The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1903-03-27
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT AND CONVINCING DIS.
COURSE BIZ REV. OR. paRKHURsT.
Subject; Growing In the Things Of the
Kingdom Of God-Ths Idea Lies Close
at the Foundation Of nj. system Of
Production aud Ahininistrstion.

nj Anr MS system oil
Production aud Aitninistrstion.
NEW York CIrY-D-. Charles II. Park.
/ hurst, pastor Of the Madison SQUARE Pres
+, byterian Church, preached sunday morn
ing on Growing IN the Things of the
Kingdom OF God The text was from III.
Peter ~: IS Grow in grace and IN the
! knowledge Of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
/ Christ"
To grow; growing in the things of the
/ kingdom OF God; that u our matter this
! morning. IL ls a great Bible word, grow
/ IL; particularly a great gospel word. The
/ word incarnates the idea of life, and Of
! lie that - swelling, crOwdIng apart the
! shell and crushing up in the direction Of
! becoming tree; knocking down walls and
| breaking forth into territory outlying. Il
am come that they might have lie and
that they might have II more abundantly,'
more and more OF Il. life doubling and
quadrupling upon itself
That - one Of the ideas that lie close at
/ the foundation OF Gods system Of produc
ton and adminstratlOn-llfe and more
and more OF 10. Everything u for the sake
OF the things that grow. What cannot
grow y for the sake OF that which can
scaifOldlng along which the living walls can
be built, trellis up which the growing vines
can Chamber The first two days Of Gods
great week were only a sort OF creative pre-
lude, getting things ready, the seas collect
ed. the land dried off, in readiness for the
fish that live, the grass and the trees that
grow-and man; scaffolding and trellises
prior 10 the temple and the vines.
II was a strange moment in our long his
tory when the first live thing began 20 be,
something that was no rock, no mineral.
And the Old torturug problem IL, where IL
came frOm-Out OF the ground Out OF
Gods hand that had been holding IL till
the right m)rent came; Out OF the air
and drlfted down from some other globe
that lad commenced harvesting before our
furrows were plowed? Which?
But 10 was a supreme moment-one OF
the moments when 1T almost seems that
God must have stopped an instant 20 ru.
inmate, as che Genesis record intmates
He did when at last there began to be a
man. something that God could enjoy and
see His own great divine face borne back
10 Him in a small human reflection Even
before that supreme hour strucl, things had
gone Oh reshaping themselves and reshap-
ing themselves; but reshapng IL not grow
ing. The glacier m every step OF it's frozen
journey reshapes itself, but the glacier does
not grow. The great hills the earth itself
take all kinds Of shapes from century TO
century, IRON aeon 10 aeon, but they do
no. grow; but the corn grows, and man
grows-at least sometimes; some men.
The body grows, at any rate; that is the
rule. 1t not simply exists-a mineral does
that a block of stone does that-but II
lives, and, from infancy up, with a life that
Is more and more a life - blade, ear, full
corn; which Is the physical side of that
verse in John, that they might have life
and have it more abundantlv." And not
only il there the kind of growth that
makes the individual more and more richly
n 1--we thing, on the way from infancy 10
mature manhood, and more completely
and b,auteously human on his animal side
but the race a a whole appears 20 have
L L.
may suppose that man. as the last forty or
more centuries show him-is about as good
n thing physically "a he can be: the sort of
human animal that God had in His eye
when first He went about 10 produce man.
We have reached the limit in point of stat
ure and presumably IN point OF refinement
of organization.
Arrived at this stage, any new growth
that the race might make would have 20 be
a striking ont into some fresh channel
The body being a finished body the rlsl,.g
current OF lie IN MANN the growing
man-wlll, uerfOrce, seek some new issue
for itself. No longer needed 10 make for
him a more highly organized body, the wax
ing tide overhows into the shaping OF
more finely organized mind. The life i
there, the growing life Is there, and so
when one thiNg Is finished another thing
has TO b. taken up, and when, in the
course OF long year OF development. man
had become perfect as an animal he started
in upon the course OF making himself per
feet as an intelligence.
That Is what he is doing now. and it Is
inexpressiblv wonderful what he has al
ready achieved IN this direction. The race
cannot contemplate itself IN respect of the
advance made within historic times uron
lines of thought and research without be-
holding itself with feelings of admiration
vergng close upon reverence. 1t u not
easy 10 understand how one can take aC-
count OF the steadily advancing line OF pro-
gress made bv man into the domain of
truth. the truth of the physical world at
any rate, without becoming aware of GER
tain impulse. 1 certain milling OF lite from
someW here that mandates wider and wider
patches of newly reached area, As the ris-
ing tide, inhowing from the sea, rolls with
each recurring hillow farther up on the
sloping beach. How many thousand years
it has been since man commenced to think,
theorile and discover nobody knows, and
the Bible does not tell US. but up to date
the record Is a tremendous one. and there
is no limit in sight. All Of this l. telling
us what wonderful thing IL was that God
did when He started the race on Its career
of growth and conquest. Whether you
think of the way IN which the human eye
has penetrated into the stellar spaces and
read out in terms of every day English the
thoughts that at the beginning OF time
God wrought into the glitterlng fabric of
the heavens or whether YOU think of what
at shorter range has been effected by the
study of our own globe and ot the laws
that rervade il, of the forces that actulte
1t and of the ways IN which its mysteries
have been solved and converted into com
monplaCe utilities, the story IS one and
the same all the way through All these
discoveries of course celebrate the splendid
omnipotent wisdom OF a God that could
make such a world. hut they celebrate the
magulhcence ot the human creature that
could, in point of intelligence, grow far
enough toward God 10 be able 20 make the
discoveries ferret out the purposes Ot
things think out in common words the
thoughts that the Creator put into things.
and 20 on year after year. century after
century. millennium after millennium, for
ever widening the area of knowledge and
creating for human thought an empire
steadily advancing upward. outward and
downward upon lines laid down by the IN
finite mind.
IL Is certainly easy 20 say. and It Is very
common 10 say, that the realities ot the
spiritual world are things that cannot be
confidently gotten at. just as certainly
was u an easy and very natural thing TOT
the denizens OF the olden centuries to say,
or at any rate - think. that the great
lights that shone IN the heavens could not
be gotten at, or that a man could not hold
instant and inteiliglh,e intercourse with
his distant neighbor 5000 miles across the
sea, bit such intercourse Is now matter ct
history, and ls 10 the heavenly bodies that
were once but an impossible and unlnter'
| pretabe vision, the human mind up to
certain point contemplates them to-day
with as assured and a steady a thought a.
/ that with which u marks the flight OF
! bird or the tiutter OF leaf.