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WHAT IS RELIGION?—Ill
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By REV. JAMES W. LEE, -
PASTOR TRINITY METHODIST CHURCH
tead
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I.
has taken man a long time to con-
the thought contained in tangible
•tj» around hln(l into term* of science,
is only within recent years that he
be^n able to reduce It to the
!s of systematic, accurate, verifla-
h now ledge. All the andlonts knew
the constituent elements ol( mate*
1 bodies they were able to express
four general terms which they
m e(f earth and air and fire and
ter. Man has divided and subdtvid-
these huge masses until now, in-
of four terms through which to
his knowledge, he has about
fcventy- He has not only named the
ements, he has weighed them and
easured them and .determined their
(Unities. He has learned how to group
particular elements so as to get com
pounds of one sort and then how to
ike the same elements and group them
ifferently an d get compounds of an
other sort; how to make carbon, hy
drogen and nitrogen stand together so
^ to give him bread, and then by forc
ing them to change sides and swing
corners to give him prussic acid. He
lias changed caloric from an igneous
fluid into a mode of-motion and by so
doing lias started the countless wheels
,f toll. He has changed astrology into
astronomy and out of the wheel of
fortune that once stood In the heavens
he has made a useful and universal
dock by which sailors ride the sea. He
m converted alchemy Into chemistry,
and while not finding the philosopher’s
„tone. which turned everything It
touched into gold, he has found some
thing better In the secret of prepar
ing his food so as to turn disgruntled
dyspeptics into amiable men and worn-
He has driven the gods and god-
from the classic mountains, the
dryads and the genii from the woods,
hobgoblins and ghosts from the dark
ness and closed the career of the for
tune teller and the quack and the fake
among Intelligent people. He has
changed the doptor from the conjuror
into a rational physician, who no longer
puts drugs of which he knows little
into bodies of which he knows notnlng
in the days of Voltaire, and who
n<» longer givps prescriptions on a level
with that or which Montaigne speaks
which consisted of the left foot of a
tortoise, the liver of a mole, the-blood
from under the left wing of a pigeon
tnd rats pounded to a fine powder. He
im increased his vision a million fold
by finding the telescope and the gift of
ins hearing by discovering the tele
phone, and the sense of his smell by.the
Invention of the chemical test. He has
taken down the thought habitations of
the fathers and replaced them by oth
ers bo wide and high that many ear
nest people long accustomed to close
mental quarters have been afraid they
coum never move into them without
catching in the wide cosmic spaces
their death of cold. He has found the
*® c . re . t sending his messages on the
undulations of the luminiferous ether,
and a recent professor of science has
declared that we are in thinking dis
tance of the time when, if a father
wants to talk to his son, he knows not
where, he will only have to call in a
loud electro-magnetic voice, heard by
the son, whose ear Is electro-magneti-
ned to the same pitch and by no other
and say, “Where are you, John?" The
low reply will come back: “I am at the
bottom of a slate quarry in Wales, fa
ther," or ‘I am out three days from
Southampton on the Atlanta/’ or “I am
spending the day with a friend on his
sheep ranch in Australia.”
(I.
The thought in material facts man
has organized Into science has been in
them from the beginning He failed
through the ages to And It because he
sought for the theory of things in his
Imagination rather than In the objects
themselves. He developed wonderful
mental systems to account for and ac
commodate the nature of things, but he
found when put to the test thkt they
failed to get hold of the real order of
facts. Then he would Invent other
thought schemes _and And that
they also failed to get hold of what he
saw without him. He devised mental
traps to catch the heavens in, but
learned after a while that the planets
did not enter them. He constructed in
tellectual machinery for reducing the
atoms to order In his mind, but the
molecules refused to turn in the direc
tion of his intellectual wheel work.
Things evidently had ways of going
somewhere, but the roads he built for
them they refused to travel over. There
was surely an outside program of real
ity, but hls Inside sketches dlrl not con
form to it. So for thousands of years
he found hls universe of thought turn
ing one way and the universe of fact
turning another. In modern times an
cient methods have been abandoned.
*Mnn learned from costly experience
that they would not work. They kept
him from his estate. They constantly
misled him. However promising they
might appear to be, he found when he
followed them , that they always left
him outside the plantation he felt be
longed to him. Though he fashioned
them, he found they were shackles and
not instruments of progress. Though he
invented them, he learned that they
1 formed a prison tor his rnfntf rather
than a means to its freedom. The
mountains were stored with wealth,
but hls theories paralyzed enterprise by
misguiding hls energies. The sun was a
solar engine with unlimited power to
let, but hls theory of heat led him away
from it and left him to trudge rather
than ride in a palace car.
