The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1903-03-26

"Growing in III: things Of The Kirgdom Of
God The lea Lies cose 10 The rorn.
dation OF lis System Of Administration.
New YORK CITY.--Dr. 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 ii.
Peter iii; 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 is our matter this
morning 1t is a great Bible word, grow"
Is; particularly a great gospel word. The
word incarnates the idea of life, and of
life that is swelling crowding apart the
shell and crushing up in the direction OF
becoming q tree; knocking down walls and
breaking forth into territory outlying II
am come that they might have life and
that they might have it more abundantly,"
more and more of IL. life doubling and
quadrup!mg upon itself
That is one OF the ideas that lie close at
the foundation OF Gods system of produc.
tion and adminstration-life and more
and more oi it. Everything is for the sake
of the things that grow. What cannot
grow is for the sake of that which can
scaTolding along which the living walls can
be built, trells up which the growing vines
can Chamber. The first two days of Gods
grea; week were only sort OF creative pre-.
ludc, getting things ready the seas collect.
ed, the land dried off, in readiness for the
hsh that live, the grass and the trees that
grow-and man; scaffolding and trelises
prior to the temple and the vines.
1t was strange moment in our long his.
tory when the first live thing began to be,
something that was no rock. no mineral
And the old torturing problem s, where it
came from-out OF the ground? Out Of
Gods hand that had been holding it till
the right moment came? Out of the air
and drifted down from some other globe
that lad commenced harvesting before our
furrows were plowed? Which?
But 1t was supreme monochrome Of
the moments when it almost seems that
God must have stopped an instant to ru.
inmate, as she Genesis record intimates
He did when at last there began to be a
man. fomething that God could enjoy and
see His own great divine face borne back
20 Him in small human reflection Even
before that supreme hour struck things had
gone Oh reshapng themselves and reshap.
ing themselves: but Teshaping il not grow
ing. The glacier in every step of its frozen
Journey reshapas itself, but the glacier does
not gov. The great hills, the earth itself,
take all kinds OF shapes from century to
century, IRON aeon to aeon, but they do
no. grow; but the corn grows. and man
grows-at least sometimes: some men.
Inc BODY grows, Mt any rate; that Is the
rule. 1t not simply exists-a mineral does
that, a block of stone does that-but it
lives, and, from infancy. up, with 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 1t more abundAntly." And not
only is there the kind OF growth that
makes the individual more and more richly
live thing. on the way from infancy to
N a NNFn NlNFa. i -.
and b,auteous!y human on his animal side,
but the race as whole appears to have
been progressing in that respect till we
may Suppose that man, as the last forty or
more centuries show mm-is about as good
q thing physically as he can be; the sort of
human. animal that God had in His eye
when first He went about to 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 to be
q striking out into some fresh channel
The body being a finished body, the rising
current OF life in man-in the growing
man-will, nerfOrce, seek some new issue
for itself. No longer needed to make for
him more highly organized body, the wax.
ing tide overtlows into the shaping Of a
more finely organized mind The life is
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
inexpresslby wonderful what he has al.
ready achiered in this direction. The race
cannot contemplate itself in respect of the
advance made within historic times upon
line. OF thought and research without be.
holding itself with feelings of admiration
NerSlng close upon reverence. 1t is not
easy to understand how one can take ac.
count OF the steadily advancing line of pro.
gress made by man into the domain OF
truth, the truth OF the physical world at
any rate, without becoming aware OF a GER
tam impulse certain milling of life from
somewhere that mandates wider and wider
patches OF newly reached area, as the ris.
ms, tide. intiowing from Abe sea, rolls with
each recurring bil!ow farther up on the
s!oOing beach. How many thousand years
It has been since man commenced to think
tneorlLe and discover nobody knows, and
the Bible does not tell us, but up to date
the record IL trepeldous one, and there
is no limit in sight. All Of this is telling
ns what wonderful thing it was that God
did when He started the race on its career
OF growth. and conquest. Whcthgr you
think ihe 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 glittering fabric OF
the heavens, or whether you think OF what
at shorter range has been effected by the
study OF our own globe and of the laws
that nervade Il, OF the forces that actuats
u 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 n God that could
make such world but they celebrate the
magnihcenee of the human creature that
could, in point OF intelligence. grow far
enough toward God to be able to make the
discoveries. ferret out the purposes of
things, think out in common words the
thoughts that the Creator nut into thinos.
and go on year after year, century after
century. millennium after millennium for.
ever widening the area of knowledge and
creating for human thought an emnire
steadily advancing upward, outward and
downward upon lines laid down by the in
finite mind.
IL u certainly easy to say, and il il very
common to say, that the realities OF the
spiritual world are things that cannot be
confidently gotten at. just as certainly
was Il an easy and very natural thing for
the denlzens OF the olden centuries 10 saw.
or at any rate TO think, that the great
lights that shone in the heavens could not
be gotten at, or that a man could not hold
instant and Ineligible intercourse with
his distant neighbor 1000 miles across the
sea, bit such intercourse is now matter OF