The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1904-11-24
4 SERMON FOR SUNDAY
A STRONG DISCOURSE ENTITLED.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD"
The Rev. Livingston L. Taylor Tells Why
Religion is an Affair of the Soul and
Cod Sectarian, Dogmatic Insistence
is Perilous.

Is Her1IouS.
BRooKLYN, n. Y.-Sunday evening, in
the Puritan Congregational Church, the
pastor, the Rev Livingston L. Taylor, had
for the subject of his sermon, The
knowledge Of God" The text was from
Psalm lxxxiv:2: My heart and my flesh
crieth out for the living God" Mr.. lay
lor said:
I 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 mistake
the terms of my commission, unless I mis-
take the nature of the means placed at my
disposal, which are the Bible and the
church, unless I mistake the example of
my Master, it is my business to help mec,
so far as in me lies, to find God.
There is no mistakiEg 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
away from home with US. We have trav-
eied far aGeld with them in the books
which We have read. How have they
Jared?
For myself I 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-
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, or about the Bible, or about
the life of men and nations. We must
have God who will not break down and
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, 1'Oh, that I knew where
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
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
Mesent 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 fash Of some great
whom will bear down upon or minds
and more frankly the facts Of life.
Here is 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.
Connections are close. Over every signal
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 OFT
and on the train at every stop. The race
IS won. The father stands beside his child.
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!
Mature says to him, II have contrived a
little sack in your child's body. I have
filed it with poison. Within twenty-four
hours I propose to break it. If I break
it your child will die. If you are willing
to take other chances, let the surgeons re-
move it.. Then I will do the best I can
for you"
Some men tell me that their God is ma
ture. Does your God thus speak His whole
nfind9 Why, that room where father IS
making up his mind what answer to give
to natures ultimatum is flooded with pure
love. Everybody cares. Are you ready to
say Everybody cares but God?" There is
sick child there to be accounted for.
There IS harsh ultimatum of nature to
be accounted for But there are loving
hearts in that room to be accounted for,
also. And there is universal capacity for
sympathy and helpful action to be ac-
counted for. 1t is a scene which fairly
represents the tragedy of the world pro-
cess. In which aspects OF 1t do you dis
Germ the working of the higher LAWN the
merciiess progress OF the disease or in
what is being done to save, to heal, to
any tendency. to be discovered in such
scene, is it the triumph of pain and the
perfecting of cruelty that is being pro-
noted? or is it the perfecting of faith and
love-
Christians should know where to look
for 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 Wnen we are CONFRONT
ed by the elemental questions which sick
ness and pain and death are certain to
raise in our minds? It is the higher law
which should ever speak to rs of God.
Il 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-
fusions we know in part. When that
which is perfect is come it will prove to
be-love. We can even think of ourselves,
when it IS all over, looking back and say
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,
III bless the heart that planned.
When thronsd where glory dwelleth,
In EmnlanueFs land"
like to think of the positive aspects Of
tne First Commandment: Thou shalt have
TO other God before Me" That means,
stated positively: Thou shalt have God,
and thou shalt have Me for thy God
Thou shalt have God. It is the first law
of the soufs own life. Thou shalt have a