USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > Foundation stones, of the Church of the Unity, Evansville, Indiana > Part 7
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*A GREETING TO SPRING.
GEORGE CHAINEY.
Now learn a parable of the fig-tree : When his branch is yet tender and put- teth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh .- Matt. 24: 32.
The Hebrew language contains no word with which to express either spring or autumn, so that commentators say that the proper word to use here would be spring. I lay no great stress, however, on the correct rendering of any text. I have simply read these words to you that they might stand as an illustration of the use I want to make of the budding leaves, bursting life and beauty of this new springtime. The remembrance of other March days than these we have been enjoying for the past two weeks makes it seem somewhat early to offer a greeting to spring, and yet the new life is upon us; and though our visitor has outrun our expectations, I am sure that none of us have any complaints to offer. Yet in this early coming I am frequently reminded that there is a time for all things; for when I meet with those whose all is dependent upon the fruitfulness of the season, I find that, mingled with their joy, is a secret fear lest the blossoms in which are stored the promise of the fruit should have been tempted to open themselves to the sunlight before the nights are sufficiently kindly disposed towards them. We are all of us, at times, over-eager to possess the good of life. Patience to wait for the fullness of the appointed time for all things is one of the last angels of grace to whom we give wel- come to our hearts. And yet I know of none more important. No soul can fully enjoy the kingdom of Heaven while patience stands waiting for admittance. If next summer and autumn, when we have a right to look for fruit, we find nothing but leaves-and nature in this way teaches us to know how to wait patiently until the appointed hour-the value of the lesson will
#Preached in the Church of the Untity, March 24th, 1878.
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exceed the cost thereof a thousand times. With this comes, also, the thought that this which we call nature is designed to fulfill other needs besides the material ones of life. We are apt to think that if the season is a bad one, and the crops a failure, that nature has failed altogether of her end ; when all the time what to us are her greatest failures may be crowned with the highest success. I sometimes meet those who, in these phases of her work and seeming evil, find proof of no God; and so come to think of life as a great blind, unfeeling, irresistible wheel of iron fate, rolling on like the cruel wheels of some Juggernaut car, entirely heedless of the number of maimed, crushed and suffering victims left behind ; while others see in this evidence that behind the smiling Heavens sits a cruel, blood-thirsty God, who will glory, through all eternity, in the perpetual torment of millions of mortals, because in this life they accepted the evil rather than the good. All who reach such conclusions stand in need of our pity, for they are born of a failure to see the highest end and aim of all things-the production of spirituality. Only as we see in nature this supersensual use and beauty shall we have the faith that. "is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." Only thus can the soul stand in the midst of the blight and mildew, the pain and death, loss and disappointment of earth, and so see the end from the begin- ning as to rest confident in the benificence of God, saying, with Jesus: "Surely He doeth all things well," and with Job : "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." During the late theological debate over hell, many have tried to prove God less of a monster of cruelty than orthodoxy makes Him, by cavilling over the exact meaning of some old Greek word. As well shut yourself up in a charnel house to encourage faith in immortality ! If you would believe in the life to come, you must look at the high powers of the human soul, and go where the sunlight is quickening life out of death, where the tokens of enduring love keep guard above the green mound, and the soul is keyed by the hand of hope into such delicate harmony with the eternal, that it seems to the pensive spirit as though some angel hand is stirring the strings of that hidden harp. So if you would see and know God, you must go with Jesus into the promise of the opening springtime, breathe the air balmy with the perfume of flowers
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and echoing with the happy songs of the birds, or retire into the solitude of the wilderness, or night, when the stars come out and earth is hushed into such silence as enables the listening spirit to distinguish the Divine music and harmony of the uni- verse ; while others, through want of such patient waiting for the voice of the Lord in the even-tide, hear only discord. My subject may be an unusual one for a sermon; but is not the ground on which we stand holy ? Does it not become us to listen, at least, as reverently for the voice of the Lord here as anywhere ? Does not Jesus say to us : " Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow? They toil not, neither do they spin ; and yet I say unto you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." But let us first welcome spring in the name of the beautiful. Need I stop to describe this sense? Have we not all felt its power in our lives, more or less? No doubt the rudest nature responds in some way to a sunny day, a bank of flowers or balmy air. How much would be taken from our lives if all days and all seasons were alike to us; if our souls felt the same beneath a leaden sky as a blue one. Now I know of no season that does not provide, in some measure, for this want. Even winter brings to us the white, beautiful snow, and causes us to see a new beauty in the evergreen through its contrast with the more sombre colors of winter. But the appetite cloys on full- ness. Though one poet says "A thing of beauty is a joy for- ever," another says :
" Beauty grows familiar to the lover, Fades in his eye and pales upon the sense."
