Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1913-04-10
OUTLINES MANS TASK IN MASTERING THE
PHYSICAL THINGS OF LIFE IN HIS SERMON.
Dr.. s. c. Bronson Of Garrett Biblical Institute Draws
Lessons From the Recent Disasters by Tornado
and Floods in Omaha and the Eastern States.

dIlu + lOOOS LII OIIldl10
The awful catastrophies Of the pas
month, the Omaha tornado and TIL
foods OF Ohio and Indiana, served d.
8. 6. Bronson Of Evanston, Ill, wit
the ground work for an inspiring SCI
mon on his last visit to the First NJ
K. church of this city. The Carrot
Biblical institute minister drew SOM
lessons from the devastating storm
ana floods that impressed him with thu
utter. inability of man to cope with thu
forces Of nature. The speaker EN-
phasixed, first, mans greatly neglected
task of completing his mastery Of the
physical things Of life; secondly, the
accomplishment Of this for purely hi
manitarian purposes, to conserve life
and bring comfort to all, and thirdly
for the higher and racial purpose OF
coming to his own in world OF
power and opportunity.
DR.. Bronson's sermon Is complete
% follows:
Sees Lessons In Disasters.
The text Is found in the second chap
ter of tho Hebrews, verses 6, Z, 8.
But one hath somewhere testified,
saying, what ig man that thou art
mindful Of him? Or the son of man,
that thou visitest him? ;, Thou madest
him for L little while lower than tho
angels: thou crowndest him with glory
and honor, and didst set him over. the
works OF thy hands: thou didst r"t all
things in subsection under his feet"
Two weeks ago when l was with
you on the Easter Sunday the city Of
~ os.n4$ yy{th ~ In ~
storm, and Iowa, Illinois and Indiana
suffered also. bringing the deaths to
upwards Of two hundred and nifty. Two
days later the floods let loose in Ohio
md Indiana, and these disasters, not
yet ended by any means. all occurring
since my visit to you two weeks ago,
make up one Of the great disaster
stories of our history-"a nationa! ca
lamity' as President Wilson has aptly
called It, @~ ~ .t
am moved to seize the opportun-
ity offered and draw some lessons
which force themselves or ones mind.
The first has reference to mans mas
terry of the forces of nature. On that
Easter morning, as now recall. was
speaking to you of some of these
.nasteries, but the disasters since on
y remind one of mans weakness. A.
ter al it is small gain which man has
~ yet made. And perhaps but for
one thing it would be needless for me
to speak Of these things to you this
morning. That one thing is this; that
men today face this great national ca
lamity with different spirit than any
OF the past Instead of being driven
to cover and defeat, one has read the
expressions of opinion very loosely in
deed not TO-. have discovered that, as
never before. men are asking. not how
the flood and tornado sufferers can be,
relieved, but how these dreadful
things can be circumvented. All over
ID expressed the conviction that they
can be mastered. and that the time has
come for doing 1t; and unless one
misses his guess, venture to say that
man will arise out OF this, first to mas
ter the floods, and then to disarm the
tornadoes. If you should smile at this
last suggestion, just remember as l
enter upon my defense, that men have
smiled before this at the suggestion Of
controlling the floods; earlier than
that at the suggestion Of controlling
the lightning Remember also that no
advance over nature has ever been
made, the frst suggestion Of which
was not greeted with an incredulous
smile.
Must Master Conditions.
Slow mastery is this of man-all too |
)slow, but now, 80 I venture to believe, |
Ito be greatly accelerated. This mas
kery of nature marks mans ascent |
from the animal to civilization. The
Edenic story clearly gives us the pur-
pose and thought of God. Man was
given the task of mastering the physi-
cal world Of his being. Perhaps our
first parents did not, certainly their
descendants did not know very much
about these tremendous forces Of ma
ture, At least for upwards of six
Thousand years man has stood chat
tering idiot before these terrific pow.
ers. Instead Of mastering them he has
worshipped them, worshipped them
because he dreaded them. Intended
by a merciful providence to be mans
servants, they have instead beaten
man back thousands of years in his
development If this chattering idiot
had but applied himself as God in
tended, long before this these physical
conditions would have been conquered
and mans thought thus liberated from
the task of lodging the blind forces
of nature, would have addressed itself
to the problems of mental and spirit
ual development, Of which the race
stands greatly in need.
One is reminded Of the apostles
the physical, then the
spiritual. For man never will rise
very high mentally, and so spiritually,
until he has mastered the physical con.
ditions of the world about him. The
cathedrals of intellect and soul can
only be built by the aid Of the physical
scaffolding which nature supplies, and
for want OF this scaffolding man has
been delayed some thousands of years
in his development.
And though it may seem to bear no
sort of relation to my theme, am yet
tempted to say that it is mans sin
his missing of the mark-for that is
the meaning of the word-that has
kept man in this hopeless subjugation
to natures forces. He aimed wrong,
and neither God, nor nature will toll
1erate, or entrust with powers like