The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1904-07-14
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE ENTITLED
:.'uNFlNISHED THINGS"
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 o Plan.

estins Address Upon the First and
Last Words in the scriptu1 es-Be Not
Impatient, God Has q Plan.
BROOKLYN, n. Yin the Strong Place
Baptist Church Sunday morning the pas,
tor, the Rev. A. H. c. Morse. preached
a strong sermon on diminished Things"
He said
My sermon this morning is based upon
the first and the last words in the Scrip
ture: In the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth" Even so, come
Lord Jesus And between these texts
there is an immeasurable distance. The
first deals with the beginning OF things:
The last closes the Bible with note of
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
event to which the whole creation moves"
Il would solve many troubles in our
thinking if we remembered that we live in
a world of unfinished things. This earth
is not finished product. 1t is rather the
SUN of all the forces with which it was
stored in the beginning. 1t is what some
one has called an eSpectant creation. 1t
stands with shaded eyes looking toward
the future. Hidden behind all its move
ment there is a divineiy appointed end.
Men may correct all their false ideas OF
evolution in the light OF TINS slngie tTus5. y tn
But in the beginning they must post God.
Life is an unfinished product. Whoever
saw finished life? In a great workshop
we must look for noise and dust and tu-
multi and confusion. We also look Ior the
finished product, but it is not there. AS
soon as a. 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. ''It 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. Ii this
world has ever seen the perfect, it is only
that it would be removed. Life is great
school. What man is, OF 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 vast madhouse, her inhabitants
are drunk with delirium, the fields are be-
coming bankrupt, and the harvests are
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 false Interpretation. The
world is filed with madness. 1t does reek
in cruelty and greed. But still I am
taught that this world is Gods, and that
it is working for divinely appointed end.
It manifests along its 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
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 gleam of iar-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
ing years have said he could never have.
And his life has failed and his possessions
have taken flight. 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-
were complete, if this were the end, then
we should have to-day the ultimate stand
ard Of 'shecess Our ddss::lent 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
whole, whose greater part hes 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
immediate future.
Shall I be misunderstood if I point out
that the earthly life Of the Saviour par
took of this same incomp.eteness? His ac-
tons, His parallels, His whole teaching
constitute a promise Of the future. His
life led to His death, His death to His res
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" Il is as
though the lines of life projected lar be-
yond our farthest ken, and could be fol-
lowed only by an infinite hope. Why was
not Jesus one of the disappointed: Ii ever
a man had right to be pessinist it was
He. He found that the world did not
want Him, the rulers of the state had no
place Tor Him, the church Of Judea that
God had been training for 1880 years to
look for Him did not know Him. Why
was He not in despair? Because He had
in Himself the wells of JOY. Not the 10y
of Indifference, not the Joy of Him who
sees and .does not care. But the JOY of
Him who sees all, and through all to the
living God. Just as in one of Corot's pic
lures you can see in the foreground the
gnaried and blackened trunks, and be-
yond all and behind all the clear shining
of the sky.
The gospel with its mission still unac-
compEshed is another instance of that
thought before Us. In the world, in the
church and in the soul of the believer the
gospel sees not yet all things put under it.
And that for the simple reason that this
is 4 world of unfinished things. And even
this may come 20 us with inspiration, for
unlike the dwelie-s in the Orient we live
in the midst OF unfu filled prophesies. Nor
shall they ever be fulneied here. Other
conditions and other circumstances are
needed. From this incompieteness one
might gather the largest argument for our
immortality. This world IS in accordance
with divine purpose, and cannot be ex-
planned unless it tells of a fulfllment in
the ages, yet to come, when this earth shall