And so it seems a wise provision that in the course of nature many of her decorations are folded up and laid away through the winter months. But, as if to reward us for our enforced ab- stinence, each springtime unfolds them with added beauty. After the days of cold and stormy rain, with the sunlight hidden from our gaze, how joyfully we welcome these days of spring, so bright and fair, so fresh and life-giving, beneath the morning's first baptismal dews, so full of the promise and potency of life and beauty. But has this feast of beauty no message to our souls beyond the sensous delight ? Ah, verily ! If our souls are but in tune to hear, if life to us is reverent and earnest, divine
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in its relations and possibilities, each vernal day, opening bud and springing flower will call upon us to clothe our souls with new beauty. Unless there is a springtime of the blossoms of affection, a fresh growth of every grace and sentiment that gives beauty to the spirit, one of the most important lessons of spring- time will be lost. Nature is never niggardly in her gifts. No figure of speech can fully measure her generosity ; nor is she a coquette, deceiving the ardent lover. Still if you would win her beauty or know her love, you must be earnest and true in your devotion. No lip-service can win her favor. The true heart's devotion is the only price she demands ; but in this demand she is despotic. The heart that is false and deceitful, feeling one thing while for gain the lips proclaim another, cannot penetrate into the secret chamber of her beauty. Men profess that they are surrounded with such a multitude of opinions that they know not what is true or what is false; and so they justify themselves for staying in a church that is founded on the most palpable delusions. But there is not a violet that opens to the sunlight or a bird that sings its love-song, that does not proclaim that to know the truth one must first be true; that the soul which is false to itself is at discord both with nature and nature's God. But let us also welcome the spring as the seed-time. As sleep to man so winter is
" Tired Nature's sweet restorer "
This is not so discernible in the city as the country. But as all other pursuits strike root into that of agriculture, we must, for the time being, retire from the dusty and crowded streets into the woods and fields. Whoever has spent any time in the country knows how, through the winter months, all life and activity are banished from sight. Men and women, youths and maidens, all look upon winter as the time for rest and play. Everything that will kill time is welcome at the farm-house or country village. Dancing, riding, spelling, singing and praying are repeated and protracted into excess. But let the balmy breath of springtime fan their cheeks and at once there is a stir and bustle everywhere. Poor chance now for the politician, peudlar or preacher who desires to secure the farmer's ear. The
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seed-time has come, the fields are to be plowed and the golden grain committed to nature's care. Nature now has become despotic. In crowding full the days with activity lies not only the bread and clothing of the farmer, but of the world. All else must stand aside. It is useless to say let us rejoice to-day and work to-morrow, when to-day alone holds the promise of fruit- fulness. No man who wants a crop can mock the seasons. "Time and tide wait for no man." God helps those who help themselves. And so if you would possess the fruit of the har- vest, you must stir yourselves in the seed-time. Does not the same law hold good in the life of the soul? Can we sit down 'and idle away our time in the morning of life and yet in old age gather the fruit of life? Nay, verily! I cannot help believing, from the analogies of nature, that each soul will have a new chance in the life to come. Still I am equally compelled to be- lieve there are very many who squander and waste the present life, who, through a failure to work in the springtime of life, know not the joy and the gladness of the harvest home. Some people talk of the future as though it was disconnected entirely from the present. Orthodoxy holds out the idea that one may live a vile and sensual life to the last and then, through some magic sesame of faith in the blood of Jesus, find the doors of Heaven as wide open for him as for the soul that has always been true to its vision of duty. But while we are very positive that the final loss of but one soul would be the undoing of God making his existence impossible, still we believe that each soul must suffer in its own consciousness for every sinful act. Heaven is not a place, but the growth of the love and devotion of the soul to all things true, good and beautiful. It lies not in the future alone. To use a beautiful figure of David Swing : "The impulse of a river is not in the broad expanse where it emerges into the sea, but is far back of that in the table-lands and mountain ranges of a vast continent, all which, having caught the rains and having dissolved the snows of yesterday, crowd the stream forward in a majestic sweep." So when our lives break from the narrow boundaries of the present into the broad expanse of eternity, the sources of their fullness of power and joy will lie far back in the days of our youth and early manhood. As we spend them, good or evil will be the momem-
