THE NATURE OF GOD. Dr. Talmage Expectations of the Day When That Which is Only Dimly Seen Will Be Fully Revealed. Evidence of Divine Power~(od s Inlinite Love «His Nature Never Changes. [Copyright 1801.1 Wasnizyaron, D. C.~In this discourse r. Talmage raises high expectations of the day when that which is now anly dimly seen will be fully revealed; text, Job xxvi, 14: “Lo, these are parts of His ways. But how little a portion is heard of Him? But the thunder of His power who can understand *” The least understood being in the uni- verse is God. Blasphemous would be any attempt by painting or sculpture to rep- resent Him. Egyptian hieroglyphs tried to suggest Him by putting the figure of an eye upon a Sr implying that God sees and rules, but how imperfect the sug- gestion! When we speak of Him it is 8 most always in a language figurative. He is “Light” or “Dayspring From on High,” or He is a “High Tower” or the “Foun- tain of Living Waters.” His splendor is 80 great that no man can see Him and live. When the group of great theolog- ians assembled in ea, Abbey for the purpose of making a system of re- ligious belief, they first of all wanted an answer to the question, “Who is God?*” No one desired to undertake the answer- ing of that overmastering question. They finally concluded to give the task to the Youugest man in the assembly, who hap- pered to be Rev. George Gillespie. He coasented to undertake it on the condi- tion that they would first unite with him In prayer for divine direction. He began his prayer by saying, “O God, Thou art a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in Thy being, wisdom, power holiness, Justice, goodness and truth That first sentence of Gillespie's prayer was unani- mously adopted by the assembly as the best definition of God. But, after all. it was only a partial success, and after everything that language can do when put to the utmost strain and all we can see of God in the natural world and real- ze of God in the providential world we are forced to cry out with Job in my text “Lo, these are parts of His ways. But how little a portion of Him heard ? But the thunder of His power who can understand *” Archbishop Tillotson and Dr. Dick and Timothy Dwight and Jonathan Edwards of the past and the mightiest theologians of young century have discoursed upon the power of God, the attribute of omnipotence. And we have all seen dem- onstration of God's almightiness. It might have been far out at sea when in an equinoctial gale God showed what ¥e could do with the waters. It might habe been in an August thunderstorm in the mountains when God showed what He could do with the lightnipgs. It might have been in South America when Gad showed what He could do with the earth- uakes. It might have been among the Alps when God showed what He could do with the avalanches. Our cheek was blanched, our breath stopped, our pulses fluttered. our whole being was terrorized, but we bad seen only an instance of di vine strength. What was the power of that storm compared with the power which holds all the oceans’ What was the power that shook the hills compared with the power that swings the earth through all the centuries and for 6000 years, and in a formative and incomplete shape for hundreds of thousands of years? What is that power that sustains our world compared with the power which rolls through immensity the entire solar system and all the constellations and gal- axies and the universe? The mightiest f ull is this intellect of man would give away if for a moment there came upon it the f ap- preciation of what omnipotence 1s. What you and I see and hear of divine strength are only “parts of His ways. But how little a portion is heard of Him! But the thunder of His power who can under stand?” ¥ to satisfy ourgelves with saying tural law that controls things ion 1s at work; centripetal apd al forces respond to each other.” t is natural Jaw? It is only God's loing things. At every point in it is God's and eon- } controls and harmon- That power withdrawn one inst would make the planetary sys tem and all the worlds which astronomy reveals one universal wreck, bereft hemis phsres, dismantled sunsets, dead constel debris of worlds. What power it must be that keeps the internal fires of our world imprisoned, only here and there from a Cotopaxi or a Stromboli ‘esuvius, putting Pompeii and eum into sepulcher, but for the most part the internal fires chained in their cages of rock and century after cen- tury unable to break the chain or burst open the door! What power to keep the component parts of the air in right pro- portion, so that all around the world the nations may breathe in health, the frosts and the heats hindered from working uni- versal demolition! Power, as Isaiah says, “to take up the isles as a very little thing”"—Ceylon and Borneo and Hawaii ay though they were pebbles; power to weigh the “mountains in scales” and the “hills in balances”—Tenerife and the Cor dilleras. To move a rock we must have lever and screw and great machinery, but God moves the world with nothing but a word: power to create worlds and power to destroy them, as from the observatories again and again they have been seen red with flame, then pale with ashes and then scattered, What is that power to us’ asks some one. It is everything to us. With Him on our side, the reconciled God, the sym- pathetic God, the omnipotent God, we may defy all human and satanic antago isms, and when we are shut in by obsta- cles we can say, as did one of Frobisher's men when the sailor was describing how their ship was surrounded by icebergs in the Arctic sea, “The ice was strong, but God wae stronger than the ice.” And, whatever opposition we may have, our God is mightier than the opposition. All right with God, we may have the courage of the general dying on the battlefield. He asked to be turned, and when they #aid, “Which way shall we turn you?” he gaid, “Turn my face toward the enemy.” What a challenge that was uttered by the old missionary hero, “If God be for us. who can be against us?’ Think of it (iod is the only being in the universe who has power to do as He pleases. All hu. man and angelic forces have environments, There are things they cannot do, heights they cannot scale, depths they cannot fathom. We get some little idea of the divine power when we see how it buries the roudest cities and nations. Ancient Memphis it has ground up until many of its ruins are no larger than your thumb nail, and you can hardly find a souvenir large enough to remind vou of your visit. The city of Tyre is under the sea which washes the shore on which are only a few srumbling pillars left. Sodom and Go morrah are covered by waters so deathful that not a fish can live in them. bylon and Nineveh are so blotted out of exiat- ence that not one uninjured shaft of their ancient splendor remains. Nothing but omnipotence could have put them down and put them under, e antediluvian world was able toMsend to the postdilu- vian world only one ship, with a very small passenger Nst. Omnipotence first rolled the seas over the land and t told them to go back to their usual chan. nels as rivers and la and oceans. At Omnipotent command the waters pouno- their br a at Omnipotent ° into their appro- . such rel try arouse our appreciation of what omnip- direct a bab aL ustains Ant ations, otence is, and our reverence is excited, and our adoration is intensified, but after all we find ourselves at the foot of a mountain we cannot climb, hovering over a depth we cannot fathom, at the rim of a circumference we cannot compass, and we feel like firet going down on our knees and then like falling flat upon our faees as we exclaim: “Lo, these are parts of His ways. But how little a portion ig heard of Him? But the thunder of His power who can understand?’ So all those who have put together sys. tems of theology have discoursed alge about the wisdom of God. Think of a wise dom which cap know the end from the beginning, that knows the thirtieth cene tury as well as the first century, We can guess what will happen, but it is only a guess. Think of a mind that can hod all the past and all the present aud all the future. We can contrive and invent om a small scale, but think of a wisdom that could contrive a universe. Think of a wisdom that can learn nothing new, a wis- dom that nothing can surprise, all the facts, scenes and occurrences of all time to come as plainly before it as though they had already transpired. He could have built all the material universe into one world and swung it, a glorious mass, through immensity, but behold His wis dom in dividing up the grandeurs into in- numerable workis rolling splendors on ail sides, diversity, amplitude, majesty, in- finity. Worlds, worlds, moving in com. lete order, shining with complete ra- disnce. Mightiest telescope on one hand and most powerful microscope on the other, discovering in the plan of God not one imperfection. Witty writers sometimes depreciate the thunder and say it is the lightning that strikes, but 1 am sure God thinks well of the thunder, or He would not make so much of it, and all up and down the Bible He uses the thundér to give emphasis. It was the thunder that shook Sinai when the law was given. It was witn thunder that the Lord discomfited the Philis tines at Eben-ezer. Job pictures the war horse as having a neck clothed with thunder. St. John in an apocalyptic vision ain and again heard the thunder. The thunder, which 1s now quite well explained by the elec- tricians, was the overpowering mystery of the ancients, and, standing among those mysteries, Job exclaimed: “Lo, these are parts of His ways. But how little a por- tion is heard of Him? But the thunder of His power who can understand?” So, also, all systems of theology try to tell us what is omnipotence—that is, God's capacity to be everywhere at the same time. “Where is God?’ said a heathen philosopher to a Christian man. The Christian answered, “Let me ask vou where He is not?” The child had it right when, asked bow many Gode are there, and he answered, “One.” “How do you know that*’ he was asked again. He an swered, “There is only room for one, fo He fills earth and heaven.” t says that if a man were set in tl heavens he would not be any nearer esgence of God than if he were in th centre of the earth. I believe it. If this divine essence does reach all places, what use in our prayer, for prayers are being offered to God on the other side of the earth as well as here, and God must be there and here to take supplica. tions which are offered thousands of miles apart. Ubiquity! No one has it but God And what an alarm to wickedness, an everywhere present Lord, and what a re- enforcement when we need help! God on the throne and God with the kneeling child saying his evening prayer at his mother’s lap. God above you, God be- neath fou, God on the right of you, God cn the léft of you, God within you. No pantheism, for that teaches that ail things are God, but Jehovah possesses all things, as our souls possess our bodies. God at the diameter and circumference of everything, as close to you as the food you put to your hips, as the coat vou put upon your back, as the sunlight that shines In your face. Appreciation of that, if through Jesus Christ, the atoning Ha viour, we are right with God, ought give us a serenity, tranquillity, nothing could upset. W ald it make gloomy! No, for God is the God of and will augment our happiness