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Show CONGREGATIONAL. At the First Congregational church yesterday morning the Rev. Godfrey Matthews continued the series of sermons ser-mons in "Religion; Theoretic and Ex perimental," and said in brief: "Please pay particular nollce to the word 'and' in this title. As I reminded re-minded you a week aso 1 am not talk-1 ing to you about rellclon, theoretical or experimental. I am not dealing; with mutually exclusive ternn. butj about complementary terms mcc the human mind Is the only instrument instru-ment of which WC stand possessed whereby we can think and as we art-only art-only Intelligent creatures as we make of all our life matter of thought, so e would be foolish if we saul 'hat religion Is the only passion of the human heart which may not bi re-solved re-solved into intellectual terms. There are people who talk like ihat and they are. for the most part, people who are in revolt against sonic- int. '11. statement of religion or another Because Be-cause they disagree with one State ment in one treed they wish to 'scrap' all the creeds, which is about as sensible as saying because the alchemist of the seventef-nth centurv duped themselves, therefore all scien- tiflc enterprise is foolish. As lonR rs! the human heart longs for God and tli- human mind lonn to know ire shall have theological systems, creeds of belief, statements of relious I truth, and it Is right that we shot. Id. i and it is right that we should make i hem more and more Intelligent and intelligible as the days go by. How- ( ! ever, it is not my purpose to speak j of the present time, but of some ol I the means of grace, of religion ezperl mental, of the culture of the soul in the sense of the Divine presence, and so I encourage you to practice the art of offering the sacrifice ol pra:-. "Praise Is, I bclleCc, the primary instinct in-stinct Ol the human religion, the first movement of the human soul tow irdl !God. Herbert Spencer, whose M ien tific achievements did not maxe of hun mucb of a human being, and who saw life largely from the chair .if the aeademie student, said ' Ml n liginn is traceable to the primary emotion j of fear-' 1 believe otherwise. Where-, ever there are found traces ot pilmi tlve man, closely as you follow the growth and development of the human race, more and more has man 1 grown in the sense or the wonder, and the glory, the delight and the ecstatic beauty of the world in -vhich he lives. The contemplation of the growth of his own powers and the development de-velopment of his fellows has led him along paths of beauty truth, and liyht, and thre has incessantly flowed flow-ed from the human heart B great and swelling chorus of praise -for the beauty of the earth, and the glory of the skies, for the love Which from our birth over and around us lies ' "The praise has often enough not been consciously addressed to a diine being or beings. It has expressed it self though in all the forms of art. in music, in painting, in poetry, In drama, in prose In words, in color, in stone. For all of which he felt himself the recipient of a divine bounty boun-ty man ha.-, praised another not himself him-self The Bible Is a book containing the religious experience and utter i n - of wid.h diversified huma ,1 b ings In widely different clrcumMan- j res, centuries and languages, and yet if II we were to cut out or it th-- hyjsjia II we would have but a frag- j I mentaiy record" of man's sense of the ' H orld and In tbe heart of a 1 It is a i;ood thing that you and I L I j should address ourselves to the culture H Oul in Ci d by building our al- w 1 tars of praise. In our homes they jl should be erected and fervently and ...iily I..H.-.1 Just .is you make time. for th ol your child in music. El or any othet . r , make time and place, in I j for your own and your child's culture H pn Too hurriedly HH to begin the day 's work, too bur- i I ...,,.;,. ft .. .i...... K....I i. bor, we forgel the t'-od who is to be H praised for everv blessing our life en- YM I "Pill thou my life, o Lord no OooT, I in every part with praise, That my whole being may reflect thy Relng and Thy ways." |