The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-06-15
BIBLE in BARBARIC DAYS
WHY OLD BOOKS ARE COUCHED IN
MATERIALIsTIC PHRAsEOLoGY.
The Rev. j. Cumming smith breaches
Polished Sermon on 'sThe
Divine Enduement."

Of the Rev. J. Cumming Smith. at the Tab
ernacle Presbyterian Church. Comments on
the earlier books OF the Bible are OF espec-
ial interest. Mr.. Smith said:
bible students will mostly admit that
its central current sets toward a deep
spiritual view of God and life. The early
books are couched I'm more or less mater
ialistic phraseology in order 10 accommo-
date the divine message TO the baroaric
primevalness of thought. The Bible grew
because the race grew and God lay In both.
Even in the New Testament the same
movement toward the simple spiritualistic
realities that lie at the base OF the worlds
upmoving life can be traced. All this
march OF Gods slow victorious thought -
founded on the simple law that mind. by a
law of its own, must express itself 10 mind.
that God must speak TO man. and that the
fuller the nature Is of interior riches the
more imperiously IL demands an outlet to-
ward congenial natures just as the morn
ing birds charged with energy must drown
the woods i'm floods of melody, or just as the
mountain storing the melted SHOWS must
find outflow in the hundred springs on the
slopes. God speaks and God must speak
If We can trust any OF the sweetest analo-
| gies of the human mind.
THE SUPREME IMPULSE.
THE Holy Spirit is the representative OF
this supreme spiritual impulse. II 1 may
venture the phrase, which 1 will trim and
modify in a few moments. 1 would say
that the Holy Spirit is the most spiritual
physical form. The Father has been gar
mented with the material eulogies sub
| limities of nature. The Holy Spirit refuses
the apparel of earthly forms. He remains
the purely mystical agency that moves
through all life. Every event that has been
| fraught with good. every immortal SYM
phony or undying poetry, every impulse in
love- every constitution by which millions
are organized and cemented, every lowly
self-sacrifice and unseen herOism unwrftten
i'm our annals every such type OF our higher
&c 10 L. inc md laCf Hnvgn ora
! of the indweling spirit. and toward this
simple, although mystical, truth. all mod
ern thought is tending as the hundred
! fiocks in autumn toward the sunny South
1T is spiritual Imagination that makes
| the seer. A rose or violet Is nothing but
matter 10 the unimaginative. A home is
/ nothing but brick and mortar. mere house,
until thewealth OF memory and tender asso-
| Citations enhaloes il and gives the home the
holiness of the sanctuary OF heaven In
every realm there are grades of develop
ment. Once n crab. always a crab: but
| some crabs show higher energy than other
| crabs. All larks are capable OF song, but
! the wing of some larks seeks a higher air
and the song of some iarks reaches a higher
strain than the flight and music of the
other larks. some hnanciers are capable OK
average manipulation OF figures, while lof-
! tier hnanciers walk like kings in the do
main Of speculation and they surprise
masicians surprise. Ii is the law OF devel-
| oping life. No sensible challenges
| these facts. Men are different everywhere.
Now, why not in the development Of the
spiritual life? Why limit possibilities?
| VALUE OF THE COMMONPLACE.
Here are steady going believers who
are equal to ordinary temptations, who
surprise nobody in their level OF aspira-
| ton but who grieve, or upset or shatter
nobody as people of pretended originality
do; the commonplace types, honest. cour-
| teous. friendly, who tread the even places
/ and with universal trust-these people are
saints without poetry, saints without i'm
/ agination or spiritual CLEANS. How val
liable they are! They never gush oYer..-
neither do the steady troughs OF pure
water on the roadside. They never spill
over but are as regular as the sun and
| moon and planet and the parched traveller
slakes his thirst at noon or under shining
midnight of stars by the same serene
stream at the waysde.
Now in such everyday competent
| Christians the Holy Spirit has built His
! summer residence and always as summer
residences more or less uncovered in hid
| such men and women be multiplied.
Let US: however. not overlook another
fact. Right alongside these patient.
steady gated people are those of Naming
/ fervor and eXuberant faculty and enthus-
iasm for the unseen. These are often ef-
fervescent or erratic: but beneath all
| vision, a wealth of poetic constituencies
| and a capacity for seeing far into the soul
of God rare qualities that specialize them.
| Such was Paul. Such was Augustine.
! Such was Ignatius Loyola- Such
| Moses, who saw the invisible and there
fore endured. These types are not always
| marked by everyday sapience and eQui-
| librium of temperament and yet they are
! geniuses in religion and they emit an in
huence that brings the gross world in COM
munion with the highest heaven.
I'VE want both kinds. God uses every
| true sort for the leverage OF the centuries.
Only let not one sort narrowly rule out
| another sort.
SECOND ENDUEMENT.
Some call this the second enduement or
| baptism of the Holy Spirit II is easier TO
pile up long words or coin old phrases for
the christening of new religious ideas than
to find suitable names for the christening
of babies. For our part, we prefer to avoid
the technical or narrow phrases. man
grows as a unit q plant or tree grows.
And there is no distinct stage when tree
passes into a second or third form OF life.
| Ii has life at the start, or IL could not start
at ALL and it's life simply pushes up and out
with Its crescent energy and cumulative
eagerness. So a man grows. There Is we
| believe, no more a second enduement OF the
spirit than there is a seventh or thirteenth
enduement 1t Is one profound life, deep
sown by the spirit, and swelling bud by
bud. blossom on blossom and fruit on fruit
| i'm the eternal struggle Of the soul toward
the perfection Of God. the beauty OF holi-
THE HIGHER LEVELS.
at follows that there are powers OF COM
prehension on the higher levels which are
foreign or unfamiliar TO the lower, and
the eagle sees more sun and circles over
larger sceneries than the low-running rab-
bit that grudges every leap from its bur-
row. The church must be broad and elastic
enough TO include I'm its fold not alone the
members of easy prudence and uniformity,
but the people who storm the skies and see
things unutterable. Without the first types
| the second will drift into mummeries and
phosphorescent fancies. Without the spec
ond types the first will harden into enamel
and useless unspeakably inspired conserva-
tive piety that would doubt the propriety OF
sacrificing dignity even to reach and re-
claim souls Some cultured churches are
too repressive. They lock up their senti-
ment in solitary confinement IL those
sentiments had a criminal quality. Soul is
sacrificed 10 form. a few heeujahs In a
sedate Presbyterian church. thrush OF
Methodist fire in our unruffied assemblies
might be as the welcome voice OF a living
being in the stiffness OF a cemetery Re-
vivals are rational They the overflow
from the types Of higher ascension and fell
lowship down on the types that cleaye to
the world. Let such foundations come
eyerNWheTe'