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tum and expanse of our lives then. Spring, looked upon as the seed-time, is full of admonitions to those who are yet in the springtime of life, before whom the gates of life stand wide open, garlanded with flowers of hope and promise. But let us remember, as we see the sower going forth to sow, that these gates will soon be left far behind, and that these promises will only be realized and hopes fulfilled as we enter the field of life to scatter diligently the good seed of all virtue. But, my friends, I can- not forget that there are many who fail thus to sow, who do come to the fruit time seemingly to find nothing but leaves. Perhaps the valueless weeds that spring up in the untilled field are sent to show the result of a life permitted to run to waste. But however that may be, the unfulfilled expectations of many a fond parent's heart, which so often, through the hideous night- mare of the endless doom of orthodoxy, have made life almost unendurable through causing the imagination to dwell upon the fearful conception of some loved child spending eternity in tor- ment-crying in bitterest anguish : "The harvest is past, the sum- mer is ended and I am not saved!"-bids me give gracious and joyous welcome to spring, in the name of hope. No springtime ever came that did not stretch itself above all ruin left in the track of every storm of rebellion in the soul against duty as a rainbow of promise and hope. The field may have laid barren all the past season, yielding nothing but weeds, but the spring brings new opportunity. All through the long winter months nature has seemed bereft of life and much of her beauty; but now, as we go out into the fields, we see everywhere new life and beauty springing out of this apparent death. As we stood beneath the leafless tree by the cold, gray mound above the resting-place of some loved one, shivering before the wintery blast, hope may have seemed to die out of our hearts; but as we go again in the early springtime, and the sunlight falls like flakes of gold through the leaves that have come back, and the grave of our dear one is covered with fresh green life gemmed with beautiful blossoms, and the wind fans our cheeks softly and gently, laden with the breath of flowers, as if in sympathy with our grief, hope springs anew in our breasts. Assisted by this resurrected life, after the wintry sleep, our hearts pass joyfully over the gulf that lies between us and the absent, and in faith
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and hope we have already met again. But hope, inspired by spring, finds other fields to brighten besides this one of reunion. Who, after having communed at nature's shrine, in the midst of the vernal beauty and new opening life of spring, can hold, at the same time, faith in a hopeless state for any soul? The dark and dismal views of God and the future life of orthodoxy were all invented by men who sought to separate their lives from all natural affection and beauty of the present world. And I believe from my heart that if we would fully welcome spring in its mission of hope, that all such doctrines of despair that shut back from the souls of men Heaven's sunlight would be driven from our sky. Thus we gladly welcome spring in the name of a three-fold good ; for though we cannot accept the trinity of orthodoxy, there is a trinity we do believe in with all our hearts-the true, the good and the beautiful. In giving greeting to spring, I have reversed the order; speaking first of the beautiful, next of the seed-time or the goodness, and last of all the promise and hope of the spring, or the truth. For though men may cavil about words written in a book as to whether they are human or Divine, no one can dispute touching the divinity of any truth to be found in nature. Whoever answers the descrip- tion of Pope when he says :-
" Slave to sect who takes no private road, But looks through nature up to nature's God,"
