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NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
39 
THE ENCYCLOPEDIC CROWN. 
Sermon by L. H. Ruge, June 12, 
10.45 A. M. 
Text: ‘‘The earth shall be full of 
the knowledge of the Lord as the 
waters cover the sea.’’—Isaiah 11:9. 
All devout scholars acknowledge 
the inspired nature of this book. No 
student of world movements, no mat- 
ter how profound his mind or his 
study, could foretell coming events 
as did Isaiah, unless he was somehow 
divinely illuminated mentally to 
foresee and forecast the future. 
He had great hopes and Tennyson 
said—‘mighty hopes makes us men’’ 
and it made Isaiah a prophet. Tis 
hope of Israel’s ultimate redemption 
was such as gives inspiration and 
power to world progress. 
~ God help the nation that scorns or 
loses its prophets. Moses saw the 
glory of Israel in Canaan from the 
bleak heights of a desert mountain. 
Isaiah saw the dawn of Christ 
through the dark days of Assyrian 
dominion. We see the glory of the 
“oolden age’’ still through the 
smoke of conflict. 
Isaiah’s prophecy is in the figure 
of a truneated tree, its fruit a univer- 
sal knowledge of the Lord. Israel 
was being hewn down and soon 
nothing would be left but the stump 
of its past history. But life is in the 
truneal roots. 
There is no desolation to the land 
of the oak, a tree that ever throws 
out new roots. We are wisely con- 
cerned about our forest destructions, 
but leave this land alone for a cen- 
tury or more and it will stand forth 
in all its ancient glory. This is be- 
cause America is the land of the oak. 
Assyria represents the fir that 
when cut down dies. Cut down the 
empire perished. Judah represents 
the oak that when cut down grew 
more abundantly than ever, and let 
us never forget, when it is a question 
of sucéoring the persecuted Jew, 
that all our boasted Christian eciviliz- 
ation has grown out of the old stump 
of Judaism. The life this world en- 
joys today is under this new tree, 
but the sap and strength of which 
is in the stem of Jesse, Jesus Christ, 
a Jew. 
It is the vision of consummate 
knowledge Isaiah stes, the contest 
between superstition and reason, 
between ignorance and knowledge, 
between scepticism and faith, to 
finally result in victory for Christ, 
the incarnate Truth. All the aggre- 
gation of facts whether of miracle, 
prophecy, phenomena, intuition, dis- 
coveries, experience, skill, genius, 
philosophy, laws, truths—all this is 
as mere material that must fuse into 
a knowledge of the Lord of all crea- 
tion, as gold and gems fuse into a 
crown. 
There never will be a ‘‘golden 
age’’ until ‘‘the earth shall be full of 
the knowledge of the Lord.”’ 
Of inferior knowledge there is a 
vast store, but ask men, ‘‘ Know ye 
the Lord?’’—and you strike them 
speechless. 
Knowledge of baseball, football 
and golf; knowledge of the breed of 
horses and dogs and hogs; knowl- 
edge of stocks and real estate and all 
sorts of speculative values; knowl- 
edge of automobiles; and soon the 
world will be full of a knowledge of 
aeroplanes; of this knowledge there 
is no lack, but of the soaring soul 
men know Ihttle. 
Some seorning the lower realms of 
knowledge probe deep into scientific 
lore and boast themselves of won- 
drous wisdom, but of the highest 
knowledge, a ‘‘knowledge of the 
Lord’’ they are ignorant. 
Study the Lord through science? 
Absurd! Study science through the 
Lord. Knowledge without God, s¢1- 
ence without a first cause is a seed 
without its life principle. 
Encyclopedias of dead facets and 
pamphlets of living truth. What 
stupidity! Reverse the order. Mini- 
mize your material philosophy and 
magnify your spiritual philosophy. 
Publish _ your sciences in duo- 
deeimos and your Christology in 
great quarto volumes. 
To understand life, be it world 
progress or the habits of an ant, find 
back of itall first the governiiz 
providence of the Lord of creation, 
for ‘‘the foolishness of God_ is 
ereater than the wisdom of men’’ 
with the Lord left out. 
Are you tired of your doubts and 
fears, your ignorance and blindness? 
Come to the eneyelopedie mind of 
Christ, the fountain-head of a know!- 
edge of God, for through Him this 
stupid old world has learned more 
about God than all the philisoplic 
ages combined. 
T ask the wizard workers of nature 
fer a sign. I see dull soil trans- 
férmed into fragrant flowers. I see 
bare roots changed into stately trees. 
T see echareoal changed into great 
gvems for which kingdoms are bar- 
tered. I see clay changed into ruby, 
topaz, amethyst, sapphire, emerald. 
just as the wizard of nature wills. 
Ah, ye disputers of miracles, it is 
all but a dull material world full of 
the knowledge of the Lord of crea- 
tion, and shall not the mind of man 
be full of the knowledge of the Lord? 
One day you left the stifling heat 
of the city, her narrow dust-choked 
confines and fled into the open and 
as you drank in the first pure breath 
of the mountains or sea what a re- 
lief, what a re-vitalization of forces. 
Or you have been strangled in some 
vile, thick, poisonous oder until the 
brain reeled and the heart pounded 
to bursting. What a gift of God a 
breath of pure air! Escape your ma- 
terialism in a knowledge of the Lord, 
for he is like pure air to a sin and 
self-strangled soul. 
We are charmed with a birds-eye— 
view of a great exposition under the 
magic of electrical illumination—of 
white buildings outlined in gold, of 
trees bearing scintillating silver 
fruit, of statuary transformed into 
visions of lustral beauty, of gardens 
set like emeralds in a crown of light, 
of fountains sparkling in rainbow 
splendor—the whole a scene of en- 
traneing fairyland and paradise. If 
men ean so transform the ragged, 
reeking suburbs of a city, what can 
not the knowledge of the Lord do? 
The knowledge of the Lord comes 
to the eanibal Hawaiians and trans- 
forms them into rational men in a 
generation. It comes to Micronesia 
and behold the isle break into hfe 
and beauty, as when a eold earth 
breaks into glory under the direct 
rays of the sun. 
It comes to Africa. Ask Stanley 
what he found there forty, years ago, 
and then ask Roosevelt what he 
found there last year. The trans- 
formation was through Christian en- 
lightenment alone. 
Bushnell says, ‘‘ a national litera- 
ture consummates and crowns the 
greatness of a people.’’ Yes, and a 
knowledge of the Lord consummates 
and crowns the human race. 
Reason is forever unerowned with- 
out Christ, and not until this 
phopheey of Isaiah is fulfilled will 
human knowledge and wisdom reach 
its climax. 
— 
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 TRYTT! 
