The Penn's Grove record., 1904-02-12

hiuoeh WaY Ever Life Should BE
an Open. Seif-CODtained Providence
Lose Not Heart and Hope.
BROOKLYN, N. Y.-Dr. Robert CoI;ver.
who recently passed his eightieth birthday
preached Sunday morning in the Second
Unitarian Church. The audience filled
the church and listened with great atten-
ton to the eloquent words of the famous
preacher. DR.. Col.yer took for his subject
Light on a Hidden Way" His text was
JOB Ill: 5: Why is light given to a man
whose way is hid?" He said:
The Book of Job" saws Thomas Carly,e
is one of the grandest things ever written
with a pen: our first statement, in books.
OF the problem of the destiny of man and
the way God takes with him on this
earth; grand in it's simplicity and epic
melody, sublime in its sorrow and recon
citation; a choral melody, old as the
heart OF man, soft as the summer mid
night, wonderful as the word with its
seas and stars; and there is no other thing
In the Bible, or out of it, of equal merit"
L suppose it is not possible now to tell
whether the book is a true story or a sort
OF Oriental drama. The question is one
that Will always keep the critics at work
as long. as there are rational and what
ought, In all fairness. to be called not
rational schools in theology. NV own
idea is that the rude outline of the story
was Heating about the desert, as the story
OF Lear or Macbeth hoated about in later
times among our own fore-elders, and that.
like those great dramas, it was taken into
the heart OF some man now forgotten and
came out again endowed with this Won
drous quality of inspiration and life, that
Will bear it onward through all time. But
whatever the truth may be in this direc-
ton this is clear, that when Job put the
question | have taken for a text he was as
TAR down IN the world as a man can be
who is not abased by sin.
job had been the richest man in the
countryside, honored by all who knew him
for his wisdom, his goodness or his money.
He was now so poor that. he says. men
derided him whose fathers he would not
have set with the dogs of his flock. He
had been a sound. healthy man, full Of
human impulses and activities; he had been
sight to the blind, feet to the lame, a
father to the poor and a defender Of the
oppressed. He was now a diseased and
broken man, sitting in the ashes of a
ruined home; his fires all gone out, his
household goods all shattered, his children
all dead, and his wife, the mother OF his
ten children, lost to the mighty love which
will take ever so delicate and true-hearted
a woman at such a time and make her
a tower of strength to the man. His wife,
who should have stood, as the angels stand,
at once by his side and above him, turned
on him in his uttermost sorrow, and said,
Curse God, and die"
Two things, in this sad time, seem to
have smitten Job with -nnconquerable
pam. First, he could not make his condi-
ton chord with his conviction of what
ought to have happened. He had been
trained to believe in the axiom we put up
IN our Sunday-schoois, that to be good Is to
be happy. Now he had been good and yet
here he was. as miserable as it was pos
slble for a man to be. And the worst Of
all was, he could not deaden down to the
level of his misery. The light given him
on the divine justice would not let him
rest. His subtle spirit, pierced, restless,
dissatisfied, tried him every moment.
Questions like these came up in his mind:
why have l lost my money? l made il
honestly, and made good use Of it. Why
Is my home ruined? l never brought upon
it one shadow of disgrace. Why am l
bereaven of my children, and worse than
bereaven of my wife? If this is the result
OF goodness, where is cause and effect?
What is there to hold on by, if all this
misery and mildew can come of upright,
downright truth and purity?"
The second element in Jobs misery
seems to lie in the fact that there appeared
to be light everywhere except on his own
life. Ii life would only strike a fair aver
oSCy ii OlucI ROOQ mSH BdU SuueIGQ. TOO.
or even bad men-then he could bear it
better. But the world went on Just the
same. The sun shone with as much
splendor as on his wedding day. The moon
poured out her tides of moulton gold, night
fretted the blue vault with fires, trees
b~lossomed, birds sang, and young men and
maidens danced under the palms. Other
homes were full of gladness. This man
had sold his clip for a great price; the
HnhfnTnm ho1 slain T0hfs e1aaD TI.4
man had lone well in dates; the tornado
had twisted Jobs trees down. Nay. worst
of all. here were wicked men, mighty in
wealth; their houses in peace, without fear;
their children established in their sight,
sending forth little ones like a flock, spend
1ng their days In prosperity and yet say
ing, Who is the Almighty that we should
fear Him. While here he was. a poor
wreck, stranded on a desolate shore: a
broken man, crying, "Oh, that it were with
me as In days gone by, when the candle of
the Lord shcne round about me; when /
took my seat In the market place, and
justice was my robe and diadem. When /
think of it. / am COMPOUNDED. One dieth
in the fullness of his prosperity, wholly
at ease and quiet; another dieth in the
bitterness of his soul, not having tasted
pleasure. How is it? What does it mean?
Why is light given to a man whose way is
hid?"
Now, / suppose that not many men ever
fall into such supreme desolation as this,
that is made to centre in the life of this
most sorrowful man. sit is the possible
of that which is in itself positive" But
then, it is true that we may reach on. in
all directions and find men. and women
who are conscious of the light shining, but
who cannot find the way; whose condition
win not chord with their conception of
life, and who, In a certain sense, would
be better if they were not so good. The
very perfection of their nature is the way
by which they are most easily bruised.
Keen, earnest, onward, not satisfied to be
below their own ideal, they are yet
turned so woefully this way and that by
adverse circumstance that. at the last,
they come to accept their life as a doom,
and bear it in grim silence, or they cut
the masts when the storm comes and
drift, a helpless hull, broadside to the
breakers, to go down finally like a stone.
A young man comes to town from the
country full OF purpose and hope. He finds
difficulties confront him: be strives. but
remains poor. At last, when hungry and
faint and alone, the devil comes-a nice
person, probably, but still a devil-and
tempts him. The young man yields. Or,
he succeeds, and then slides into the belief
that there is a Providence that will keep
him prosperous because he is a good man.
OlSdSl6E EOflcSs anu lie lOSGS DIS all. IN
Guiding mis- belief in God. Or, a maiden
leaves her home full of trust and love.
Under adverse conditions she loses hope,
and asks: why is life given when the
way is hidg"
And so, I say, in men and nations you
win find everywhere this discord between
the longing that is in the soul, and what
the man can do. Our life. as some one
said of the Cathedral of Cologne. seems to
be a broken promise made to God.
Now, in trying to find some solution of
this question, / want to say frankly that
| cannot pretend to make the mystery all
clear, so that it will give you no more
trouble; because / cannot put a girdle
around the world in forty minutes, and
also because a full solution must depend
greatly on our own dissolution. l believe,
also, that the man who thinks be has left
nothing unexplained, in the mystery of
providence and life, has rather explained
nothing. / listen to him, if I am in trou.
bic, and then go home and break my heart
all the same, because / see that he has not
only not cleared mp the mystery, but that
he does not know enough about it to
trouble him. The ePrincipia" and the
Single Rule of Three are alike simple and
easy to him because he does not know the
Rule of Three. And so l cannot he sat
isfied with the last words which some later