The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-04-23
SERMON ON DISASTER
BY BISHOP RESTAR|CK
He Quotes the Savior in Opposition to Pagan
Doctrine OF Special Judgments-.The
Brotherhood of Man.

any city, perhaps in the world. How
about Galveston, or Johnstown, were
they particularly bad? In 1882 l was a
Grinnell the day after the cyclone, the
dead, the dying and the wounded were
everywhere and the town and college
were a mass of ruins. Yet Grinnel
was inhabited by a picked people and
practically everyone was law abiding
and Christian. The fact is. a neigh
bors house may burn and I may ex-
press my view that it is a judgment on
his sins and the next week my own
dwelling may be destroyed by fire.
lived in town once where a saloon
was struck by lightning and a minister
preached upon the evident judgment of
God. Within a few days his church
was struck by lightning and burned
whereat the ungodly scoffed.
1t is easy to dogmatiZe and pass
judgment. but in doing so we are apt to
lose the lesson which God has for us.
In fact the whole idea of considering
every misfortune as a punishment of
God is essentially pagan. 1t comes
from a crude and a low view of God.
1t ascribes, as does the pagan view,
sickness and deforrnity to the anger of
the gods and this leads to the sad way
in which such are treated. If a fire
springs up gongs are sounded to drive
away, suppose, the evil gods or devils.
! The idea has in it an element of the
| true, 1 imagine. some glimpse of the
punishment of evil, but the greater part
! of paganism is the desire for good luck
and the avoidance of bad luck. The
very spirit of offerings is rather to
curry favor than to be the expression
| of devotion.
| We meet the difficulties in our
work here. Chinese woman is bap-
tized. Shortly afterwards her baby
dies. Her neighbors come and say
the gods have punished you because
you deserted the religion of Your ia
TIERS" This happened the other day.
But there is not great deal of differ
| ence between these people and the
Christian woman who says to me:
why did God punish me by taking
away my child? What have L done ?"
This is really the cropping out of the
old view which Jacob had of God when
he said: IF God will give me bread
to eat and raiment to put on, then
shall the Lord be my Cod 1t came
Out HI tie <apOSI1SS w nat Sudll we
have therefore q? 1t comes out in
anyone who looks for advantage or
exemption by serving God.
An Oriental said to a boy few days
ago: 'If your God SO strong why He
let this Gomez His idea OF religion
was temporal advantage. The right
spirit was shown by a Chinese Chris
tan who was talking to a japanese,
the converse ton being in broken En-
glish. The latter was ridiculing the
faith of the former. / heard the Chi
nese say: Suppose God do let men
die. He take them to place more bet
ter. You suppose l believe God to
get something? 1 believe Him because
He is my Father
This is the secret of it all. Those
who think God should be chiefly con-
cerned in keeping them from misfor-
tune miss the true conception of God
and moreover they miss the lesson
which the misfortune is intended to
teach.
The revelation of God by Jesus Christ
is that He is our Father, not a vim
dictive powerful Being. The word
father conveys with it the idea of
moral government. The man who pun
ishes a child with no moral purpose in
view is brute. If he loves his child
he will punish him. He will be a weak
being If he does not. Love is often
shown more strongly in correction
than in giving pleasant things. One
use of misfortune is certainly disci-
pine. David said that long ago,
Blessed is the man whom Thou chas-
teneth, o Lord, and teachest him in
Thy law" Or, again, Before 1 was
afflicted went astray, but now have
I kept Thy word 1t is because God
is our Father that it can be said: |
Whom the Lord loveth He chasten-
eth because there is a moral and a
spiritual purpose in all that comes to
us and this purpose we should seek to
understand.
The deep meaning, the great lessons
of adversely, men lose sight of in their
eagerness to pronounce judgments on
others. This is what Jesus brings home
to His hearers by his emphatic: II
say unto you Nay" Their attitude
came from a wrong view of God and
of their service of God and it had a
lamentable effect on their religious
life
What lessons are there, then for us
in the terrible disaster which has come
upon the city to which we are SO close
ly related? Let us try to see what God
has for us in all this. We think per-
haps, it is a terrible cost to pay for
lessons. And yet it's cost in life is
not as great as that which is the re-
suit of many small enga cement in
war. If we count dollars, nations
spend millions a day to destroy each
other But what are some of the les
sons?
First of all, in our national, civic
and business life there is a greed
which is positively stupendous And
yet greed by the laws of God. which
We call the laws of nature brings suf-
fering, loss. disaster 1t is a proverb
of the nations that i'll gotten gains