USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > Foundation stones, of the Church of the Unity, Evansville, Indiana > Part 3
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trust. So the trouble with Lot's wife was this, that with so much which was beautifully womanly, she was not quite a whole woman when the call came for her to show her highest quality. The outward was more to her in that crisis of her life than the inward, the seen and temporal than the unseen and eternal. It was the eternal truth our Divine Teacher insists on when he mentions her name of utter loss through losing. The call of God was that she should set her face toward Zoar, the place which, being interpreted, means "smallness," and have done with Sodom, which means burning; but all she had in the world was in Sodom, except that which is best worth having, and so was petrified through clinging to the lower when the higher was the watchword of her one momentous day.
And so it is that her story becomes a lesson drawn from life, of the truth Jesus touches in another way when he says no man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the king- dom, and of Paul's meaning when he bids us forget the things which are behind and reach forward to the things which are be- fore; and again of the Word of Jesus, "Let the dead bury their dead." It shadows out to us the danger which lurks in clinging too long or too longingly to the things which are dissolving as we watch them, and how, through this turn of the spirit we also may lose our life and become mere petrifactions, dead, though we still have a name to live. Last, so far as this world can be of any use to us, the whole wealth of hopes and joy which lies in the future for every soul which will still push on out of the smoke and fire to the rest that remains and the work that re- mains, when fate and fortune have done their worst, with the brave heart of Mrs. Browning when she cries :-
" Here is the true thing to do- Let Heaven see to the rest !"
For we need no great insight to see how this petrifying process is forever going on in the wider spaces of our life and through the things which may not touch us in a close personal sense. It was the trouble in the old days in England with the Stuarts and those who stood by them, of whom it was well said that they could learn nothing and forget nothing. And with a great many
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in our own country, in the fire and smoke of the Revolution, whose hearts were one with the things which were dissolving, so that they could not or would not push on into the spirit of the new time, and became petrifactions of the ancient royalty and the divine right of Kings to do wrong. And within our mem- ory it was the fate of that remnant of a great party which came to be known as the Fossil Whigs, while in our days we catch the speech now and then in the papers of some man who stands alone, hard and bitter as ever, a petrifaction and pillar of salt, unable to catch the new spirit and purpose of the nation North and South, a sad and lonely instance of the fate which overtakes those who will not understand that when old things are being burnt up in Government, which are better burnt, the one thing to do is to make for the new life and light, to be fluent still, and hopeful and onward, and begin again in Zoar, which is smallness, and grow.
The same truth holds good again in the professions and the arts, when we are bound too closely to the things which have become a part of our life, but in the order of the world, as the disorder as we think of it are burnt up and pass away. I sup- pose you may find men still in the nooks and corners of Indiana who do not believe in railroads or the telegraph, or chloroform, or a score of things which have become a part of the new life, and who look back with bitter regret to the happy world of fifty years ago as a kind of Eden, while they meet this world they live in with taunts and jeers, and pride themselves upon their singular position, unable to go back to the old or forward to the new. And ministers and lawyers and doctors, and those who were once men of science, and men who make the old, clumsy machines, and farmers who cleave to the old, poor methods. Men of every order, who can neither forget nor learn, who find that what they were bound to once, as a part of their life, is dis- solving in the fires of time, yet cannot or will not push on into the new certainties, but harden down into petrifactions, for which there is no hope. These are the dangers which may beset us all, in one way or another, through these under-reaches of the spirit and life of man ; a loyalty to the past very beautiful and touching in some of its aspects, as the loyalty of Lot's wife was to her old home in Sodom, but fatal if we let the old time over-
