The Penn's Grove record., 1903-04-24
SERMON FOR SUNDAY
An ELOQUENT DISCOURSE ENTITLED
INCREASE OF FAITH"
b Rev Quincy Ewing shows How This
Becomes the Prayer Of Our Souls
Whom the Worlds PerpIexities Bear
Dawn nu0u Is.

When the Worlds PerpIexities Bear
Down Upon Us.
NEW YORK CRY. The Rev. Quincy
Ewing, OF st. James Episcopal Church,
Greenville, Miss, who was at one time I'M
der consideration for one of the important
pulpits of Brooklyn, recently preached a
thoughtful sermon on Increase of Faith"
Mr.. Ewing took his text from Luke xviii
s: "Lord, increase our faith" In the
purse of the sermon he said:
We do not know why precisely the disci-
pies should have made this request at this
particular time. Jesus had Just said to
them: "If thy brother trespass against thee
rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him,
and if he trespass against thee seven times
in a day, and seven times in a day turn to
thee. saying, i repent thou shalt forgive
him." Then very abruptly comes from
them the request, Increase our faith"
Possibly there was some tone of impatience
in their voices as they spoke. They may
viticus was to be found practically the
same commandment that He was giving
them; that in the book of Leviticus they
were taught not to hate their brethren,
nor to bear grudge against the children OF
their people, but to love their neighbor as
themselves; and they may have felt that
there was no need for them to bear this
old teaching over again from the lips of
the Master; that He was but wasting
time in telling them what they already
knew SO well.
So their request. Increase our faith may
have meant, "Tell US something that we do
not already know-something hid from the
prophets and wise men of old times; tell
us something, show us something, do some
thing which will make us surer that you
are indeed the Messiah we and our fathers
nave looked for; that our hope in You is
not misplaced; that You are truly the
promised Deliverer. Make us more certain
that we were justified in breaking away
from the authority of the Seribes and
Pharisees, in forsaking all to follow You.
Do not be simply repeating to us what we
may read ourselves in an ancient book;
say something, do something, reveal some
thing which will certify our faith in You
as the Messiah"
Or the request may have had a profound
er import and been uttered in a tone OF
self-distrust, of unfeigned humility and
duplication. Suddenly while Jesus was
speaking there may have awakened in the
souls of His hearers the accusing conscious
ness that, though they had known for so
long the divine law of duty toward their
neighbors, yet never had they or their
fathers been able to live up to it, to real
ize in their human life the divine ideal, and
accompanying the consciousness of past
failure may have been the reflection that
never should they be able to realize that
divine ideal, to expel from their human
hearts all hatreds, all resentments, all con-
tempts, all unforgivingness and look upon
their fellow-men with the steady Christ
vision of redemptive charity.
And so their request may have meant,
"Open wider our spiritual eyes, that we
may see with You; lead us, draw us up to
Your spiritual height; let us share with
You Your vision Of God and man; let us
drink from the invisible fountain Of Your
vast strength and goodness; let us know
the secret of Your Christliness, that we
may rise to full sympathy with Your d.
vine purpose and build with You the king
dom of God among men as You would
have it builded." But whatever may have
been the character of the disciples re-
quest, whether of impatient criticism or
humble speculation in the words that cam
from their lips. Increase our faith, We
prayer of the most needful moments Of
our human life, Increase our faith" How
inevitably that becomes the prayer of our
souls at times when the infinite problems
and perplexities Of this problematical, per-
picking world bear down upon US and
threaten to weigh us down; when We are
forced to give ourselves to reflection upon
the long and cruel and, apparently, unend-
ing suffering of good and evil; the suffering
Of unnumbered millions; the vast failures
Of justice and triumphs of injustice; the
tragic defeat of right and victories OF
wrong; the bitter battles of uplifting truth
for recognition by the mind and heart OF
humanity; the painful, questionable pro-
gress of indubitable good everywhere upon
earth; and, so rejecting, are tempted to
cry out in loud despair, or in danger OF
being mastered by that deep hopelessness
which utters no sound and shows itself IN
no outward sign; hopelessness, that a
deathless heart of good does, indeed. throb
on to victory in things evil; hopelessness,
that the to-morrows of humanity will be
gladder and nobler than its yesterdays:
hopelessness, that the wrongs We know Will
be done away, and the good we dream en-
body itsen in fact; hopelessness, that our
individual efforts, all that we can say, all
that we can do, are not mere vain, tram
sient ~strivings against eternal fate, power
less, as the wings of insects futterlng IN
things that are! How much that prayer
of the apostles, Increase our faith, may
mean, then, to our individual souls! A 81
lent, unsyllabled cry for rescue to the In
visible Power that made us and the world;
a pleading with that Power Invisible,
whose name we cannot then utter. whose
attributes we hesitate then to declare, that
again we may be privileged to pray, Our
Father" that again we may feel ourselves
His children: that real enough may be
come His presence in our lives, to banlsn
from us all doubt that the world intelligi
Ut 81 s1q5V 10 4lep 'sIq!SgIslulun 10 'sIq
His keeping; all suspicion. that any good
dies, that any right fails, that any throned
and crowned power of iniquity can swine
this earth outside the circle of His Faith
er's purpose and His Fathers love.
But it is not only in times of sorrow, sad
ness, perplexity that the request OF the
apostles should be our prayer, for that re
quest of theirs points to an eternal ane
universal need of the human soul; the neee
to-day, tomorrow and forever OF a hrmel
grasp of God, a clearer vision of His pur
poses, a deeper reading of His viii, in or
der that we may live and save ourselves II
the way divine. Perhaps from the stand
point Of the need of some of Us 1T ls more
necessary for US to pray fervently tina
prayer, Increase our faith. IN the sea
sons of our greatest joy than in the days O
our deepest anguish; more necessary rSo, a,
us and we are conscious of the burden O
no p~erplexity and no misgivlng, ana ais
posed to be thoroughly satisfied with our
selves. our performances and with thing:
as thew are. for then, it may be. we are II
greatest danger of forgetting GOD, OF grow
ing unmlndtul OF our personal uspehu
upon Him, of crowding Him out OF our HE
Of Swimming gayly the gay surface OF thing:
with eyes and ears blind and deaf to thell
eternal aspect, their profound and supreme
appeal. Perplexed, bewildered,, crushed
under the stress of deep personal anguish
we may think God far from us, all out o
touch with our lives and their needs. bu,
to think God at all, however tar we pu'
Him from us, however grimly We deny our
selves all consoling faith in His wisdom
and goodness-to think God at all IS Inn
nitelv better than to forget, to ignore Inn
utterly, as if our goodness and our happ9i
ness did not need Him; as II the worie
about us were fair enough and brighl
enough, and altogether satisfactory enongi
witRpr without His presence!
Do YOU ask what sort of faith this IS W.
need to pray for to have increased! Is !
faith in some particular dogma-ciearea
mental comprehension of some series o
metaphysical propositions-falth IN the IN
fal]ibleness of some verbal formula! Nay
the faith of our deeper need is that faitl
which means steadying vision OF the dl
vim unseen and the divine eternal; pro
found consciousness from moment to mo
ment of what the poet has called the dec
below the deep and the height beyond tn
heirht:n nobler conviction within us, be
coming ever more ineradicable and uncon
querable, that the real value OF things IS