The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1904-07-13
UNFINISHED THINGS"
A Bright Sunday Discourse By Rev. A.
II. E. Morse.
Address Upon the First and Last Words 10
the Scriptures.


BROOKLYN, N. Yin the Strong Place
Baptist Church Sunday morning the pas.
:or, the Rev. A. III. G. Morse, preached
strong sermon on Unfinished Things"
de said
My sermon this morning is based upon
The first and the last words in the Scrip
,eayen and the earth,s Gwen SO, come
Lord Jesus" And between these texts
here is an immeasurable distance. The
irst deals with the beginning of things:
The last closes the Bible with a note of
ncompleteness. The first takes US back
10 the moment when the shining worlds
yere hurled from the battlements OF heav.
IN by the hand of the Creator. The sec.
md points forward to some far off divine
went to which the whole creation moves"
IL would solve many troubles in our
thinking if we remembered that we live in
world of unfinished things. This earth
not a finished product. 1t is rather the
mm of all the forces with which it was
,tored in the beginning 1t is what some.
me has called an expectant creation. It
tands with shaded eyes looking toward
The future. Hidden behind all its move
nent there is a divinely appointed end.
Men may correct all their false ideas OF
evolution in the light of this single truth.
But in the beginning they must posit God.
Life is an unfinished product. Whoever
Jaw finished life? In great workshop
we must look for noise and dust and tu.
nult and confusion. We also look for the
finished product, but it is not there. As
loon as a product is finished it is removed.
It's place is not there in all that dust and
iirt. This world is Gods great workshop.
Are we startled at the noise and confu.
zion? Human beings are in process of be.
ng formed and perfected. But the end is
not yet. 1T doth not yet appear, what we
jhall be-" No one is perfect to-day. And
ghat we call the best is made up Of un'
finished and incomplete products Ii this
gorld has ever seen the perfect, it is only
that it would be removed. Life is great
school. What man is, or does, after grad
lation has not been told us yet with any
1etail.
We are appalled, at the evidences Of So
,ial wreckage. They tell us there is moth
ing good in all the world, that the whole
Earth is a vast madhouse, her inhabitants
ire drunk with delrium, the fields are be.
coming bankrupt, and the harvests are
well nigh exhausted They tell us that tha
strong trample the weak to death in their
cruel greed and hunger. Now this seems
10 me like false Interpretation. The
world is filled with madness 1t does reek
IN cruelty and greed. But still L am
taught that this world is Gods, and that
It is working for divney appointed end.
1t manifests along its course one great in.
tention.
are the disappointed whom fortune seems
70 have shaken from her skirts. Here is
man you used to know. Then he was
bright and keen and vivacious and ener.
getic. In those days his eyes were bright
with the CLEAN of far-off fire. But now we
meet him and the light has faded from his
EYE, and the spring has departed from his
step, and he has joined the great army OF
the disappointed He had set his heart
npon obtaining something which the pass.
ing years have said he could never have,
And his life has failed and his possessions
have taken fight. Now what does this
mean? 1t simply means that he has been
displaced by the very progress. of the
world. When an army Is marching for
ward and it quickens its pace, the weaker
soldiers must fall by the wayside. But the
army has gone to valiant duty. And the
very fact that the world is sweeping on
ward means that some must be dropping
every year. They are flung backward be.
cause the race is hurrying forward.
This world is an incomplete world be
cause it is divine. If life, as we know. it,
we're complete, if this were the end, then
we should have to-day the ultimate stand
ard of success. Our judgment of ourselves
and OF others would be final. But is that
so? Who of us dare judge another? Do
we not rather look at this life as part of a
whole, whose greater part lies beyond the
vision? There isn't room in the longest
human career to develop all we hope and
love and long for. And so we say that the
most encouraging thing about this life is
That it is not yet complete. The basis OF
hope is the possibility of growth--not in
the perfection of attainment now or in the
q. immediate future.
Shall | be misunderstood if l point out
that the earthly life OF the Saviour par
took OF this same incompleteness! His ac
tions, His parallels, His whole teaching
constitute a promise of the future. His
60 1oI a. -, lA,Nt, I,- 30 t.,
direction, His resurrection to His ascen
sion, His ascension to His throne of glory
and that again leads to His second coming
Even so. Come, Lord Jesus" 1t is a,
though the lines of life projected far be
yond our, farthest ken, and could be fol
not Jesus one of the disappointed? If evel
man had a right to be pessimist it was
He. He found that the world did no
want Him, the rulers OF the state. had ne
place for Him, the church of Judea tina
God had been training for 1900 years t,
look for Him did not know Him. VIII.
was He not in despair? Because He hat
in Himself the wells OF joy. Not the jo.
of indifference, not the Joy OF Him whit
sees and does not care. But the joy o
Him who sees all, and through all to th
living God. just as in one of Corot's pic
lures you can see. in the foreground tn
gnarled and blackened trunks, and be
yond all and behind all the clear shining
of the sky.
The gospel with its mission still unac
complished is another instance OF tina
thought before US. In the world, in tn
church and in the soul of the believer tn
gospel sees not yet all things put under il
And that for the simple reason that thi
is a world of unfinished things. And eve
this may come to us with inspiration, 70
ualike the dwellers in the Orient we liv
in the midst of unfulilled prophesies. No
shall they ever be fulheled here. Othe
conditions and other circumstances ar
needed. From this incompleteness on
might gather the largest argument for ou
immortality. This world is in accordanc
with q divine purpose, and cannot be el
planned unless it tells of fulfillment i
the ages, yet to come, when this earth sha
have been replaced by new earth where
in dwelleth righteousness. Then He Hin
self shall be satisfied.
The old philosophers used to represen
all things in state of continual How
They stood by the river whose dark wa
es, fed from some hidden source, stol
past in voiceless mystery. They saw tn
same mysterious flow in the seasons, /
the harvests, in human life itself. An
they posted motion as the substantial j
the world of things. Now the world is j
O state of flow because it is a state of il
completeness, and that again because it
expectant. There is something yet befor
US. God has not made men who can Ion
and love and hope and struggle and den
themselves, only that they may fall into
hole in the grass.
For what, then, does this whole creatio