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shadow the new and stay within the shadows, to grow hard and bitter, while those about us push on into the new day; for only those who can break with the past when the past breaks with them, and then turn to the future with a new hope and expecta- tion in these things, which are as the warp and woof of our life, can hope to live in the noblest and sweetest sense and to find the full worth of living. But this large sweep of my lesson must not lead me away from its closer touch. It comes home to many, as it came to this poor woman, in the shape of a dire loss of the things we have called our own. The loss of fortune and position and the treasures on which we set great store, but which are still intrinsic, and the need which comes in these ways to be- gin again in Zoar, which is smallness. If this wealth is of any great worth to us it costs what it comes to. There is something of my life in the house I have built up, and the business, and my money in the bank and in all the treasure I have gathered about me, and no man knows so well as I do what they are worth, because I alone have paid the price of them. Then some sudden stroke comes, I can no more prevent than I can prevent an earthquake, and these things on which I set such store melt away, as they did in these olden times, and in the measure of their cost will be my trouble. This is the time when the danger is most instant that I shall petrify, and withal grow sharp and bitter if I linger too much over my losses. Then I may lose what is worth more to me, beyond all comparison, than this sum. I must encounter the shock and the trouble, and they may shake the very centres of my life, but if I stay within the shadow of my loss, and brood and nurse my broodings, I am lost to the better life. I also must begin again in Zoar and make the best of it, and the best is in that good hope, through grace, which will not allow any defeat and frustration to be the masters of my life; and then though I have to dwell in smallness all my days, as better men have done before me, the rain will not fall and the sun shine on a pillar of salt, but on a cheerful, striving human life, which can take what God sends and be thankful, and know what Jesus meant when he said a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth.
It comes to me again in the things which touch the religious life. The hardness and bitterness you detect so often in those
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who cling to beliefs which are passing away, is this of the petri- faction and pillar of salt. We set out furnished with a complete outfit of creeds and dogmas, in the faith that they are all true as the eternal life of God, and trust to them without a question. A plenary inspiration, a trinity of deities, the atonement through the blood of Christ, the total depravity of man through the fall of Adam, and our own utter helplessness, a Heaven we can do nothing to earn as deserved, a hell to which the vast majorities of men must go to be held forever in darkness, fire and chains ; and a church which to the moving momentous world we live in, is no more than the little spot in a vast desert where there are some palm trees and a spring. But to a great many men in our time these old dogmas are dissolving, and they can no more help it than this woman could help the burning of Sodom. They have had their day, and the very conditions under which some of them grew to their greatness are burning them up; the sul- phur has caught on the surface and in the deeps, and all things which rested on it are rocking to their doom. And this is the instant when we save to our losing, or lose to our saving ; when this soul of mine-this imperious and masterful inner light-tells me of the error and the truth, what must melt away, though I have thought that God himself was pledged to sustain it, and how my life lies in giving these things up and beginning again in smallness. There is but one true thing to do then, and that is to leave the things which are behind; yes, and to forget them, and press on to the things which are before. But this is what a great many men and women cannot do; their very heart is in what they have lost, and what has to them now no real exist- ence, but the shadow which lies behind it is stronger to draw them than the light which lies before. And then the day comes when they petrify, because their faith is dead and gone and they are clinging to a phantom. Their hope lies in pushing out in the direction of the new light and life, though the husband has to leave the wife or the wife the husband, in this matter of being true to their own souls. Do you meet a man, then, who is bit- ter and hard, while he still appears to be of the elect and stands stoutly by the old conclusions? Pity him, for he is a pillar of salt. He is a man who has lost his chance at the new life, when the old passed away, and must die, as he is living, a petrifaction.
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I say not one word to those to whom the old ideas are still a living reality, and who manage to make out of them a large, true life, and to bring such a life to others, but to men and women who know that the substance is gone, but still cling to the shadow, and so sacrifice the new life for the old dissolution. I say this in all kindness. You must break with the past for the sake of the future. There is no more help for you there than there was for this woman in the smoke and fire. You must be- gin again, as a great many who are here to-day have had to begin, in Zoar, which is smallness, and trust, through God's blessing and your own endeavor, that you will find a faith on which you can rest now and forever as the end of your seeking.
