Milford chronicle., 1905-02-17
Ca(naQe
Sermon
BY Rev.
Frank De Witt Talrnase. D. D.

this sermon the benefits that accrue t
men who serve and obey God. The
text is Isaiah Xviii, IS, "Then had thy
peace been as a river"
What art thou doing. o prophet Of
Israeli Art thou taunting thy people
with the blessing they had missed
through forsaklng God and disregard.
ing thy teaching? When trouble
swOOps art thou one of those who say:
Il told you so? II you had only taken
my advice you would not be in the diff
fculty you are in today. If you will
make your bed out Of thOrns and
thistles instead of rose leaves, then
upon the thOrns and thistles you must
lie" Are you like an executiOner who
upbraids and derides the trembling
murderer whose life he is soon to
strangle with the rope? In drawing
your enchanting picture Of peace flow
ing like a river before people harass-
ed by powerful foreign enemies and
disturbed by internal dissensiOns are
you not merely adding to their distress,
as the mirage of the desert aggravates
the thirst Of the dying traveler2 Are
you saying to your miserable people:
"LOOk at those beautiful banks water
ed by the river, rich in fora and tune
full with singing birds. They would
have been all yours If you had not
wandered into the desert of sin, but
now they are lost to you forever"
"Ah, no" says the prophet Isaiah, 'it
is not to aggravate their thirst that l
tell them of this river but to invite
them to return to the way from which
they have wandered; not to exult over
their misfOrtunes, but to warn them Of
the consequences of sin. l am not
here glorying in the suffering of Gods
fallen ones. My river is not composed
of the black waters of the river Styx,
but from the flowing crystal waters Of
the river of life. l am like a loving
father whose wayward son has disre-
garded warnings and has sinned and
brought himself into trouble, and the
father sorrows with him and pleads
with him to repent and assures him |
that if he will fOrsake his sin his wick |
edness shall be forgiven and his peace
shall be like a river, as though he had |
never sinned." May God help us as |
we use the banks of the Jordan or the /
Rhine or the Tiber or the upper .
Thames or the banks of our own po-
etic Hudson for a sacred pulpit. Such
a river bank today may become as
sacred a pulpit as that in the chancel
of Westminster abbey or st. Pauls or
Canterbury cathedral, even though
bishops hand has not consecrated it
or ecclesiastical cOnvocation dedicated
it.
What the River Teaches.
The pleading river, in the first place,
teaches us hat the divine peace which
comes to man must come as the result
of natural law in the spiritual life. 1t
is not the result Of haphazard. 1t is
not miracle as we in the broad sense
term miracle. 1t does not come as
miraculous wind which might dig up a
seed in some Italian garden and in its
teeth lift it above Alpine crag and
carry it over land and sea and without
human aid plant it as an exotic upon
the banks of the Ohio or the MOnOn-
gahela river. But the divine peace
comes to man as the result of a ration
al cause. 1t has a rational source, as
a river has a natural source; it has a
natural flow, as the Jordan has nat
ural flow, and it has a rational outlet,
as the Amazon empties itself into the
Atlantic or the Ganges finds a resting
place in the huge reservoir of the Ben
gal gulf.
A river cannot disObey natural law.
A river cannot become a free lance
among rivers. A river cannot do any
thing that specific gravity says thou
shalt not do" This fact is demonstrate
ed everywhere. climb one of the tall
pyramids of the Rocky mountains.
There upon the highest peak l find
what is called a watershed. Then as
/ stand upon this watershed I repeat
% myself the beautiful words of the
poet:
God sent his messenger, the rain,
And said unto the mountain brook,
rise up and from thy caverns look
and leap with naked, snow white feet
from the cool hills into the heart {
N'f the broad, arid plain"
BIZ, though the mountain brooks may
naO from the cool hills into the heat of !
lie broad, arid plain, it makes a great {
eal of difference into what plain that
alling raindrop shall go, whether it
alls one inch to the right or one inch
b the left of the Rocky mountain wa
rsLed. One inch to the right it flows
ito the gulf Of Mexico; one to the left
flows into the waters Of the Pacific.
he waters Of river must obey S
atural law. Now. if Gods laws are l
iexorable in regulating the source c
nd the course Of a river, are they not +
lually inexorable in reference to the i
ource and the course of his divine q
eace, which is like a river?
The Conditions of Peace.
You must obey Gods laws before you
an enjoy Gods peace. To resist them, o
} disobey him, is to set yourself
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