Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1904-11-24
"THEKNOWLEDGE OF GOD"
A Bright Sunday Discourse By Rev.
Livingston L. Taylor.
TeIls Why Religion Is an Affair Of the Soul
and God-Sectarlan, Dogmatlc
Insistence Is Perll0us.

NUoWleuHt VI Hc lSAC Wdo Aloii
Psalm lxxxiv:2: my heart and my flesh
crieth out for the living God" Mr.. lay
lor said:
come back to this pulpit in no uncer-
tainty Of mind with reference to what my
message should be. | know, at any rate,
where it must begin. Unless l mistak Ike
the terms of my commission, unless l ms
take the nature of the means placed at my
disposal, which are the Bible and the
church, unless | mistake the example of
my Master, it is my business to help men,
so far as in me lies, to find God.
There is no installing 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-
Nealed anew in earth aud sky and sea. TO
me- as to many of you, has come the OPP
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
away from home with us. We have trav-
eed far aiie,d with them in the books
which we have read. How have they
Jared?
For myself | did not by any means get
rid of Jcremiah's words by preaching on
them last Sunday morning. They stay by
me- as they began to stay by me in the
early summer. 1.-The gods that have not
made the heavens and the earth, these
shall perish from the earth and from UNI
der the heavens" Heaven and earth bear
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, OF about the Bible. or about
the life of men and nations. We must
have a God who will not hrea k down aud
perish out OF our souls IN the hour of trial
We must have God who shall be God to
us. our God. even when we can only cry
with job. "Oh. that ] knew where |
might find Him. We must have a God
TO whom we may say, Father, into Thy
hands | commend my spirit IN the very
hour IN which We may have cried My
God my God why hast Thou iorsakcn
me" Such is the God and Father of our
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 dctach 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
whom will bear down upon our minds
more and more heavily as we face more
and more frankly the facts of HE.
Here is man who has been summoned
by midnight message to the bedside OF
his child A. 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
Connections are close. Over every signal
light that delays HIM the engineer sees a
night lamp IN IA sick room that tells HIM
every second lost must be made up. The
conductor nrrvouSly hurrleS passengers oft
and on the tram at every stop. The race
is won. The father stands beside his child.
There are the docuors There are the
nurses. There are friends. Everything
that human love and sympathy and skill
can suggest is being done. Where is thy
GOD? | say, father, where is thy God?
Nature says to HIM, Il have contrivcd a
little sack in your child's body. ! have
illed it with poison. Within twenty,four
hours | propose to break it. Ii break
it your child will die. Ii YOU are willing
to take other chances, let the surgeons re.
move it.. Then 1 will do the best can
for YOU
Some men tell me that their God is ma
ture. Does your God thus speak His whole
mind? Why, that room where a father il
making up his mind what answer to give
to natures ultimatum is flooded with pure
love. Everybody cares. Are YOU ready to
say Every body cares but GodF' There is
a sick child there to be accounted for.
There is harsh ultlmatum of nature to
| be accounted Tor. But there are loving
| hearts III that room to be accounted for.
also. And there is a universal capacity for
sympathy and helpful action to be ac-
counted for. 1t is scene which fairly
represents the tragedy OF the world pro-
| cess. In which aspects of it do you dis
Germ the working OF the higher LAWN the
merciess progress of the disease or in
what is being done to save, to heal. to
comfort? If there Is any purpose, or even
any tendency, to be discovered in such
scene. is 1t the triumph of pain and the
pcrtectlng OF cruelty that is heng pro-
noted! or is 1t the perfectlng OF faith and
love?
Christians should know where to look
Tor God in such scenes. They will find
Him in precisely the place in which they
would look for Jesus Christ. Sometimes
we wonder why so many miracles OF heal
ing are recorded in the gospels May it
not be because God wants us to know
| where to place Him when we are confront
ed by the elemental questions which sick
ness and pain and death are certain to
raise in our minds? 1t is the higher law
which should ever speak to us of God.
1t is with life and healing, with love and
care, that we are taught to associate the
thought of God. In the midst OF life's con-
fusons we know in part, When that
which is perfect is come it will prove to
believe We can even think of ourselves,
when it is all over, looking back and saw.
ing:
with mercy and with judgment
My web OF time He wove,
And aye the dews of sorrow
Were luStered with His love:
III bless the hand that guided
I'll bless the heart that planned.
w hen thron2d where glory dwelleth.
In EmmanueHs land
| like to think of the positive aspects OF
the First Commandment: Thou shalt have
no other God before Ne" That means,
stated positively: Thou shalt have God,
and thou shalt have Me for thy God
Thou shalt have God. 1t is the first law
! God whom nothing can ever make it I'M
reasonable Tor you TO trust. 1t is the
SOUL law OF self preservation How do
we know when we are going to be in criti-
cal need Of faith like Paul's--of faith like
that of our dying Lord? Every man who
suffers needs it. Every man who thinks
needs it.
L say that every man who thinks needs
God. We are, thinking here tonight. We
have been thinking some of the very
thoughts which have stolen away the faith
of many man and many woman. We
| have been facing facts which throw the
mind into an agony. We have been dealing
with conditions which faith has to reckon
with. have talked with men. the tumult
of whose minds made me think of the
north coast waves, as Robert Louis Ste
venson describes them, in all the terror of
them, in all the power of them to wreck
the frail barks in which men voyage. There
may be minds incapable of tumult. There
may be people who cannot understand
how any question relating to religion can
SO stir the mind. young man who
thinks and who knows how to think said
to me not long ago: 81 am swimming for
my life" And he reproached Christian
ministers for their APPARENT failure to real
He that there are multitudes like himself.
whe "a. wrestling with the great Anderly-
ing qhc-tIons OF God or no God soul or no
soul. iW'nor tality or humiliation, Liberty