And is not this true of those who cling to the past in its be- reavements ? I would explore most tenderly the past, in which hopes lie withered, which were once like roses wet with dew, as springs that keep a summer heart in winter; in which there were lives to which our own seemed only as the shadow to the light, and alone which we trusted would watch by our death-bed and close our eyes and say tender words about us, and drop some tears on our still face which would be felt when the Amaranths spring in the summer time of Heaven ; and they are gone, and we left; and what shall we do ?- what can we do but haunt their graves? Well, my friends, you do even this at your peril; you cannot stay with your dead past; you must turn your face and feel your way toward the higher and better life, or will petrify also, as myriads have done through such sorrows and grow bitter even toward the eternal love. I know how hard it is to meet life when you are shorn of that which gave your life its bloom- to begin again in smallness and hold on and grow bright and cheerful, and throw out new tendrils from your heart and climb again towards the suns ; but this must be done if you will save, through your losing, where to save is of the purest worth. Your life also lies in looking forward and stepping out. In holding fast by this great Christian verity, that nothing is lost while you hold on to your faith and hope and love. That death has only dissolved what you could cling to through these dear and sacred entanglements of time; and then death has no more dominion, and life begins again. There is no way to compute the number of those who on this side the grave have mastered its direst
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trouble through their faith in God and his Christ; and why should not you be one of that great multitude ? I know this-it is there for your seeking; and I know that in this lingering over that which turns to ashes there is no hope and no help, only petrifaction with a bitter tinge.
Now then if you ask what we mean by this new church, dedi- cated to-day, I have answered the question in good part in my parable. Here is a little place, a Zoar as it were, set apart for that which is to come in all these things I have tried to touch, and all things else which hold the promise of a new life. It is, first of all, our government, in which old things will pass away and all things become new ; and this is the one condition of a true and good government. Here is the nursery of the new hope, the place where I will venture to say it will find its first and warmest welcome among the churches of this important city. The men and women who meet here will be very quick to see what is dissolving in the fires of time, what new principles and measures will be for the best welfare of the nation, and while they may look back with regret, especially the older of them, on the passing away of some things they have held very dear, they will accept the situation when it is revealed to them, will not linger over the old until they become hard and bitter petrifactions in the political life of the country, but will be hope- ful and onward themselves, and give a large hospitality to those who have had to flee from the things that are burning up, (and are better burnt, ) and want to begin again. I say this because I know it is true. I do not believe for an instant that church- men or ministers ought to meddle with politics. They ought not to run a political machine or to run in one, for this also is a petrifaction ; but churchmen and ministers, to do their duty, must be open and hospitable to all the new ideas and principles which hold in their heart the best welfare of the country. Say this is a dead issue-let it go ; and this is the next true thing to do, and he will do it; and this is the meaning, to my mind, of this new foundation ; it is to be a little Zoar of perpetual politi- cal reform ; a place, let us hope and believe, in which no fossil will ever be found.
Then it will be a nursery of the new life which flows in on man forever from art and discovery; for we hold that religion is
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not one thing and these another, but that everything is of God, and therefore religion, in the same sense, which is for the help and blessing of man. Now, upon most of the new discoveries it has been the habit of churchmen to look with suspicion or dislike. The Vicar of St. Andrews, in London, preached a stout and able sermon in 1720, I think against inoculation, from the text: "So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils ;" arguing that the small-pox comes by a sort of divine contrivance, and it is a sin to try and circumvent the will of God. So when chloroform was discovered, a company of ministers in Edinburgh denounced its use at a painful crisis in our human life, on the ground that this crisis came by the fall of Adam, and so it was all wrong to try and lift the burden from the world's motherhood for this reason; and so it has been with most of the new discoveries and conclusions which have been for the blessing of man. Here in this little Zoar whatever holds a hope in it in these directions for the blessing of mankind must find a welcome; no hard and bitter petrifactions here lingering by the old until they are dead to the new in art and science and discovery, but a warm welcome to whatsoever things are true and lovely and of good report touching the betterment of our human life; for these things also are of God, who makes all things new.
