The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-09-14
SAYS ATHEISM is DEAD
AGNOsTICIsM ITS MODERN SUCCESS
SOR, DECLARES DIR. SMITH.
Sermon mt the Tabernacle Contains
Interesting Thoughts on One of
LIES Greatest Problems.


modern successor is agnosticism." Mr.
Smith took the text, Those who sing ant
those who play an instrument shall say
All my springs are in Thee" He said:
This is great theology from a choir loft
and fittingly. so far, all art reigns over the
realm of the soul, and there must be a ma.
tive congeniality between the love of the
beautiful In every sphere and the love OF
God, who is the source of the sense of the
beautiful. No artist can be essentially
atheistic. He may disavow technical state
ments of faith, but he cannot be a prodigal
from the beauty of holiness so long as his
heart has true genius.
The many-voiced choirs sing of the hill
side with Its artesian never-failing springs
The metaphor is familiar to Western noun
ta1ns. A proprietor of summer resort
pointed proudly to the pearly springs on
the slope which he had tapped for supplies
to his hotel; and the pipes carried the crys-
tai streams down through every room and
1t gushed out at the drinking fountains and
its oval silver sparkle begemmed the flow
ers in the park, and the satisfaction of the
proprietor In that inexhaustible water sup
ply that irrigated every lawn and freshened
every chamber was kindred to the old
poets satisfaction in God. He is hillside
of perennial water courses. He mandates
and fertilizes every field of life.
THE INFINITE VIVID.
This picture makes the infinite vivid and
many-colored. The poet cannot rest in the
misty theisms of reason or the vacant skies
of agnosticism, the marble god of a too
dogmatic theology. 1t is a definite, ascer-
tainable personality garmented with every
admirable attribute of loneliness. He is
superhuman, but human. The Hebrews
have laid the world under one immense OBJ
legation; they enthroned one God and Fa-
Their, and this fact brings all the scattered
sections of life into an inviolable unity. 1t
is. creed vibrating with life; one God,
fharn for 81 &c.
the manifold billowy life around u.s. and
it is like keeping clothes locked up i'm a
trunk or in closet lest they should suffer
the soil of contamination by everyday wear
But the moths will get at them. They will
crease or wrinkle while neatly folded away.
And the Hebrews, with their intense real
ism. could never have remained content with
an abstract, bloodless Deity. They identi-
fled Him with their forefathers and every
graphic period of their romantic history.
They idolized Him so rapturousy that they
grudged allowing any rival nation any share
in His goodness. The depth of the Jewish
affection for Him narrowed their conception
of the boundless circuits of His operations
and love. We all are capable of love for
country or friend so intense to border
on bigotry and selfish eXclusiveness. Hence,
when Jesus proclaimed God over the whole
race, as generous and opaline the heav
ems, flooding light on every cline, the very
breadth and cosmopolitanism of the thought
pierced a sword their notions that they
were the chosen favoriteS and from that
old idea of their clannish favoritism there
grew the absurd dogma of election, which,
as once interpreted, is now moribund. God
is Father over all, and no child need fear
to claim His love.
CATHOLICITY OF THE CROSS.
"This catholicity of the cross is the char
ter of foreign missions. Save Hong-Kong
rather than Boston for Boston feels quite
competent to save itself. The uttermost
&c Of ha ~ rlx
peghbors in these days of electricity. The
sweet, silent spring-what teacher! AS a
spring suggests mystery as to the subter-
ranean history of the oozing waters-so
in its crystal flow suggests clearneSs, so
God represents holiness and unmlemished
rectitude. AS spring is quiet, yelling up
noselessly from the loose sand, so calm
and serenity are features Of Gods policy.
AS the spring is spontaneous and necessary
in it's constant up-fiow, so God is SUBJ
lime necessity to thought and life. AS the
spring cannot be quenched or drained. so
We catch glimpse of the inexhaustible
grace of God Altogether our metaphor in
spires more restful consideration. The very
sound of waters carries the suggestion of
variety and beautiful music to the magma
ton.
1--WE must not overstretoh a literary SYM
boil Some Bible teachers have a brutal
way of rushing out with sandbag at a met
it half dead by the wayside. Martyrs went
to the stake because some theologian
pressed and squeezed some extravagant in
reference. II Jesus referred TO the gentle
lily dropping flower, some ferocious theo-
logan would extract some supernatural
nonsense from the metaphor and a noble
saint would be bounded to some cruel doom
to expiate his heresy.
COMMON SENSE AND BIBLE.
LET us carry common sense into the
Bible and the Bible will drive out any lit
tie remnant of sense nature gave u.s. Let
us look at the mountain side and see the
cleaning little pools with water yelling UP
nature dug for their outlet and breathing
health and cheerlness wherever they
course: and then. without any effort. let
the devout imaglnation conceive the one
grace and every stream vitalizing humanity
then we hear the simple melody of the
waters and understand their freshest mes
sages Nature broadens us and we drop
our fierce dogmatiSmS stroll by
brooks or through still woods. Perhaps
We do not put the interl0per on rack of
rough treatment when we furthermore
catch its suggestion of poetry. How arid
and sterile any landscape without the
sinuous streams or broad expanses of
water. How bleak views of rugged
granite without flash of cascade or
plunge OF torrent or streaming abysms!
How unspeakably undramatic and hueless
human life without the streams from the
Leave God and how you
denude the dramai How you profane art,
How you beggar the heart, How you re-
duce our struggling world to a dirt heap
with nothing but the meaningless conflict
OF worms and insectsi
ATHEISM is DEAD
ITO sublime human nature you must
usher in the ideas of destiny of the eternity
Of character and the illimitable love that
can no more be confined to the celestial
universe than the ceaseless springs can be
locked up in reservoirs near the snowy
heights. There is no Importance to the
world unless you conceive il as the swad-
died babe in the imperial palace with a
royal birth and destiny stamped upon its
brow Atheism is dead. Its successor is
agnosticism. the child of a grave culture.
But while few souls in classic shades
may soothe their uneventfu lives with
dreary negation, the world at large would
die without the supernatural and without
a sense of God so concrete, so warm and
helpful and open-armed as to put courage
into their tragical careers. Such a philos-
ophy of the Infinite we lind in the incar-
nation. the expression of Gods grace.
the guarantee OF Immortality. Only
through this ennobling conception can any
real worth or beauty be attached TO our
ragged human history. or any charm of
poetry beguile our lifelong monotony of
care"