The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-05-25
REV. &c. SMITHS SERMON
HE TAKES FOR HIS MORNING SUB
jet, "JEsUs THE RABBI,
The Tabernacle Pastor Takes Advan-
tage OF the Opportunity TO Discuss
Emerson's Life and Work.

Aic toOh tne text from J0nn III, & III OlS-
cussing the Savior as a rabbi Mr.. Smith
said:
Ralph Waldo Emerson was the eminent
prophet or reaction. The heart Of his
age had wearied of Puritanism and was
swinging back toward spontaneous freedom
ana JOY. The abolition of slavery was the
| child Of the old Puritanism and its young
wile: transcendentalism.
The Puritans lodged all authority in the
6ioie: Emerson echoed the protest and
were eternal: the practical authority Is
the best available Interpretation of Gods
word.
The Puritans have made the modern
world. They supplied the oak and granite
and iron sinew necessary TO building up
colossal civilizations. They were austere
storm. They framed constitutions and or
eanized empires and conquered barren
shores with sheer titanic will and equipped
schools and founded freedom.
Then in their over-zeal or over-lust for
dogmatism they knew too much; they put
a belt around Gods infinite girth. and ar
gued as boldly about the universe of mys-
teries as farmer about his seed-sown
acres. They made the heavens too familiar
and religion too common-sensed or me-
chanical, and God too much like big
astocratic man or jailer dangling a bunch
| of keys. 1t would be as II a druggist
claimed to bring the Andes into his phar-
macy and resolve the entire mountain range
into It's original chemical elements with the
same easy air as he crushed some hard sub
stance in his crucible. This is the crime of
over-knowledge.
1.-The result of human claims to knowing
too much Is always narrowness and bigotry,
and persecution and hypocrisy. Hence,
son voiced that long-gathering reaction and
the bells OF his tower rang out for free-
dom and elastic manners and the melody of
human JOY He broke open the prison
doors.
However, one reaction is the equal reac-
ton Of its opposite. If Puritanism erred
one way transcendentalism erred another
way. Something more is wanted than TO
watch human opinion oscillate like pendu-
lum or a summer swing. 1t is truth. The
evolution Of history is nothing but truth
is a glorious symbolism, that is, it is the
spiritual mind crystalliZing into myriad
of forms and marching to the triumphant
In its outplay.
FREEDOM MUST BOW.
Freedom, then, and joy and every ethi-
cal quality must bow to something higher
and more majestic-to truth. The Puritan
enthroned truth, and so far was right. He
went further and dogmatized In infexible
creeds where wisdom is silent, and there
he erred. He put finality into his creeds,
and this shut out God from the work of
making them larger as fresh facts came to
light He shackled thought in this way.
and mistook tradition for certain authority,
and clenched his fist to deal blow on those
who dared to think he went too far The
ology is still too fistic. No wonder a reac-
ton set In. The world, at its heart, is
sane and seeks poise. 1t is like the babes
cradle rocking to and fro, but a watching
mother tenderly guards against Its rolling
over too far to either side.
1.-The infirmity of Emerson. with all his
splendid prowess in war against narrowing
every realm, is simply the old one that in
his fine protest against ironclad dOgmas
, he forgot to shake the crystal truth that
leads to freedom and flashes joy. He did
not capitalize intellectual principle enough
in other religious development. He APP
pealed to the intuitions of the soul, and
these are vague as an autumn horizon
and as capricious as a spring season. A
man must escape from himself to find his
true temple of worship. The conscience
rises from barbaric ideals to scientific and
social ideals. 1t never stops, or IL stag
mates. Evolution means that human prin-
ciples are not settled like the axioms Of
mathematics, but the results of strug-
gle continued through centuries and capable
of eternal reconstruction and change toward
a larger law. Above the soul looms up God.
His truths. His ideals, His standards of cul-
ture and morals. His provocations Of the
race to climb to higher submits of vision,
His guiding inspirations of freedom and joy,
HIS thought; we crave ave how 90 we Know
back into the unfathomabe mystery and
pluck out His secret? No, a hundred times,
no. The mission of agnosticism is to rebuke
all our overdaring thought and presump-
tuous speculations. How, then, can we
know that Being who resides in the shad-
owy backgrounds? 1 answer, by the incar-
nation. Jesus came to reveal. He rarely
argued. He represented and reproduced the
central essence of God, His fatherhood, His
governing genius. His consummate purpose
Of redemption, His unbounded love.
MORE THAN A PROPHET.
Hence Jesus was more than a mere pro-
phet of reaction. He unveiled positive laws
re
an ebb in formal religion and revolt from
pharisaical pretense and cast iron creeds
Jesus took care to make a positive an
nouncement of the principles that underlie
history and determine all ascension of
character. If Emerson preached freedom
Jesus preached it still more, and also truth
as the sole path to freedom. The truth
shall make you free II Emerson emanci-
pated by appeal to the sanity of the soul
as an authority, Jesus emancfpated by edu-
eating the soul to the complete and mel
lowed wisdom which alone qualities the
soul to be any sort of authority. Emerson
was deficient in humor and summer-like
benevolence. Jesus was orbal musical,
manysided. He voiced eternity in its
grandeur and mans only hope is to incor-
porate in his life the unfolding principles
of eternity. Otherwise he is an ephemerde
born and dead within a day.
eff YOUR house is on fire Ii is enough TO
be negative and simply put out the flames.
But If you want to build a home where the
ashes now lie, you must be positive in your
method. Development calls for the crea-
tive or constructive genius.
Luther had il. He was negative when
he assailed papal pretensions; he was posi-
tive when he introduced new principle of
justification. Bacon was creative. forma-
tive. He was not content with merely ex-
posing the fallacies of the middle ages,
their sophistries and tangling, confusing
logic that began nowhere and ended no.
where. Bacon provided a new substitute,
positive apparatus for the mind in its
trailing of truth.
plato and Aristotle and Socrates and Swe-
denborg were constructive, not destructive
They scathed frauds but they led in deep
transparent truth. They are, therefore
guides to intelligence. Darwin. Spencer
Tyndall and the school of scientific impulse
have not merely scourged error they have
Illuminated the world and enriched the
domain of science by discovering positive
laws. Above all Jesus. as he launched out,
was understood to be an anarchist and
iconoclast: a protester and critic, hot in
denunciation and tireleSS in thunder. So for
a while the Jews misconceived His nature
and maligned His mission. How stood He?
He a postivist of positivists L came
not TO destroy, but to fulfill He rarely
criticised, and even then only as a prelude
thought that lit up heaven and earth.
Therefore His immortality He never scared
into useless skies. although at home there
or preached empty speculation. although a
master of dialectics. He discouraged the
attempt to exhaust truth or oyerdefine
spiritual laws. He did. however stimulate
men as a disc0verer and glorious discloser