Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1904-12-01
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
A STRONG DISCOURSE ENTITLED,
THE KNOWLEDGE OF COD"
The Rev. Livingston L. Taylor Tells Why
Religion is an Affair Of the Soul and
Cod Sectarian, Dogmatic Insistence
1s Perilous

Cod sectarian. Dogmatic Insistence
is Perilous.
BRooKL4N, N. Y.-Sunday evening, in
the Puritan Congregational Church, the
pastor, the Rev. Livingston Z. Taylor, had
for the subject of his sermon, The
knowledge of God.'' The text was from
Psalm lxxxiv:2: "My heart and my flesh
crleth out for the living Cod" Mr.. lay
lor said:
come back to this pulpit in no uncer-
talnty OF mind with reference to what my
where 1t must begin. Unless I mistake
the terms of my commission, unless mis-
take Tie nature Of the means placed at nv
disposal, which are the Bible and the
church, unless I mistake the example of
my Master, it is my business to help men,
80 far as in me lies, to find God.
There is no mistaking my own mind,
nor what the summer has done to confirm
it In this conviction. To me, as to many
OF you, the glory of the Lord has been re-
vealed anew in earth and sky and sea. To
me, as to many of you, has come the op-
portunity. to read and to think and to en-
ter into the thoughts of other persons. We
have gone out of doors with our religion.
We have taken our ideas Of God and life
eled far afeld with them in the books
which we have read. How have they
fared?
For myself did not by any means get
rid Of Jeremiah's words by preaching ON
them last Sunday morning. They stay by
me, as they began to stay by me in the
early summer. ''The gods that have not
made the heavens and the earth, these
shall perish from the earth and from un-
testimony against every inadequate idea Of
God. We must have God whom nothing
IN heaven or on earth can dethrone We
must have God our faith in whom need
not be shaken by anything we may learn
about nature, or about the Bible, or about
the life OF men and nations. We must
have a God who will not break down and
We must have God who shall be God to
us, our God, even when we can only cry
with Job, "Oh, that I knew where I
might find Him!'' We must have a God
to whom we may say, Father, into Thy
hands I commend my spirit in the very
hour in which we may have cried my
God. my God, why hast Thou forsaken
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Such is
the God from whom nothing in the heights
or in the depths, nothing in the past, the
present or the future could detach the
faith of Paul. Such is the God our need of
whom may be revealed to us at any mo-
ment by the lightning flash of some great
calamity. Such is the God our need OF
more and more heavily as we face more
and more frankly the facts Of life.
Here is a man who has been summoned
by midnight message to the bedside OF
his child. As he goes from ferry to ferry
to ascertain by what route he can reach
her most quickly, every man he addresses
reads his secret and shows him kindness.
1nnn orr 01o Il
light that delays him the engineer sees a
night lamp in sick room that tells him
every second lost must be made up. The
conductor nervously hurries passengers of
and on the train at every stop. The race
is won. The father stands beside his child
There are the doctors. There are the
| nurses. There are friends. Everything
that human love and sympathy and skill
can suggest is being done. Where is thy
| God! l say, father, where is thy God
Nature says to him, II have contrived q
little sack in your child's body. I have
filled it with poison. Within twenty-foul
hours l propose to break it. If breal
it your child will die. If you are willing
to take other chances, let the surgeons re
move it., Then I viii do the best I cal
| for you"
| Some men tell me that their God is ma
ture. Does your God thus speak His Who'll,
mind? Why, that room where father il
making up his mind what answer to Civ,
| to natures ultimatum is flooded with pur,
love. Everybody cares. Are you ready t.
say Everybody cares but God?" There i
q sick child there to be accounted for
| There is harsh ultimatum of nature t,
be accounted for. But there are lovin,
hearts in that room to be accounted for
| also. And there is universal capacity fo
sympathy and helpful action to be &C
counted for; 1t is scene which fairl.
represents the tragedy of the world pro
cess. In which aspects of it do you dis
merciless progress of the disease or il
what is being done to save, to heal, t.
comfort? If there is any purpose, or eve1
any tendency, to be discovered in such
scene, is it the triumph Of pain and tn
perfecting Of cruelty that is being pre-
NOTED? or is it the perfecting of faith an,
love?
Christians should know where to Loo
for God in such scenes. They will fin
Him in precisely the place in which the
would look for Jesus Christ. Sometime
we wonder why SO many miracles of hea
ing are recorded in the gospels. May
not be because God wants us to kno'
where to place Him when we are confron
J ed by the elemental questions which sicl
raise in our minds? It is the higher la
which should ever speak to us of Coz
1t is with life and healing, with love an
care, that we are taught to associate th
thought of God. In the midst Of iife's co,
fusions we know in part. When thu
which is perfect is come it will prove I
be-love. We can even think of ourselve
when it is all over, looking back and sa
ing
with mercy and with judgment
My web of time He wove,
And aye the dews of sorrow
Were lustered with His love;
I'll bless the hand that guided,
I'll bless the heart that planned,
IL When throned where glory dwelleth,
In Emmanueps land"
i like to think of the positive aspects
the First Commandments: "Thou shalt ha-
; no other God before Me- That mean
stated positively: Thou shalt have Go
? and thou shalt have Me for thy Go
Thou shalt have God. It is the first Ia
of the souls own life Thou shalt have
:. God whom nothing can ever make it u
5 reasonable for you to trust. Tt is t
I souls law of self preservation. How
!, we know when we are going to be in cri
!. cal need of faith like Paul s-of faith Ii
that of our dying Lord? Every man w
q suffers needs it. Every man who thin
needs it.
!, I say that every man who thinks nee
God. We are thinking here tonight.
, have been thinking some of the re
! thoughts which have stolen aWay the faj