River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1905-04-13
GOD IN HIS WORLD.
BY LYMAN ABBOTT.

4
What is the word of history!
The historian tells us there is pro.
gress in human development, and
that history illustrates that progress,
and that not only the individual man
grows from babyhood to manhood.
but the whole race of men grow
from infantile beginnings to future.
we know not what. Is there any
meaning in this? Is there any pow
er behind it? And what does this
power mean? And, again, we turn
to historian, not theologian-not
even an orthodox historian-to
Matthew Arnold. He tells that the
one thing history makes sure is that
there is power not ourselves that
makes for righteousness; a power
to-day at work in the world as truly
and as efficaciously as ever in the
past; that the evolutionary processes
that are going on are making for
righteousness.
Finally, we turn to literature, and
we ask one of the great poets to tell
us what is to take the place of this
Romanized conception of an alb
sentee God. What has human ex-
perience to tell? What word have
the men of vision to bring back to
us as the product of their insight in
to human life? And this is Tenny-
sons reply:
s'The sum- the moon, the stars, the seas, the
hills and the plains,
Are not these, o soul, the vision of Him who
reigns?
Dark is the world to thee; myself art the rea-
son why;
For is He not all but that which has power
to feel I am I?
Glory about thee, without thee; and thou full
fllest thy doom,
Making Him broken CLEANS, and a stifed
splendor and gloom.
Speak to Him, thou for He hears, and spirit
with spirit can meet;
Closer is He than breathing and nearer than
hands or feet
The notion of humanized God,
sitting in the center of the universe,
ruling things, is gone; and in the
place of it science has brought us
back this: ave are ever in the
presence of the Infinite;" and history
has brought us back this: "There
is a power not ourselves that makes
for righteousness" and literature
has brought us back this: esprit
with spirit can meet; closer is He
than breathing, nearer than hands
or feet"
Am l then pantheist? Is this
pantheism? suppose there are
great many persons who do feel that
this changed conception of God is
going to destroy the personality Of
the Divine. Is it?
Go into a great cathedral, as St.
Paul's or St. Peters. AS you look
on these great pillars, on this great
dome, this great architecture, you
say: | see here the fruit of the per-
sonality of Wren, or of Michael
Angelo; l am looking on something
more than stones and motar; I am
looking on the work of great mind
and a great heart. But now imagine
for one moment that as you stood
there you could see stone reared up
on stone, and column upon column !;
you could see some invisible hand
tracing the fretwork around the
columns and carving the beautiful
forms; as you looked, the cathedral
grew into its splendid proportions;
and then some invisible force lifted
the great dome and put it like the
dome of heaven on the columns I'M
derneath. Would you think the
personality was gone because it was
operative before your eyes? Am l
to think that there was personal
God six thousand years ago, or six
ty thousand years ago, or six hun
dred thousand years ago, and that
to-day, when l can go out and see
him painting the leaves, and start
ing this fall the beginnings for next
years spring-see the love and life
of the ever-present God at work be-
fore my eyes, can | think thai his
personality is gone? No; a thou