In doctrine again, as I have hinted, this foundation is to be as the little city of a new life. The old belief in the Bible as one perfect piece of inspired truth, from the first word to the last, is vanishing away in the fire and smoke of a great contention ; but here is a church which will hold fast to the faith that there is a divine truth in the Bible to man, as there is gold in a rich and pure gold mine, which you must dig for and separate from the dross, and then circulate with the mint-mark of Heaven stamped upon its face. The belief in a trinity of Deities is passing away. It may be well doubted whether in a hundred years from now there will be a soul left on the earth to believe in this strange and contradictory doctrine. But here is a place for the truth which must stand through all time, the truth as old as the creation and fresh as this new morning, of the one God, eternal, immortal, invisible, whom no man hath seen or can see. The old dogma of the fall and the utter helplessness of man is passing away. 5
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Science and history and the Bible also, rightly read, are teach- ing us that what we call the fall was a rise; and, instead of being helpless, man is the most helpful creature of which we have any knowledge. That Heaven also is earned-as all great and holy things are-by good, honest striving through which we grow mete for Heaven. And hell is not like a State's prison, into which you are thrust through an endless eternity to torment each other and to be tormented by irresponsible keepers, but a hos- pital, or infirmary rather, where we must suffer for our sin, but where, through this very suffering, we shall learn the way to a better life through the tender ministrations of God's angels also, and come out in the full time fit for the eternal life. And the church is not so many little block-houses in an enemy's country, or as a small river running through a vast desert ; but the church is the whole world of good men and women, who have striven to be good through all the ages and all the lands, heathen as we call them, and Christians together, those of our name and of every name who have sought after God.
Here is a little place in which you shall find this faith alone, this sunny hope and eager outlook. As the old creeds and dogmas which are. consuming in the fires vanish away, here is a Zoar to which you can flee and escape the petrifaction and bitter sting which always comes to those who hold on to things in which to them there is no longer an abiding place for the human soul. This church will be open to the whole new truth of God, and give large hospitality in these things, also to the nameless and wandering and disheartened who have to begin again in some small way to find a new faith and a new hope.
And when the dismal days come in which, through inevitable misfortune, you are beaten in the battle of life, and find you are poor when you expected to be rich-stripped of the large and good influences which can come through wealth and position to a wise man-the minister of this church and the brotherhood will be able to help each other with a true sympathy in which they will tell no lies about the worthlessness of what you have lost, because wealth honestly won is not worthless to any man who knows how to use it. It is of very great worth, indeed ; but the best things of all, are when the stroke falls, an unflinch- ing trust in God's goodness, a kindly human heart, and that new
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hope, which is more than half the battle. When we begin again, this little Zoar will be eager and open toward those who are so smitten, and the poor who never had half a chance, and those who are petrifying because they think nobody cares, and those who are growing hard and bitter through ill-usage, and those who have trusted in the gratification of their appetites for the food of life, and find despair at the bottom of the cup of pleasure. Here is the little Zoar to which such hopeless folks can flee, and it shall be as if the very Christ kept the gates and watched for sad and weary men to come, and girded himself and washed their feet and said: "The world out yonder has been hard on you, my brother, but you shall stay with me, and we will see what can be done to start you afresh and give you strength for the journey and the battle, so that you shall come off more than con- querors, through the help of God, who is the Father of us all."
