The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1905-01-11
1.-THE EVER PRESENT GOD"
A Strong Sunday Sermon By The Rev.
DR.. Lyman Abbott.
The Deal Toward Which the Transition Of
Theology Should Lead Us.

vi the luRllins sunday morning IN tne an
sence OF the pastor, the Rev Dr. II. p.
Dewey. DIR. Lyman Abbott's subject was,
The Ever Present God" and he took for
his text Romans, x:6-7S: "But the right
eousness which is of faith speaketh on this
wise say not in thy heart who shall as
eend into heaven tthat is, to bring. Christ
down from above) or. who shall descend
again from the dead), but what saith itg
The word is nigh thee, it is in thy mouth
and in thy heart that is. the word Of
faith which we preach" He said:
The word" in the New Testament
means, God speaking. A friend sits by
and his speech reveals the soul Of man.
SO the word Of God reveals the unknown
God to us. We have not to go to the
depths to find the manifestation OF God is
all about us and within us. We are all fa-
miliar with the statement that we. are
passing through a transition in theology.
IL it were only transition in theology y
would not disturb us much. We could
leave the theologians to study the theology
of the future for themselves. But 1T IS also
a transition in religious experience. i am
sure that the older members OF this con-
gregation can trace in their lives, more or
less, a change. not Simply in their intellect.
ual opinions OF religion. but in their really
vital religious experience. We used to
think, in our boyhood. of God as King
sitting on the Great White Throne. with
the angels gathered about Him and singing
to Him. He was far away: We sent our
prayers up to Him by kind of spiritual
sometimes He would give us those things
and sometimes He would not. But this
was our experience of prayer, and that was
our notion of the answer to PRAYER: and
this faraway God, sitting on the Great
White. Throne, had revealed Himself to
men through the Bible and through the
Christ. 1t was great historic revelation,
and we went back, more or less conscious
of that revelation of the faraway God in
the faraway historic time and we went to
that Bible to find out what it told us re-
specting Gods law. of what was required
OF MS, and the things with respect to
Gods grace, what He would do for us, and
with many of us that experience has not
changed. The picture of the great King
has grown dim and indistinct or disap-
peared altogether, and remains. If it re.
mains at all. as a recognized picture and
not a reality. And chat Christ, who
seems to us a mediator between God and
man, revelation of thes faraway God, has
also grown faraway. That is, we have
come to recognize that He is great his
toric figure, and we are, more or less, per-
picked as to what His revelation is OF the
faraway God, and what His relation to us
is, and our prayers have changed and our
we can no longer take a text out of the !
Bible and rest upon it as final and abso-
Lutte authority. If we try, perhaps some
succeed and some fall.
WHAT I do want this morning is to
point out. not what has taken place, but to :
indicate the goal toward which this transi.
tion should lead us; what is the Promised
Land toward which we should look; what
is the religious experience we may hope /
for in the future to take the place of this
religious experience of the past, that has
grown dim and indistinct and which is only
hall believed. In the first place, am sure
thai, while we have been undergoing this
been bringing to us larger, if vaguer,
conception Of God. God does not work
only. through the church; He does not
speak only through the preacher. Religion
is not spiritual conduit through which
the water OF life is brought down to man. I
ticuler channels of grace alone. The Bible !
lNys it falls like gentle rain. It is univer.
vi. and we may look outside the church .
and among the forces that we have con-
sidered forces for skepticism, for the forces
which are giving us more indefinite idea
Of religion and, think, a nearer view of
God. am not going to try to state the
reason. l am only stating the fact. Her
bert Spencer has summed up in single
sentence what he thinks is the result of
scientific investigation and experience.
Amid all the mysteries by which we are
surrounded nothing is more certain than
that we are ever in the presence of Eternal
Entrgy, from which all these things pro-
ceed." What science has taught is this:
You are not to go back to creative DAYS to
find God, though in some period God
launched the world and put His children
here and intervening now and then in spe.
cial necessity; you a . not to think Of God
hak t. -. ( n
eternal energy here. Yes. as ever in the
presence of the eternal energy always
creating, always controllng-in the growth
OF every flower and in the perfume, in the
flight of every bird
Science says that God is not remote.
He is here. and you can go out into the
Prospect Park this afternoon and find
Hin in the brown trees. beneath the
ground, and in the hidden life that next
spring is to burst forth; for God is life.
and there is no explanation for any of the
phenomena OF life except in the indwelling
OF the Eternal: II we turn from science to
literature we find much closer and more
ton OF the change that is coming over the
thoughts OF men. The poets are all pro.
phets They tell us beforehand what is
the fate that by and by we shall come to.
Let me read one such Interpretation. 1t is
from Tennyson:
4, ~, SUM, VIZ iaioois tue stars tne sea-
the. hills and the flowers are not these, o,
soul. the vision Of Him who reigns?
Dark is the world to thee; thyself art
the reason why. For is He not all but that
which has power to feel, / am 1?
GLORY about thee, within thee, and thou
fulfillest thy doom.
Making Him broken CLEANS, and a
stitied 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 and
feet"
The universal presence, universal com.
munion, in the hearts of men, as it was in
the. heart OF Moses: in the hearts Of wea-
ried souls, as in the heart of David when
he wrote the Twenty-third Psalm; in The
hearts of disc0nsolate souls, as in the
heart Of Isaiah; in the hearts of men now. |
as in the hearts of men then-a living
presence. We are not to ascend into the |
heavens to bring Him down from great |
white throne, but to look within. In thine
heart thou shalt find Him. This is the |
gospel OF faith" says St. Paul, that we
preach unto you"
And SO with prayer. It comes in our
experience-sjust this; Spirit with spirit
meeting, spirit with spirit talking. Not
the going after something, though it may
be that, but the receiving something, pre-
epinent communion, fellowship, compan.
ionshp., 1t Is this conception, into which
some OF us have come unwillingly; into
which some OF us have drifted, we do not
know how; into which some have grown
and some with wrench from
which we have not. recoyered-this concep.
tion of the universal presence which
p,ioht rarhane hava ~ affaot .f Jsi