Our Unitarian GospelSavage, Minot J. (Minot Judson)
Religion
Our Unitarian Gospel
Savage, Minot J. (Minot Judson)
Sermons; Unitarianism
And then, as we trace the development of human society from the far-off
beginning, we find that justice, truth, tenderness, pity, love,
helpfulness, all these qualities have been on the increase, and are
growing; and, since the Power that has wrought in lifting up and
leading on mankind is unspent, we believe that that Infinite Power of
which we have been speaking is underneath this lifting, is behind this
progress, and that the end may reasonably be expected to issue in that
perfection of which we dream and whose outlines we dimly see afar off.
An infinite power, then, a power that is good, a power that we may
study, partially understand, at any rate, and co-operate with. We can
help on this progress instead of hindering it. We can do something to
make the world better. Here are two things then, God and goodness, that
no doubt, no investigation, have ever been able to touch or destroy.
A third thing. We want to believe that there is a meaning in these
little individual lives of ours. Sometimes, when we read of pestilences
or the great wars of the world, when we think of children born and
dying so soon almost as they are born, when we note the brevity of even
the longest life and take into account the sweep of the ages, we
sometimes find ourselves depressed with the thought that these human
lives of ours mean so little. It sometimes seems as though nature cared
nothing for us, and swept us away as the first cold and the frost sweep
away the millions of flies that had been buzzing their little hour of
sunshine.
We need to feel, then, if we are to live manly, womanly lives, that
there is some plan, or may be some purpose in our being born, in our
little struggle of a few years, in our being thwarted, in our
succeeding, in our being sick or well, in our being rich or poor, in
our being learned or ignorant. Does it make any difference how we live
these lives of ours? Is there significance in them, any purpose, any
plan, any outcome, to make it worth while for us to struggle and
strive? We need to know this; and what do the investigation and the
doubt and the struggle of the world say to us concerning these? If
there is anything which science teaches us, it is that the infinite
God, the Power, whatever we name it, that is the thought and life of
this universe, is expressed just as perfectly in the tiniest atom as in
the most magnificent galaxy. There is no such thing as an imperfect
atom in this universe. The infinitesimal atoms below us, and the tiny
orbits through which these atoms and molecules sweep, are as much in
the grasp of the Eternal Law as the movements of the stars over our
heads.
Things are not lost in this universe out of the eternal purpose because
they are little. So our apparent littleness, the weakness, feebleness
of our lives, need not disturb the grandeur of our trust in this
direction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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