The Penn's Grove record., 1910-07-08
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Dwelling place is the setting sun,
And the round ocean and the living air.
And If behind nature there is this
Power, using nature as a garment,
what shall we call it? What is its
name? The old catechism says: 81
learn to believe in God the Father.
who hast made me and all the
world" What an Interpretation of
mans experience of nature is this
to know that behind and through all
this universe is God, whose relations
to it is that of father or creator;
whose attitude toward it is fatherlyi
Such is the first Interpretation of the
Trinity.
In ones experience of life our hu-
mainly as we'll as nature plays an
important part. There was a time
when nature was here in all its
power, but man had not yet ap-
peared. The earth was the home of
beast and bird and fish. Then came
the human creature, related to all
other living things in many physical
ways, but mentally separated from
the animal world by an ocean Of dis
lance. For unnumbered centuries
now has this human creature lived
upon this planet. He has worked out
institutions, li~teratures, philosophers.
| religions, arts and crafts. Here is a
human development corresponding to
natures life. and yet higher and
more complex.
What is the Interpretation which
throws light upon the facts of human
history? Is man the lord of creation,
or is there some spirit higher than
the human, ~manifesting himself in
and through the human, i~ncarnatine
himself in humanity? Does man find
his highest life in serving and admir-
ing himself, or in serving a divine
spirit which reveals itself to him in
his reason and his conscience? And
if there is some spirit, akin to the
human spirit and yet different from
it, calling men eve to follow him,
what shall we name him? Again i
find the answer in the old catechism
of our childhood: 81 have to believe
in God the Son who hath redeemed
one and all mankind" In mankind
there is at work, and has been
throughout its life on this planet,
God. He has not been simply a Gre
ator, a father, calling nan into being
and sustaining man as He sustains
the physical universe. He is in man
as He is in nature, but revealing
Himself to the human as He could
not t o the brute, as the Power which
upholds the human, feeds it, inspires
it, calls it ever back from the sens
ual to the moral and spiritual, leads
it ever forward to its goal and pur-
pose. In Jesus of Nazareth this Son
God, who is in every man, has
manifested Himself most completely
and perfectly. There is seen. as st.
| John says, the light which tighten
eth every man that cometh into the
world" As nature bears witness to
God the Father, so humanity bears
witness to God the Son.
So does our human life find its
illumination in the divine life. Our
experience with nature. humanity
and our own souls finds its iRterpre-
tation in the truth that God is Father
revealed to us through the nature
which He has made; that God is Son,
manifested in the humanity which
He is redeeming; that God is Holy
Spirit, known in the spirits OF each
one of US whom He is sanetifying.
The truth Of the Trinity does not
end here. It. asserts further that
these three are one. So frequently
men find themselves unable to dwell
at home, in more than one OF these
sides of life. Our scientists are stu
dents of nature; they know the world
of physics, chemistry and biology.
Their spirits roam at home within
those fields. They know God the Fa.
IL. - --@--hf1 Him PuT for hn-
mainly they have little interest; his
tory does not speak to them; and the
spiritual experiences of Individual
men puzzle them and seem morbid
and pathological. Other men there
are for whom nature means nothing
They are appalled, by the apparent
ruthlessness and injustice of her
ways. Their spirits are at home in
the life of humanity. History is the
voice of the Eternal to them, speak
ing words of life. God the Son is
their God and about God the Creator
they are frankly agnostic. There are
still other men for whom neither OF
these voices has q Y meaning. His
tory is the voice of dead ages. Ma
ture has no voice at all. What is real
to them is that Spirit which they
know at first hand through their own
reasons and consciences. 1t is God
the Holy Spirit which is their God
Again and again we find that these
men misunderstood each other.
Their neighbor seems to speak a diff
ferent religious language. Other
men, they sometimes frankly say,
worship a different God.
The undying truth of the Trinity
is that these three are one There is
only one God. But to different men
He manifests Himself in different
ways; to some through nature, to
others through humanity, to others
still through individual experience.
But behind nature, humanity and the
individual life, binding all together
in a splendid unity, is the One Soul
of the universe, related to the uni
verse as the human soul is related to
the body. God grant that from this
Soul, our Father, may proceed to you
and me the Holy Spirit, to bear wit
ness in us to the life and character
of the perfect Son, Christ Jesus.