And here is the place in which you can find a little help to begin with, and a new hope when your dark, sad days come through the dread invasion of death ; for if we leave them in the hands of the infinite tender mercy, the dying do not suffer. In my long experience it is always with them about as it was with one of my next door neighbors, who is buried to-day. A few days ago I was talking to his folks about him on the stoop, and they were telling me how deep he was in life and what plans he had for the future. The next day death smote him. He went through terrible agony, woke up on Monday, saw them all weeping, and turned back from the gates of the grave to com- fort them and tell them not to weep, for he was going to his rest. So it is always with the dying, if we leave them to God. But the living suffer, thiers is the loss, the desolation and the despair ; and there are ministers in this world-I trust you have none in this fair city-who bring doubt to darkness as they stand by the dead and throw their shadows across the shadow of death. But here, if I know his heart, is a man who will minister to you very tenderly in these sad moments, touch the darkest and most dismal scenes with gleams of hope, cast over the worst man the great mantle of charity, and the trust that now he has gone where he will recover at last from his hurts and evils, and over the good and true-whether they were in this or any other church, or in no church; he will sing out of his heart, as he stands by their
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coffins, of a new life and a new hope, which will take from those that are left the bitterness of death ; save them from the hardness and petrifaction into which so many sink in thinking that God has dealt hardly with them, keep open a little Zoar within these walls and within the heart of his church, to which such troubled souls can flee and begin again and grow to a deeper and more sunny trust. And then as one by one your feet also touch the river, so deep and sure will be your confidence in life and in death, and in the life to come, that there will be some such song in your heart as this-sung by one who was far past her three score years and ten, as she stood waiting for the angel with the white robe :-
Would you be young again ? So would not I ; One tear to memory given- Upward I fly. Life's flood forded o'er, All but at rest on shore ; Say, would you come back once more With home so nigh ?
If you might, would you now Retrace your way- Wander through the wilderness, Faint and astray ? Night's gloomy watches spread, Morning breaking over head, Hope's smiles about you spread, Heavenward-away !
Where, then, are those who were My joy and delight ; Dear ever more, but now Out of my sight? Where they rejoice to be, There is the land for me ; Time fly speedily- Come life and light !
*THE MOTHER CHURCH.
WHAT ABBEY CHAPEL, TAVISTOCK, HAS DONE. ROBERT COLLYER, CHICAGO.
I notice now and then in The Christian Life, kindly sent me, a note of dismay about some poor little meeting of yours that is dead or dying, and have just been wondering whether this is the case with the Abbey Chapel at Tavistock ; because if it is so, in any event I have to report the existence of a good daughter of that mother on this side the water.
We have been in the way, ever since I began to attend our Conferences here in the West, of seeing and hearing a gentleman from Evansville, Indiana, who always had a good, cheerful word to say ; and I for one always wondered how it was that the man got there, or being there, managed to hold his own, and steadily declare that the day was coming when they would have a church down there, where Indiana dips about two-thirds south of the nothern line of Kentucky. I have been drawn this week three hundred and fifty miles from here to the dedication of the new church-the long, bright dream of Philip Hornbrook's life-a pretty brick building with seats for three hundred people, costing six thousand five hundred dollars and paid for ; and staying near the fine old gentleman, I got at the story of his most loyal and noble achievement; and this is the story :
Saunders Hornbrook was the father of ten children, became a member of the Abbey Chapel in the days of Mr. Evans, and kept open house for the ministers who came there; had Dr. Lant Carpenter, Mr. Taylor, and Mr. Ashland, among others, for his guests ; but as the boys, of which there were five, grew up, they found the land too strait for them; so in 1818 two of them with two sisters came over here and took up land in In-
*Articles published in the Christian Life, London, England.
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diana, then a wonderful green wilderness; the father followed a year after with some more of the children, and forty-seven years ago the whole family were on the land and prosperous. The good old man kept his heart alive, and the heart of his children, for the old faith, and won great esteem among his neighbors, but made no impression beyond this on the inert and orthodox mind away down there to the southward ; and so at last the old man died, not having received the promise, but seeing it afar off. I think the whole family was true to its nurture right along ; but Philip was the restless one, who must have a church-though in that region it was something like trying to raise wheat on granite. Twenty-six years ago there was a gathering of twelve persons in the Court House, ten men and two women, to hear the first Unitarian sermon from the Rev. Mr. Heywood, of Louisville. After this others came to hold services and preach at long inter- vals, and Philip watched and nursed the little interest between whiles the best he could, so that in a few years he was able to have a minister of their own now and then-the Rev. James K. Hosmer among the rest-who started the first colored school, and taught it himself, after being duly examined as to his orthodoxy by the preacher of the colored church, who was a deck-hand on a steamboat.
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