The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-06-29
POSITIVE And NEGATIVE
PHILOSOPHIC SERMON PREACHED By
THE REV. j. CUMMING SMITH.
The Two Elements Exempliacd by the
Daily Living OF Mcn-Positiv-
ism of Christ.

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Positive and Negative was the subject
of the Rev. ]. Cumming Smith yesterday
morning. His inspiration was drawn from
Peter /. 4. That we might be partakers of
the divine nature. having escaped the cor
ruption." He said in part:
THE apostle is pleading strenuously for
the divine life and as a mere marginal
parenthetical afterthought brings in the
idea of escape. This Is characteristic of
Peter, who was martial in every fibre. 1t
is characteristic of the master mind of
Paul. Inferior natures usually show a bias
toward the instinct of escape or elusion. AS
We walk about a suburban street we notice
some ground that has been filled in and
raised into terraces of floral beauty and
surmounted either in front or farther in in
q sylvan vista by imposing residence.
The spectacle is positive, RECALLING to the
eye and imagination. and the total effect
is capturing to the artistic sense. How diff
| ferent in the very next block is the vacant
lot Tapped in prodigal weeds and lying down
| low beneath the level of the street 1t has
not yet been filled in except with random
debris. 1t recalls the early days when a
seeping, succulent marsh spread over the
| deadly district.
THE BENT OF MAN.
80 If men meet one man and his bent is
wholly and incurably negative. He lies low
beneath the levels of his fellows. His in
stincts are toward escape. To him culture
| is merely a mask to enable him cleverly to
| avoid exposure Of his ignorance. To him
| temperance narrows down to a prohibit
ton of liquor. To him religion is an
cape from flames of torment To him good
citizenship means protection for his prop
| erty and certificate of character signifies
| that he has never been sent to the peniten-
tiary. If a parent, he relies on restrictive
measures and soothes his remnant of a
conscience by constant rebukes to his chill
drpn int
| goodness. He interpretS the Golden Rule
| to mean that We must avoid doing any
harm to negh6er and leaves out of sight
men of this caste, the miserable instinct
/ of escape or avoidance sums up the creed
they are shrewd. They Stand back from
| enterprises lest these swamp the investors
They shrink from new reform lest 1t
founder and entail disaster on its daring
| promoters.
POSITIVE MEN
| Positive men are conservative in a meas
| ure, as all sane men are, but this quality
| is overlapped by an enormous passion for
achievement, by a moral earnestness that
| advocates a measure all the more because it
is blackmailed or unpopular; and such
would rather fight in the open than crouch
| In ambush.
Examine Peter and Paul and John and
! Judge their brandmark. They are intrin-
| sica1ly projecting and propelling in their
| personalities. When the zeal for God was
| out to dead level, when the masses flung
! themselves against the truth of the incar-
nate God and the agony of the cross, how
| leonineiy these warriors went forth to
| preach the name of Jesus.
THE gospel as philosophy or inspira-
| ton is affirmative to the core. For once
| that it goes aside a little to prick some
| bubble of error, ten times it keeps on the
main course of stating truth and allowing
the truth to smite or undermine the error.
| Jesus said, as the keynote of all His SER
mons, L came not to destroy, but to fulfill
! Hence the temper of tolerance in His gentle
| aggressiveness. He trusted truth to fight
| its own way, and attempted no despotism
| over private judgment. If a man took the
| opposite opinion, Jesus wasted no breath
| sturdy independence and then sent home
some arrowy truth that stuck In the men,
DRY and worked repentance in the after
| time of meditation or remorse.
Some pulpits degenerate into Calling
| guns of denunciation. The wise pulpit is
| constructive, architecttonic; 1t scathes none,
| but helps all; 1t banks on the constant Gre
alive forces of truth and love. Victory is
| foregone conclusion to a man with such
| weapons, but time is the essence of the
| contract. The defeat of evil requires GEN.
| turtles. 1 would doubt God if 1 woke up
| tomorrow morning and found a millennium
| dawning everywhere, and Torreys sugges-
| ton of converting Chicago in a year or two
| is the nightmare of faith. Trust the quiet,
permanent forces to win the world. A cam
paign of healthy, religious, unnoisy educa-
ton in homes and schools is worth more
| than thousand thunderous pulpits bonn
harding the municipal strongholds of
| iniquity.
DECLINE OF CHARACTER
ITO be partakers of the divine nature
involves something more than the precious
doctrine that man received the divine image
at the solemn moment of his creation as
man. For that image has been clouded and
nearly obliterated in some souls by reason
| of long-continued decline of character. The
root is disobedence. Every act of disobedi-
ence smears the soul and dims the por-
"That is the essential hell. There are no
material beds or abysses of fire. All litera-
| ture and early Oriental literature in par
ticular, INDUCES a lavish and even wanton
| use of symbols in language. They appeal
to pictorial minds, and, therefore, are force
| full even as brilliant symbols. The duty of
enlightenment is to pierce through the
| symbol to the reality, and the reality of
hell is the decadence of the divine within
| US and gnawing remorse frightful to con-
| science Even Dante, in his lurid verse,
understated the CHASTITY drama of the fu-
ture Sin is too r murderous in its nature
malignancy or TO minimize its ruinous eff
fects on continuously ungodly men To
| blot out God from the soul made to shine
| with Him as the diamond palpitates with
| the light Is doom enough to warn all men
| everywhere to return to their true home in
God.
I'm addition to the natural religion of the
soul, there is the special and vivified life
| that follows the reception of the love of
God. and Gods love is revealed in the In
| carnate Son. know nothing of the in
terror formation of the mighty mountain
| until the pearly streams just out from the
| subterranean caverns full of chemical SUBJ
| stance. and these chemical elements are
revelations of the unknown recesses.
know little. or nothing. of the mystery of
| God apart from some personal manifesto
ton, and i would verge agnosticism il
| there came not forth a personality from the
| central godhead to reassure our trembling
reason that God Is the universal reality.
that all our souls spring from the infinite
| soul, that owe our freedom and prog
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