We have all been reminded in Our own expenences that we cannot two places at the same tithe, and yet here comes the thought that God places at the same time. Mad tronomer, went on h of the heavens until he conclu star Aleyone, if the Pleiad centre of the universe, and it was a fixed world, and all ti worlds revolved round that world, and some think that that world is heaven and God's throne is 1 there reside the nations of the * nos Ve Irn one re and blessed. But He is no more there tha is here. Indeed Aleyone has been to be in motion, and it also is revol around some great centre. But no place has yet been found where God is not present by sustaining power. Omnipres- ence! Who fully appreciates it? Not I; not you. Sometimes we hear Him in a whisper: sometimes we hear Him in the voice of the storm that jars the Adirondacks. Put we cannot swim across this ocean. The finite cannot measure the infinite. We feel as Job did after finding God in the gold mines and the silver mines of Asia saying, “There is a vein for the silver and a piace for the gold where they fine it.” he mature of God pever changes, and from all eternity that hol ssion glowed in the Infinite, and I think fe was throw. ing out worlds into space and inhabiting them and mere worlds for the application of that love. He may not have told the other worlds what He did for this world, as He has not told us what He did for them. I think the love of God was dem- onstrated in mightier worlds before our little world was fitted up for human resi- dence. Will a man owning 50,000 acres of dand put all the cultivation on a half acre? Will God make a million worlds and put His chief affection on one small planet? Are the other worlds and larger worlds standing vacant, uninhabited, while this little world is crowded with in. habitants? No, it takes a universe of worlds to express the love of God. And there are other ransoms and other rescues and other redemptions, as there may be other millenniums and other resurrection yviug of our world. But in the space of six feet by five was comprised the mightiest evidence of God's Jove that any world ever saw or ¢yer will see. Compressed on two planks joined together as a cross, there was enough agony there econcen- trated, if distributed, to put whole na- tions into torture, That God allowed the assassination of His own Son for the res- cue of our world is all the evidence needed that He loved the world. Go ahead, O church of God! Go ahead, O world, and tell as well as you can what the love of God is, but know beforehand that Paul was right when he said, “It passeth knowledge.” let other poets take up the story of God's love where William Cowper and Isaac Watts and Chacles Wesley and Horatius Bonar left it, and let other painters juprore upon the “Sis. tine Madonna” and the “Adoration of the Magi and the “Crucifixion” as Raphael and Titian and Claude and Correggio pre. sented them. Let the German pupit ore ator take up the theme of God's love where Frederick Tholuek left it, let Ital ian pulpit take it up where Gavazzi left it, let French pulpit orator take up theme where Bourdeloue left it, Jet the Swiss pulpit orator take up the theme where Merle d’Aubigne it, let the English here itefie take it up w the Welsh pulpit tak where Christe mas Evans left it, and let the pulpit take it w where angler and Dr. Rirk and left it. But wi the love of own ) iate 1) fer oom Dinvy of a Pessimint. The following are from a newly-found dictionary for pessimists: Angel—One's future wife, Ring—When made of iron, it is uscd to chain prisoners; when made of gold, 1t gives, under the name of wedlock, liberty to young persons, Year—A period of twelve months in the case of a man and six months in the case of a woman. Apathy—The strength of the weaker ex, Apprenticeship—All one’s life. Balloon—The trolley car of the fu- ure. Barbary—The home of the barrel or- van and of slang. Shepherdess—A term applied to those fustic maidens whom the kings of for- mer days were so fond of marrying Boa—A hairy serpent, which women iry to revive by wearing it round theis ICCKS, Nurse— Polite tomestic scourge. Chance—Woman's plice, Marriage—A sacrament, History (French) Ki synonym for a hired favorite accom tranafnrmed iransiormed holocaust nto a first the Some men their oy Are You Using Allen's Foot. Ease ? It Is the only cure for Swillen 8 Yited., Aching, Hot and Punions, Ak for A") pow ier to thaken ing § while vou walk, At all Dr Stores, ibe Sample sent i Aitn 8. Ulmsted, LeRoy, NX. } Wa bes fils &1 : WE. Address, tampa popialion than aosy other e Un Massachusetts uses m Per capita a Sale in th FITS permanently cared. Ne 844 or nervous. ress after firet day's use of Dr. Kiinv's Great Nerve Restorer. $2 trial bottle and treatise free Dr. BH. Krixe, Lad, 821 Arch Ss. Palla . Pa. Mac private house in Mrs. Winel teatliing, » tion, aliars ¥ Dis medicine for Ucsan Gr For Rilionsuecse, Torpid Liver, Indigsstion, Sick Headache, Urab Orchard Water is a specific, Oxford University has voted to do away with the Sanday afternoon sermons. * \ » od Ld ’ LJ La v + LJ Nd M » y * 0 Eb) ha ¢ be 3 Mh A MRE hr da ahr nie adhe dl wi LE WON ANALYST El 3 a a a. a . » F] B 3 4 Re a 4 & » ey ES 4 . . Ye f YX. 0d > A LJ ¥ v 4 4 ECE EME ATE a Ml FY a . - . a A s i J C ALANARANAR i ¥ eb J ha fF AL AAA I AAT A JAR IE EE A EN EER CE FY EY Wr YE E £ The Modern Father's Mis: ako : ! “Well, my son, I've done the best 1 { could to give you a first sduca- | tion, and now you can go out into the world feeling that you are fully i ped for the battle of existence.” “Father, 1 ought to feel grateful to you, but I cannot. 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Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers