BIBLE TALK.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8535, 15 July 1893, Page 2

BIBLE TALK.

Strmoiij

SERIES No. 28. Subject— "Lifeaid Death." "JflsT neneof us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." Remans xiv. 7. Btbxoobaphio Rkpokt of Mr Worthixgsjon's Bisl* Tame at the Temple of Tacnr, Sunday, Jvsv 4th, 1893. In science and philosophy the mind deals With the universal and the particular. It becomes necessary, in the differentiation of statements of facts that are above and beyond and outside of books, to have a form that embodies in one instance the universal, Mid in the other the particular. Thus, When we wish to speak of the all, we use ! the word " universe," the one in which the Mil is confined. When we wish to particularise, we refer to planets or suns contained in that universe, Mars, for instance, wr tho earth on which we live. Again, in descending from the universal to tho particular, we refer to this earth as made up of land and water, of air and light, of rivers, lakes, and seas, of soils and minerals. When We have gone thus far, we begin to discover that this world, which we sometimes call the universe, ia made up of multitudinous parte. We may follow the same thought with life. Life presents itself to us as the multt,Serm> life may be vegetable or animal, it may be regarded from the stand-point of the genera or the species, but life, as life, Becomes particularised as we descend iv the ■cab from the universal. There is still life, ■ad active life; there is the life that "'Bleeps in the stone, that breathes iv the "Vegetable, and moves in the animal, and it lethe same life that thiuks in man." Hence We aay that the universal and the particular are always related. If we pursue the same thought when we Qome to mankind, we find that we must immediately divide it into races and families, the African, the Mongolian, or the Caucasian. These races, with their differing divisions, with their various forms of society, of religion, of Government, of arts and letters, all present to us tho partieulariaation of that which is universal. If we look again at this problem, we ace man presenting a growth that is the result of the ancooicious order coming forth into that Which is conscious.

In all of these relations, by a system of Induction and deduction, we are presented With the universal and the particular. We are presented with the conviction that every fact, circumstance, P*ra>n, aud thing in the world is related to every other fact, circumstance, person, and thing. Thus we see that it requires every fraction in this tremendous sunt to compose the whole, and therefore we 8»e brought face to face with that larger definition of the words I am attempting to Medyse, that no man lives or dies to him■elf, but that all men, and all life, are related.

80 it is with reason, so it is with beauty, $0 It is with righteousness and truth; there iSa an universal unit, and there is a partiftular part of that unit related to it. The Rvalue of such a concept as that realised by Haul when he wrote those words is, that it presents to the mind and the consciousness we true position of man and religion in the great, cosmos of life, it fixes tbe fact that »*a is but a part of the universal Christ. l&Showa us that the life manifested in man !• bat • portion of the universal life or God, wad that the re-ligo—the rebihding, the rewaiting—or this great expression and manifestation of life, through religion, back to ite Source of God, is the mystery of the *f_*_J tho meaning of Life, the great riddle Ps#M» which all stand, seeking its solution. Now, when I look at my surrounding, I Bad that every object by which I am environed bears tliis relation to which I have referred. I discover that the chemical, the elementary substances by which I am BarXWmded are absolutely requisite to the formation of the atmosphere and tbe soils ; I find that these elementary substances, With their special qualities, their definite relations and specific proportions, are required to adjust this marvellous combinawoa of order and law with which I am surrounded. I discover that there is the law «f gravitation, a law of capillary attraction, end all those chemical affinities without which it would bo impossible for this great solidarity to be the home of a world of Bfe, which is itself dependent upon the least one of these great factors that make up the vast mosaio of the machinery of fact and truth.

(Chen I understand how impossible it is for anything to live to itself; how the Sftineral finds its meaning in the vegetable, the vegetable in the animal, the animal in man, and man himself finds his meaning in the great principle of righteousness, truth, and love. I see that all of those are related, and if I commence with the mollusc, and thence proceed to the articulate organism, and thence to the vertebrate, and thence to sum, I find in him the orderly aud conScions result of the unconscious order that las preceded him, I find tho reiatedness and sequence that cannot be, denied or lost sight Of by intelligent inquest. Again, the death of a little child iv oue of our families brings sorrow ami mourning; tho death of a father or mother brings Weeping and tears ; tho tender associations of years have crystallised in v love about those deivr ones, that caouot be removed from personality without a wrench, without Sighing and tears. The death of a neighbour has touched the life of the community at large; the death of a business man has affected all the machinery of his establishment and the commercial world with which he was connected; the death of & statesman enteJß the couuclls of tho nation, and tonefecs its relatione with the world. What is it? No man liveth to himself, and no man |dieth to himself, bub in the intricate raletMDS of life and death all are interwoven With one another as the warp and woof of thegreat fabric of human life. _ShJs is the end of life, this is tho purpose m life, this is tho meaning of history, this pourtrays to mc the meaning of the battles of the ages. This is the omuipresent judgment day of the race, the over-present bell or heaven which men and women make for j themselves ; this ia the index why priests ' and peoples, nations aud races, have battled with right and wrong ; this is the Apocalypse «f the present, tho unveiling of the revelftMoa in which may be seeu the tremendous drama of life moving ou and up to its orderly sequence. Never a law violated, never a relation defeated, never a sequence cutoff, but always and forever an orderly process that witnesses for omnipresent

When we have realised this, when we Understand that every hour of our lives is connected with that vast array of hours that makes up eternity, when we realise that erery thought of our souls, every word «f our lips, and every act of our lives, is a part of the great machinery of eternity, unveiling and revealing, tearing down and Imilding up, beautifying and ennobling, when we understand this, we may realise that in the great universe of order and right, of love and generosity, of peace and trust, of good will and power, we are factors.

. Then we understand, that if in the nasty little accretion of selfishness which is an abscess upon the general body, we seek to get from our brother at his cost, if we traduce the Christ of God within us, if we atifie the nobler impulses that regard the rights of others as most sacred, we have but advertised the leprosy of our ignorance. Wealth is preferred tor the moment, why I. (That it may be generous, noble, and godlike, that it may italicise the great, reoi{trodty of mankind. The wealthy man gives to educational institutions, or to the ornamentation of his home city, and wo call it generosity. What is it ? It is the generosity of justice, it is but re-investing in

the most profitable manner that which the law of social order and human conditions

has placed in trust under his hand. When this great law is understood, the friction between labourers and capitalists (not between labour and capital) will cease, for there will bo recognised a common interest which cannot wrong the one for the aggrandisement of the other. When this

■Nat law and fact is understood, the church will become large enough to contain all schools of her thinkers. When this law is understood, the great *rmies of the reliKious world will recognise that love is tbe housing-place of all sects and divisions of man, because it requires that all these many

Sermon.

colours, in their false beliefs of separateness, be brought together and woven into that Joseph's coat, which shall finally be transformed into the seamless garment of truth, 'in which all will understand that they live ; for each other. | When this is understood, the Christ of God will be understood, it will be understood as the possible property, nay, the vested right of every man, related to every man as that which it is his particular business to unveil and prove to the world. Have you ever thougut that man comes througu a condition of necessitated but limited growth, to that condition of unlimited freedom that belongs to the son of God, by an orderly process? Have yon ever discovered that trees of the same kind grow near, each other, under a law of necessity ? Have you observed that birds and beasts of a kind flock together under a law of instinct, that they piay, and roam, and fly together by tuts guidance of thatsame law ? Have you ever reflected that the bird taken from its woodland nest will sing the

the same song as it would have if let I ia its native state ? Have you remembered that

the child, removed from its family association and order, will lose the trick oi

anguage ? Unlike the bird, it has no song, because its language is dependent upon the association of its birth. There would be no

language without one to speak to; no truth without one to certify to itj no virtue without the association that can bring the opposite. A king's son, born and reared in a palace, if removed from the association of his kind, could not construct a cabin, while the beaver or the bee, uuder the lofty instinct of a God-given power, would make their home by virtue of chat power.

What does all this mean ? It means that man cannot live to himself, that he is conditioned in the social order of society, that he is dependent upon that fellowship and association that is found as the basic principle of art and society, of lav,-, ethics, anc religion. It means that iv that epigram of Paul's is housed the brotherhood of man,

the dream of Utopian democracy, the ethics of all religion, the very target-centre of God's revelation. Then man learns that iv giving love he is enriched by love, that in granting kindness he receives kindness, he learns that that which moves the ocean of God's plenteous power is the giving out of Godlike qualities in man. This is man's gift, bis birth-right, his heritage, aud when

c discovers tuis, he also sets that out among the submerged tenth, down in the deeps of tho earth, out upon the stormlashed seas of the world, at the forge or in the field, upon tho throne or in the hovel, whether measuring the stars orplaying with the toys of childhood, everywhere in this vast sea of relationships he carries this responsibility of being aud.becoming. This tremendous power of mind with which he grasps the stars and measures the worlds, these wonderful powers of induction and deduction, this giant soul within him that surges as the sea of God, is but the universal Life— Truth — Love—demanding of him the recognition that it is within him, not for himself alone, but for his brother man all over the world. Can you ,go out this week, and look into the face of sorrow; can you search out want, and look at shame; can you see one standing in the arena of life covered with the scars of its wounds, and not feel that that Hie is yours, that brother is yours, that Christ is you, because you are one of that tremendous unit that is moving over the stage of life, revealing the great. drama of God's purpose, speaking to you through - that seeming separate condition ? Remember tu»t the Christ of God is the throbbing pulse of God in the' World of men, and that the crown of power belongs to the man who realises this in its height, and depth, and grandeur. Remember that no form of words, no association of creeds or professions makes this, but that it is an aristocracy of character, of truth and righteousness.' Remember that this power rides above every sea of human hate and disaster, it rises to prove that God is good, it takes the crime-stained, shame-cursed sons of men, and puts their feet upon the throne of power, and tells them that the overcoming belongs to them by virtue of the larger realisation that no man lives for himself, and. no man dies for himself, but for the universal Christ which is the immaculate concept of God.,

This is the possibility, it is the necessity of every man; no creed, no society, no :Government,, no law, no. power can deny your right to this concept, none of these can take from you your birthright as the son of God. Knowing this, the sail of your argosy is kissed with the breath of God, wafting you over every sea. Knowing this, the mountain of human temptation, human obstacle, human misunderstanding, and human false judgment, is cast into the sea of oblivion thrombi the faith that removes mountains, that whimpers to the soul of man that life is deathless, Aud that all of eternity and God is committed to the survival ot the. truest and best in man, to the revelation of the real man, the divine, spiritual man, that can face the world, and bid it " be still."—[Advt.] .