called living wage the brutality oil
! child labor and the inadequate support for
feeble and premature old age-these all
seem to mock the statement that ours is a
Christian civilization and age, in which the
| Christ teaching to the personality and the
purpose of God are generally prevalent in
our lives
without God, without Christ, without
| hope" was the subject OF the Rev. Stans-
fields sermon. He continued:
But, nevertheless, ours is a Christian
| age, though from a hundred fields OF life
there come diScordant and denying voices
| In social life a double or more variable
| standard of purity, down TO tolerated con-
ditons in which verify; there seems S,n 10 DE DE
| sin in garments and customs OF respecta-
| bility and propriety so that 1t often stalks
forth something to be seized rather at 1afisn tnan
|
ness, If not, indeed, TO immortality, are a
| feature of our age.
| Nay, even in our civic life, where, we
might hope. sounder judgment and more
| sober conduct might obtain, even there
| fiscal considerations are most dominant
Vice may be bargained and bartered with,
| wrong may be legalized on stipulated terms,
public immoralities may be fostered under
| our American deity of protection, and the
| gatewayS to death and the avenues to hell
| may be arched by license for part of the
| time and by political privilege for all other
| necessary hours or opportunities.
| Nevertheless, ours is q Christian age
| and country, and the knowledge of God as
| revealed by Jesus is general and wide
| spread. so that of most of us it could not
| well be said, without God Nay, indeed,
| the question may be raised as 10 whether
| this may be said without qualification of
| any people or any age.
PART OF EVERY LIFE.
| There is very real and blessed sense
| in which God is near to and a part of every
| human life. He is the father of our spirits.
| The history of our race makes it very clear
that the God consciousness in human life
| has never been wholly lost. Find man
where you will and in the most permanent
records of his life, monuments, usages and
| institutions he speaks of his relation and
| obligations to the Divine. While the moral
and religious degeneracy of the more
marked civilizations and peoples, the
apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans,
| charges to the fact that When they
knew God they worshiped Him, not as such,
and that because of their perversity God
gave them over to the wickedness of their
| own imagination, in which they wrought
| their own destruction
| THE indestructiblc moral intuitions of
man argue the imminence of God in human
| life. As the ablest of philosophers have
| ever shown, the moral nature in man
| speaks assuringly of the presence of God.
| So that these words of our text, il taken
| literally. would be shock to moral
| sense, for in some sense or other there is
| utterly goddess life. Yet on the other hand
| to know and believe in God does not neces-
| sarily mean high morality or personal hap
| piness. The devile believe and tremble. 1t
| what God is to ones own life which makes
the blessedness of religion. The difference
between knowledge and appropriation is in
| finite. Our personal faith in denial of
God in nowise alters the divine personality,
| but in proportion to its reality it does make
| our own life. Vision and duty; faith and
| conduct; creed and character, are insep-
| arably joined. These may be, and often
| are, greatly strained, but never wholly sew
| cred. What man thoroughly believes,
| that, in the trend and bent of his life, he
| is. / desire then to take these words this
| morning, not alone as to the heather and
those racially alien to the commonwealth of
| israel but rather to press their import
| upon our own lives. l desire that we un-
deceive ourselves as to the fact Of God in
our own lives. l would do this by some SIM
pie and unquestioned tests:
| First, the religious test of prayer. Who
and what is the God of our age? OF our
civilization? Of our own personal con-
| sciousness and faith? Is He our best con-
ception of power wisdom, love, righteous
ness. goodness truth? Or as our fathers
would say: is He the infinitely high:
holy, just, righteous, loving and powerful
| Jehovah?' Is God this TO us? If so. prayer
unto Him is natural, spontaneous, habtual,
confident and joyous.
rs God thus in our life? Or has Deity
been dethroned by our partial knowledge of
so-called natural laws?' Has the personal
God been dethroned by impersonal laws
and have we drifted to the acceptance of an
| absentee God? world vitalized by His
word, governed by His laws, but still under
the necessities of such potentialities as He
as fate? Is this the God own? Then
verify, Deity is denied prayer becomes r-
rational and impossible; we are without
God again. Who and what is the God we
believe in and look to? Is He the father as
Jesus knew Him and the father of all men?
prayer becomes not alone rational but in
evitable; it is moral necessity; nay, verify
ii is not so much an act as an attitude of
life.
For those who truly believe in the God
which Jesus revealed prayer Is the father
ward attitude of the soul. How did life tell
upon Jesus, who believed thus in the Father
and who knew Him? Its want, its weari-
ness, its work were all brought before God
PRAYER for one who believes in God as
Father, is an abiding necessity and a per-
ennial joy. What must think, then, of
so-called good but prayerless lives?
WHO AND WHAT is HE?
Second, without Christ Who and what
is He? The sent of God. the Savior OF men,
the king of truth Take His own state
ments as to himself and His work He
came to seek and to save that which was
lost and to give His life a ransom for
many. Do we know Him as such? Have
we ever consciously needed such a Savior
as He declares himself to be, and are His
life and death i'm any real sense the one
ground of our hope and salvation? Again,
and important: He came TO establish His
kingdom of righteousness In the earth: He
is the king of truth. and how ready we are
in song to coronate Him Lord of all: but
do we really accept Him as the Lord Christ :?
Do we not rather regard the coming of the
kingdom as in the long distant future and
not for our day that IL TO say that so
far concerned the kingdom is not
for life but for future life. Many of
us have not confidence that the kingdom of
righteousness may be established in
our own personal territory and realm
I'VE regard Ii impractical, with
things as they now are, and. so far as our
own age and life concerned the petition
and prayer for the kingdom are valuelpss
When the Son of Man shall come will ne
find faith on the earth? We enter not in
because of unbelef. And then verify the
kingdom will never come ii future genera
tons are of a like calibre and feeble faith
God waits upon Us, for the kingdom of
heaven suffereth violence, and the violent
take IL by force
But how clearly Jesus told us that the
kingdom could only be established by sacri-
| fee and by service. If n man Will give his
life he must lose it, But the worlds dis