(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)
It has been reported that Martin Luther once said of printing that it was “God's highest and extremest act of grace, whereby the business of the Gospel is driven forward.” Advances in technology have made it possible to communicate the gospel in ways that earlier ages never could have imagined. One such advance in the 19th century was the invention of the telegraph. It was on May 24, 1844, that Samuel F.B. Morse famously dispatched these memorable words from Washington, DC to Baltimore, Maryland: “What hath God wrought?” Fourteen years later, the first transatlantic cable was laid between western Ireland and eastern Newfoundland, Canada. By this signal achievement, which was first realized on August 16, 1858, the time it took to send a communication from North America to Europe was reduced from the standard ship passage of ten days to a mere matter of minutes.
William Buell Sprague took note of this technological advance in a sermon preached later that year before his congregation: A Sermon Addressed to the Second Presbyterian Congregation, Albany, on Sunday Morning, September 5, 1858, on the Completion of the Atlantic Telegraph. (HT to Tom Sullivan who brought this sermon to our attention.)
First, he notes that we ought to see the hand of Providence in this great accomplishment of mankind. Such an advance as the transatlantic cable brought to the means by which people can communicate is clearly a work of God. Our thoughts ought to tend in that direction, to give God the glory for this manifestation of his power, and to “remember that all the power that is displayed or exercised in the Universe, is but an emanation from Omnipotence.” Employing the text of Psalm 87:19 (“Thy way is in the sea”), Sprague emphasizes that it is the hand of God at work in this advance, and it is He who is advancing in fact His kingdom over all the earth.
Need I say that this passage has not only a figurative but literal illustration in that wonder of the age, before which the whole world is bowing in reverent amazement; in honour of which we have just kept a jubilee which cast into the shade our glorious Fourth, inasmuch as the one has a mere national bearing, while the other embraces the interests of our universal humanity. When we think that a principle has been discovered, and a work accomplished, by means of which human thought flashes in lightning all through the ocean's depths, and we converse with those who live on the other side of the globe almost as if they and we occupied adjoining habitations, well may we lift up our hearts to the wonder-working God, and exclaim, “Thy way is in the sea.” Thou hast ordained that wonderful law of the creation, which has its operation in this stupendous achievement. Thou hast smiled on the researches of science, thus rendering it successful to the discovery and the application of this law. Thou hast, by thy favouring providence, brought the enterprise to a brilliant consummation. And now we would reverently recognise this new way, opened at the bottom of the sea, as thy way. We would meditate upon it with humble docility. Not for purposes of mere lofty speculation, or intellectual indulgence, or fruitless wonder, but to get our minds filled with nobler thoughts of God, and our hearts with more reverent and devout affections towards Him, and to get the spirit of obedience and submission to his will more thoroughly infused into our lives, would we hold this last, this grandest of all human discoveries to our minds, in connection with the public services of the Sabbath day. Surely it is no desecration of holy time to honour God in his works; especially to take solemn and reverential note of that which marks an epoch, I might almost say, in the unfolding of the Divine perfections.
We have great reason for optimism as we see His hand at work, and also reason to humble ourselves before that mighty hand when we consider that what is to mankind a great achievement is but the unveiling of the smallest bit of wisdom which belongs to God alone.
Let the recent discovery be an illustration. It is indeed one of the noblest triumphs both of science and of art; and when we look at it either as a bright and startling wonder, or as a contribution to the stock of human knowledge, or as a new element in the world’s civilization, we cannot but pause in admiration of the mighty human power by which it has been accomplished. But what, after all, is here the extent of man’s doings? Man has only ascertained the existence of one of the laws of the creation; has only found out a new use of the electric fire; has only put in operation a hidden agency that has existed ever since the morning stars sang together. Let man be inquired of in respect to any thing beyond the simple law that is here brought into exercise, beyond the simple fact that has here been reached; let him be asked how or why the lightning not only 19 becomes vocal, but makes this submarine passage, in obedience to the human will, and the prince of philosophers is no wiser to answer than the savage whose mind is as dark as the wilderness he inhabits. We do not suppose that this brilliant enterprise marks the limit of the mind's developments; but no matter what more glorious things there may be to come, it will never reach a point where the known will be to the unknown so much as a grain of sand is to the globe.
Sprague also contemplates how this advance in communications has a direct potential to drive forward the business of the gospel, as Luther would have said. Perhaps thinking of the Great Revival of 1858, Sprague continues:
If I mistake not, this grand discovery, in order to be duly estimated in its bearing on the Kingdom of Christ, must be viewed in connection with other things which give character to the day through which we are passing. What means the waking up, in so great a degree, of evangelical Christendom to the obligation of giving the Gospel to every creature? What means the casting away by Providence of those barriers of ages upon ages, which have kept the nations apart from each other, and which have rendered Paganism, in many instances, as inaccessible as she has been terrific? What means that great baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire, which has lately pervaded our land, and has already added so much to Zion's beauty and strength?
…
Is it a mere fancy to imagine that this yoking of God’s love with his lightning, this employing of the swiftest of all his messengers to proclaim the triumphs of his Gospel, may be regarded as emblematical of the increased rapidity with which Christianity is to fulfil her high mission of circling the globe? I do not pretend to say what drawbacks may yet be revealed to us in the great work of moral renovation; or to what extent the Church may become oblivious of her dependance, and require to be schooled by affliction before she is prepared to enjoy a complete triumph. But if the Church is faithful to her high trust, there is every thing in the aspects of providence to indicate that the days of Satan's reign will soon be numbered…
He closes with a caution that is particularly instructive for 21st century readers.
There is admonition hanging even upon this bright discovery; for though God permits his creatures to use his lightning as a new medium of intercourse, yet He Him self sometimes uses it to blast and to consume; and thus, while in the former case it speaks to us of his love, in the latter it becomes a fearful representative of his justice. Wherefore, venture not to trifle with the Creator and the Ruler of the world. Think not to substitute admiration of his works for obedience to his laws. Let your whole soul be concentrated upon the one great point of becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus. Kneel penitently at the mercy seat; lift a believing eye to the Cross; enter the straight, the narrow, the upward path; and then each successive discovery in the kingdom of nature will become with you a new element of devotion, a fresh token of Divine love, a pledge of the infinitely nobler discoveries that shall reward your admiring scrutiny beyond the vail.
This 19th century minister understood that new technology provides great potential for the advancement of God’s kingdom, and yet, at the same time is but a tool, which can be employed for good or ill. Christians have a great responsibility to use the technology at their fingertips for the glory of God and the good of mankind. How this truth resonates in the 21st century age of cyber technology in which we live today! Read Sprague’s sermon in full for yourself here to see the wisdom of it for our own day.