Has found the truest and most perfectly inspired word of God. But, having welcomed spring in this three-fold relation, we come now to give it greeting in the analogy it furnishes us through the harmony of these three qualities of the perfection and symmetry of life. We sometimes dream of a fairer land than this; but our highest thoughts of the beauty of paradise go no farther than one long-drawn day of gladness and beauty, like to one of the fairest and most perfect days of spring. Now, in the spring, there are often days that exhaust all our conceptions of perfec- tion-days which, in their morning freshness and perfume and unchanging loveliness from the sun's rising to its setting, fairly intoxicate our souls with bliss-days in which it is impossible to doubt, fear or complain ; such days as make us feel that to enjoy
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the bliss of one single hour therein is worth all the pain and trouble life has cost us. But if you should notice closely, you would find this perfection to be dependant on each of these three elements. Take away from them their beauty and it is lost; leave the beauty and take from them their practical use, giving in the seed-time promise of future good, and it is also gone ; and so let the soul find therein no truth through which to look into the future with hope, and on which it finds rest in the benificence of God, and you will also fail to find it. Beautiful as the autumn days are, their work is done, and the beauty of the leaves reminds us of death rather than life; and so our hearts are sad and pensive. But in the spring the perfect day is full of the promise of life touching us in this three-fold relation of the true, the good and the beautiful. And in the fullest presence of these, in our lives, lies their most perfect harmony and symmetry. Take from us either the beauty of life or the good of life in its calls to duty or its truths and promises, on which we find rest in the present and hope in the future, and the soul-life of mankind will be at once imperfect. We see this every day of our lives as we come in contact with those who lack either the sense of the beautiful, industry, devotion to duty or insight into and confidence in the truth. The absence of either of these strikes us with a sense of pain. Life seems destitute of one of its most important functions. While then we greet spring in the name of these three graces, let us not be unmindful of its greeting to us. It is written that "Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth forth knowledge ;" and I am sure that no speech or knowledge of man is so plain and in- telligible as that of these spring days and nights, calling upon us to make our lives as beautiful as the newly-opened flowers, as useful as the sower going forth to sow, and as hopeful and trust- ful through devotion to the truth as these days of bursting life and beauty are to our souls.
*AUTUMN LEAVES.
We all do fade as a leaf .- Is. 64 : 6.
As I was riding down from Boonville the other day on the engine with friend Daniels, and saw the departing glory and dying beauty of the year in the falling leaves and rich autumnal coloring, I could not refrain from asking myself what are the lessons that may be learned from these dead and dying leaves- leaves of every shade-tossed hither and thither by the wind as though they had been produced expressly for the purpose of being foot-balls to it, as some people think that we come into this world with no higher purpose than to be the sport of chance. The first impression that came over me was one of sadness, a feeling of tenderness, no doubt arising out of the fact that all of life's fair and blooming things are thus transitory coming into our vision, and then, just as we have learned to love them, vanish away. It seemed hard to think that the rich foilage which all summer long has given the appearance of life and beauty to the trees and shrubs was being so rapidly taken away to leave them standing for six long months gaunt skeletons and spectors of death. But as I gazed longer, the emotion of sad- ness and tenderness deepened into pathos and pensive enjoyment of the rich coloring and mingled beauty of life and death And then I thought how wonderful are these changes, how like a mother's love does nature seem to be making them-as soft and gently as possible-gathering about these dying hours these beautiful autumnal days and luxurious coloring, bringing out her finest touches, her richest hues, her happiest days, intoxicating us almost in the midst of her death strokes with her most exhil- erating wine, thus producing in very truth the strange anomaly of keeping the best wine to the last of the feast, and so sweeten- ing the parting hour with a taste of her finest qualities. And do
* A sermon preached in the Church of the Unity, November 4th, 1877, the first Sunday after the death of Senator Morton.
