Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1904-07-21
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE ENTITLED.
""UNFlNiSHED THINGS"

l ~ = iVlItNA0s /
The Rev. A. II. c. Morse Bases an Inter-
esting Address Upon the First and
Last Words in the Scriptul es-Be Not
Impatient, God Has q Plan.
BROOKLYN, N. YIN the Strong Pace |
Baptist Church Sunday morning the pas |
tor, the Rev. A. HI. G. Morse, preached
a strong sermon on Unfinished Things"
He said:
My sermon this morning is based upon
the first and the last words in the Scrip |
heaven and the earth's 9 Gwen $50 So. come anee
Lord Jesus" And between these texts
there is an Unreasonable distance. The
first deals with the beginning of things:
incompleteness. The first takes us back
to the moment when the shining worlds
were hurled from the battlements of heav-
en- by the hand of the Creator. The Sec
ond points forward to some "far off divine
event to which the whole creation moves"
Il would solve many troubles in our
a world Of unfinished things. This earth
is not a finished product. It is rather the
sum of all the forces with which it was
stored in the beginning. It is what some
one has called an expectant creation. It
the future :. Hidden ssii tpo al Is move move
ment there is q 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 post God.
Life is an unfinished product. Whoever
saw a finished life? In a great workshop
we must look for noise and dust and tu-
multi and confusion. We also look for the
finished product, but it is not there. As
soon as q + product is finished it is removed.
Its, place is not there in all that dust and
dirt. This world is Gods great workshop.
Are we startled at the noise and confu-
sion? Human beings are in process of be-
ing formed and perfected. But the end is
not yet. ct doth not yet appear what we
shall be-" No one is perfect to-day. And
what we call the best is made up of un-
finished and incomplete products. If this
world has ever seen the perfect, it is only
school. What mar is, or does, after grad
uation has not been told us yet with any
detail.
We are appalled, at the evidences of So
cial wreckage. They tell us there is moth
ing good in all the world, that the whole
earth is a vast madhouse, her inhabitants
are drunk with delirium, the fields are be.
well nigh exhausted. They tell us that the
strong trample the weak to death in their
cruel greed and hunger. Now this seems
to me like a false Interpretation. The
world is filled with madness. It does reek
in cruelty and greed. But still I am
it is working for a divinely appointed end.
1t manifests along it's course one great in
tention.
Who, then, are the pessimists? They
are the disappointed whom fortune seems
to have shaken from her skirts. Here is a
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-of 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
upon obtaining something which the pass
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
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
were complete, if this were the end, ther
we should have to-day the ultimate stand
| ard of success. Our Judgment Of ourselve:
and of others would be final. But is tina
so? Who of us dare judge another? d.
4 we not rather look at this life as part Of
whole, whose greater part lies beyond thu
vision? There isn't room in the longes
human career to develop all we hope AM
love and long for. And so we say that tn,
most encouraging thing about this life i
that it is not yet complete. The basis o
hope is the possibility of growth-not i
%ho rorfo4,o- &c - IL
immediate future.
Shall [ be misunderstood if [ point ~ou
that the earthly life of, the Saviour pal
took OF this same incompleteness? His az
tions, His parallels, His whole teachin
constitute a promise of the future. Hi
life led to His death, His death to His res
direction, His resurrection to His asce1
sion, His ascension to His throne of glory
and that again leads to His second comins
even so. Come, Lord Jesus" Il is a
though the lines of life projected far b.
yond our farthest ken, and could be TO
lowed only by an infinite hope. Why wa
not Jesus one of the disappointed? Ii ,eve
a man had a right to be a pessimist it we
He. He found that the world did nc
want Him, the rulers of the state had n
place for Him, the church of Judea thu
God had been training for 1900 years /
, look for Him did not know Him. WI
. was He not in despair? Because He ha
| IN IlmSel1 the wells OF JOY. NOT the &C
!, Of Indifference, not the joy of Him WI
. sees and does not care. But the joy
, Him who sees all, and through all to Il
living God. just as in one of Corot's pi
lures you Can see in the foreground tt
gnarled and blackened trunks, and b
yond all and behind all the clear shini1
of the sky.
The gospel with it's mission still una
complished is another instance of tn
thought before us. In the world, IN tt
t. church and in the soul of the believer Il
a. gospel sees not yet all things put under
And that for the simple reason that tt
Is is a world Of unfinished things. And ev'
re this may come to us with inspiration, f
I'd unlike the dwellers in the Orient we Ii
BIT in the midst Of unfulilled prophesies. N
rs shall they ever be fulfeled here. 9th
is conditions and other circumstances a
needed. From this incompleteness O
might gather the largest argument for 0
of Immortality. This world is in accordan
~, with a divine purpose, and cannot be {
10 planned unless it tells Of a ful6llment
the ages, yet to come, when this earth sh
m have been replaced by a new earth whe
gs in dwelleth Righteousness. Then He Hi
self shall be satisfied.
The old nhiiOsOnhers nsed tn renrnse