Notes of @ sermon preached by the Rev. C. E, Darwent in Union Church, Sunday morning, March 13.
Psalm CXXXIX. 14. "I will give thanks unto Theo: for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderfal are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well."
This is one of the Psalms that John Ruskin said that everyone ought to know off by heart. It led Linnaeus, the great Swedish naturalist, to inscribe over his lecture-room door the word '"Numen adest." God is here." You see what it is that is filling David's mind with wonder. It is his own body, himself. Sir G. Adam Smith translates it: "I will thank Thee for that in dread fashion I am wondrously made." The feature in his body that fills him with awe at the wisdom of God in creating it, is its intricacy. He uses the word for weave. Our body is like 8 fabric woven with a complicated pattern. That is his idea: fearfully and wonderfully woven together, organs acting on one another, suffering and prospering with one an-another, acting and_ interacting. "Our substance was," he says, "curiously wrought." It is indeed. Now surely we must all have been filled with wonder at God's work as we have thought of ourselves; of the very thing—what complications in our body! How one thing affects another! You eat something—a mere trifle and you prepare a poor, feeble sermon for Sunday: your whole mental gear is thrown out by a trifle. Look at one of those charts of the body that are hung up in schools! We wonder ut the canal system of Holland and its dykes, but what is it beside your nerves and blood-vessels What Incing and interlacing! How the organs depend on one another! Refore an impulse is conveyed from the brain to the foot what a complicated process is gone through! 'What a complicated machine each jof us is! That is David's cause for wonder and praise. '"Fearfully and wonderfully made", each of us an' intricate bit of machinery such as no engineer on the coast has charce of in ship or mill.
And this suggests great subject for our consideration this morni that the analogy holds good round. Tt suggests the complica: tions in the world—and in every department of life. And then it ought to suggest some much needed lessons from the consideration of them, What complications in nature! Think of it! Think of the forces thet have to be kept bal one-d: light, heat, electricity, gra cohesion! Why cannot we forecast the weather? Because the forces involved are so enormous end so complicated that it passes the wit of man, with all man's anemometers, thermometers, barometers, wind-guages to predict it more than a day or two in advance, and then he is surprised when he is right! The weather at Shanghai depends very much on the pressure on Lake Baikal, and the vast Pacific and the enormous mass of the Hima-
Javas and the monsoon and what not! What complications in the harvest! When the wheat is crying out for dry weather the root crying their eyes out for However do we get fed at Think then of the universe, Stars travelling at 30 miles a second in scores of millions! Think of the subtle balancings of elements on which we depend for life! We seem to need.937 parts in -100 of gas called argon in the air! Think of the subtle interaction of plants and animals! Animals breathing out poisonous gee and plants making it sweet again! And so we might go on.
Now turn to the higher world of humanity. What intricacies! what complications! Think of the difference in race and temperament! Think of the clashing interests of nations, not fancy, but vital interests! Think of geography. All politics in the long run are settled by geography. © what mixed-up problems: "fearfully and wonderfully made" indeed is the warring world of man! What complications! Both Italy and Austria must want to command the Advintic and yet both cannot, Tt is only in human nature that Russia should want a clear way through the But the greatest comtion of all is in man's extraordinary nature, the physical and spiritual. There is a place in Europe where "three empires meet." It is som man, The body wants one thing, the spirit another. No wonder the world is full of trouble. The flesh lusts against the spirit: and the spirit strive against the flesh. Passion tugs at one heart-string and purity at the other. Which will wint The salvation or darnation of the soul depends on that conflict! The passion that pulls is pleasant: youth is ready to take ris and takes them: and the result uin! And so it is all through life. © the battle! O the conflicting interests! How are they to be reconciled! The whole of life is complicated. Any thing that seems plain thing at t, if you come to look into is a whole tangle of intricacy We British are being exhorted by our Government to save. Save! It is easy to say, "save": but how are you going*o save without: ruining somebody? There is man who used to pay 10/- for a bottle of wine, omb of which the State got 4/-: what good has his saving done the State? If a professional man who has been earning £1,000 a year gives his profession up and drives a motor lorry at £100 & year—has he done anybody any good! Not
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.