Notes of a Sermon Preached by the Rev. C. E. Darwent in Union Church, Tientsin, on Sunday Evening. March 25.
Text:—Micah I, 7.
"Hear, ye peoples, all of you; hearken, O earth, and all that is therein: and let the Lord God be witness against you (margin, "among yow"'), the Lord from his holy temple." us for some years.
When I came out from my last visit home in 1914 I was able to send a message from the China Sea up to the congregation of Union Church in Shanghai. That was wonderful enough, but. vow there is the still further anc even greater miracle of broadcasting., An eminent speaker, singer, or fiddler. may speak, sing, or fiddle into a machine of some kind, and people equipped with receivers, which may be bought at a small price, may hear everything over a very wide area,, On Jamiary 28, Rev. G. H. Morrison. was the first Scottish munster to. preach to a congregation "listening in," as they call it. spread over the whole of Scotland, for he was heard in places as far apart as Glasgow and Inverness. I read that a Watch-Night service was held at Ghicago last New Year's Eve, and it was heard all over the United States; in New York and in Canada; in Dakota and in Louisiena It makes one ask, What next? The total number of licences to listen in, in London, months ago was 60,000. Soon they will be as usual in our homes as_ kettles.
The whole world, with the liquid air about it, is being turned into a gigantic whispering-gallery, which makes that at St. Paul's Cathedral small indeed. Soon, we shall listen into speeches in the House of Commons, and it may be possible to hear the performance of Hamdel's 'Messiah' at Leeds, where the "Messiah" is given to perfection. That would be a joy, indeed.
So, we live in a marvellous world. Soon, we shall have the air around us as thick with multitudinous voices, strains, messages, as the air of a battlefield is humming with bullets. The great sea of air above and around us will seem to be the same stil] silent ocean that it was when the world wag young, and Adam and Eve walked in the Garden in the cool of the day; but really it will be like a sea across which swift motor-boats are hurrying in all directions, passing one another and colliding with one another; the "Old Hundredth" will be jambed up with a_ catchy Sullivan air, like "Tit-Willow." What times we live in! There will be any number of things to hear, if we only take the trouble to "listen." If we will not take the trouble to apply our receiver, it will be useless for us to ask for sympathy from our friends because we can hear nothing. They will Radio messages have been with; say, "Get out your receiver. There ere any number of things to hear."
A PARABLE'S TRANSLATION, Which facts are a parable, indeed. He that hath ears to hear, Jet him hear." It is marvellous, how our great discoveries in the material and scientific sphere are all just translations of the same things from the higher and more refined spiritual sphere. The mar-vols of the unseen world are always head of the marvels of the seen. Things we boast of doing for the first time in the long history of mankind were done long, long ages ago. That is just what Micah says: "Hear all ye people, all of you; hearken, O earth, and all that is within; and let the Lord be witness among you, the Lord from his holy temple." God is the great Broadcaster. That is just what the prophet says. Exactly as our air is full of voices, messages, songs, airs, communications of all kinds, which anyone with a properly tuned receiver can hear, so it is with God. He hag always been sending out words and messages, communications of many kinds, that all those wae have a receiving soul can hear. As we might expect, He has always been first in the field, and the there have always been men and women. who have heard His voice. There have been others who have not heard His voice, and who do rot now heat His voice, but all the analogies show that, for one reason or another, the fault is in the receiving apparatus. They have either not had their receiver acting, or there has some accident happened to it, so that it ig out of action; or it may be in some cases, it has been wilfully broken, or allowed to get out repair, that the voices cannot be heard. This is a most serious thing for us all. Science has put a powerful instrument into the hands of religion, has it not? For if, when people say we cannot find anything out about God and_ spiritual things, we can say: "It is queer, for He has always been speaking tous; the' world is iii of his voices. Had you not better overhaul your receiver, as you do a clock, when it is out of order?" There seems nothing else to be said.
Notice what a modern book the Bible at once becomes. No wonder it has held its own all these agog from old Hebrew times! This is one thing in which it is consistent from Genesis to Revelation—that God has ever been sending out messages to us men. What a broadcaster Job is! Which said unto God, Depart from us; and what can the Almighty do for them?" Yet he filled their houses with good things, And there is David. The one thing he was certain about was that it is easy to listen in to magnificent concerts of revelation and heavenly song. 'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork." Of course they do. Was it not Sir William Herschel] who said that "an undevout astronomer ig mad'? Surely he is. There is surely more in the pageant of the heavens than minerals and motion! David does not say that the heavens tell us all about God. They do not. They tell very little about His will, as Ruskin says somewhere. The law tells about that. But that they tell of His glory, who can doubt it? The stars could no more make themselves than a pile of bricks can make themselves into a cottage.
There is Isaiah. How he listened in! And he heard wonderful things the world has never let die. ''Thus saith the Lord, in an acceptable time I have heard thee, and in a day of salvation I have helped thee." All the prophets were sure of this, that God makes Himself known, and if we will we can listen in. Habakkuk on his watchtower, Jeremiah in his low dungeon, were sure that God speaks, and can be heard by all who want to hear Him. It is as Paul says, "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead." Now it may be said, "Oh, all this is Scripture, and. in a way biassed; we expect it there." Very well, then turn to the poets. What a pity good poetry is not more read than it is! Pocts are men with their receivers in order, and they, in consequence, are unanimous that the world is full of voices. There is Aubrey de Vere, one of our minor pocts. Writing of spring, he says, "Who feels not...
Some presence voided in fields and groves, That mingles rapture with remorse?
Some buried joy beside us moves And thrills the soul with such discourse As they, perchance, that wondering pair Who to Emmaus bent their way." We may not be aware of it, but that is the real deep reason why we all welcome spring. And Wordsworth is fully certain of it; "And I have felt A presence that disturbs mo with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a senso sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting Cross the Atlantic. In the New World the same kind of men hear God's voices. James Russell Lower
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.