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not all these changing and parting scenes of life affect us in like manner? As we see our friends failing before us-going evi- dently away from our reach and vision, the first impression is one of sadness, and though this is deepened from time to time until the last great anguish comes at the end of all our changing hopes and fears, are there not tokens of an infinite mother love upon the part of the Author and Source of life in the fact that there are always gathered about these hours such influences that blind us to the true work that is going on? How often it is that a richer coloring of character comes out into vision in the hopefulness and cheerfulness of our friends in pain and failing health.
As one autumn day seems to be worth more than a summer month, so one hour of their presence now seems of more value than days and months before. Especially is this true, I think, when one's life has been true and helpful; for as we see the leaves departing from us, back of all their beauty we catch glimpses of how much happiness they have given us through the long sum- mer months. So through these openings of patience and trust in the last hours of our loved ones we discern more clearly how much they have been to us in the past; so that they come nearer to our hearts and out of the passion of a truer love, deeper gratitude and fuller appreciation of their life and work, this sense is deadened somewhat. And then it seems to me that when the end is finally come, there is an especial effort made by Him who cares for us more than father and mother to rally to our aid all the forces of nature. Our friends gather about us with a deeper tenderness, and pathos thrilling in every word and look. Brothers and sisters ofttimes over the grave of a parent learn for the first time how much they are to each other. Parents, as they have bent over the grave of one child, have learned for the first time, in a true way, what it is to have a child-flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone-and have gone back to bend over the sleeping babe-with a sense of a newly discovered treasure, mingling with their grief for the absent one-or to speak words of tenderness to the other children that have come to them all- like the promise of a new and richer life.
Society almost unanimously at these times frees us from the common cares and responsibilities of other times. Our very enemies speak and act as though they would be our best friends,
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and thus by giving to us the best there is in humanity in these hours of affliction, the grief is in a large measure assuaged. New hopes are born, by the light of which we are enabled to walk through our night of despair. We have an illustration of this in the late death of Senator Morton. When it was known that he had breathed his last on earth, the smitten wife clasped her children to her bosom, exclaiming, in tones never to be for- gotten by those who heard them: "My darling boys!" Did not hope and joy in their possession blunt the sharp edge of despair just entering the bereaved woman's heart? And who can tell how much easier the blow has fallen through the con- stant expressions of love and sympathy during the sickness of that husband and father ? And now he is gone-hundreds who, if he was living and in health, in order to gain a political battle. would have done almost everything to have destroyed the power of his name and reputation-who will, now he is gone, be lavish in their praises, and friend or foe will unitedly crown the fallen hero of a great State with immortal honor. All this may seem poor consolation for those who have lost husband and father, but though unknown to them, it will nevertheless make the pain less hard to bear. As I meditated upon the gentleness and kindness of nature and saw in it the infinite love of the Father and Mother of us all in thus bearing us up and helping us over these rough places, I could not help thinking of other changes that are taking place. For all things about us are changing-the life of nature puts aside her robes, so the soul lays aside its mantle of flesh to be clothed upon with its house not made with hands, its Heavenly robes or mansion in the Father's house above. In the same way the truths about nature and the soul wither and decay before the ripening influence of the revolving years. It is strange, however, that amidst this universal change so many should make us try to believe that the dead and dying forms of words that once to all eyes were green and fresh, are still rich in vigor and life, and will remain fresh forever. The formalating of religious truth in one age for another is as though we should seek next spring to fasten the leaves on the trees for all succeeding years. I know of nothing, at least, that is so inconsistent with every method of nature as this tendency upon the part of the church to cling to the dead and dying past. But though the
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