But weary at length of self-devised
methods that baffled him and threw
him back upon himself, disappointed
and impotent, he conceived the Idea of
inducing hls theories from a study of
facts. This was new and heretical, but
the wisdom of the plan was vindi
cated by results. It had been the cus
tom to settle the order of things by
resolution. Men in convention assem
bled felt it incumbent upon them to
determine the shape of the earth by
vote. If the majority declared it to be
flat, that was an end to controversy
on the subject. The thought of actu
ally investigating an object in order to
And out its constitution and place and
movements was foreign to the minds
of those called to administer upon the
affairs of the world and Its interests.
Many of the poor, lone students, here
and there, who attempted to look into
facts to learn how they worked, paid
for their experience by the loss of their
daring heads. In modern times, how
ever, the revolt from the bondage of
unworkable theories has been so prb-
nounced and widespread that there is
no longer any attempt to burn the.
men who think. Their motives are
often misinterpreted, but they are no
longer reduced to ashes. Explorers
who have used modern methods in
manipulating nature have found so
much to bless mankind that they are
beginning to get credit for being useful
members of society. Darwin at last
sleeps peacefully In Westminster ab
bey.
It is inevitable that methods which
have been so efficient In the study of
nature should *how be applied to the
subject of religion. Thinkers have
failed to reach the complete reality of
man and God by self-devised theories
as thoroughly as they failed for thou
sands of years to grasp the meaning
of nature by Imagining methods. The
facts of religion, when approached by
the modern scientlflc method, are us
ready to yield results as rich for the
spirit ns have the facts of nature yield
ed results for the enrichment of oUr
temporal well being. We have sent
over into the Promised Land the Calebs
and Joshuas of physical science and
REV. J. W. LEE.
grapes for the satisfaction of the
but, instead of sending over other Ca
lebs and Joshuas to And out what there
in 'Canaan for the spirit, we have
been accustomed to turn back to wan
der Jn the wilderness, eking out a mis
erable existence on the manna our Very
wretchedness provokea^from the pity
of heaven. The picture may appear
overdrawn, but It is not. We are rev
eling and luxuriating in the wealth
science has won from the facts of na
ture, hut how few there are who are
rolling and growing great and magniil-
cent in the wealth science can win
from the facts of religion. The facts
are crammed with the religion the
spirit needs, but we do not address
ourselves to the consideration of them
as we do to the facts of nature. Hence,
our spirits hobble along on crutches,
while our bodies Ay through space in
palace cars. Our spirits live In floor-
iess huts, while otir bodies flourish In
steam-heated palaces. Our bodies ure
magnified to the point of bursting and
our spirits are minifled to the point of
collapsing. The part of us that ought
to fly Is held to the dust, and the part
of us that belongs to the dust is per
mitted to attempt the experiment of
flight. The spirit is down where the
appetites ought to he. and the appe
tites are up where the spirit ought to
be. And all this comes largely from
the truth that science has brought so
much more from the facts of nature for
the body than from the facts of religion
for the spirit. We have been afraid
to approach the facts of religion with
the scientific method. We are like
the old-time guardian's of nature, who
f were afraid for fhe facts of it to be
I really investigated as they w r ere In
themselves, lest the explorers might
And something to destroy their pre
conceived ideas of it.
It is true that the thories one holds
should never be abandoned until lie. has'
found others which more clearly and
completely account for and accommo
date the facts of which they are the
subjects, but he should always remem
ber that the theories he holds are not
the facts. They arc vulunble only In
so far as they enable him to grasp the
real,meaning of the facts with which
they deal.
* III.
The facts of religion ure as Indubita
ble and self-evident as the facts of
nature. They disclose relations, and
therefore contain thought as clear and
distinct as that found In material facts.
They have not yielded up their con
tents as completely as have the facts
of nature, because they have not been
approached by the scientific method.
Religion Itself Is a compound reality,
made up of elements one-half qf which
are human and the other half divine.
The human elements of religion arej
1. A sense of dependence in man
upon an unseen power higher than
himself and other than himself, yet
related to himself. This sense of help
lessness in the presence of invisible but
enduring forces grows out of the activ
ity of imagination and affection, com
bined with the constant and Insistent
agency of the conscience. It Is more
than the mere sense of dependence,
such as the primitive man feels upon
the boat lie Is using to cross the river,
or upon the cave he is using to protect
him from the storm. It Is a feeling of
inadequacy and weakness in the pres
ence of a mysterious power, the things
about him only serve to represent and
advertise. He feels himself Invested
a strange something or some one back
of them, of which they bring him In
timations. Thjs vast and awful some
thing speaks to him out of the storm.
He hears Its voice in the thunder. He
beholds its face In the burning sun. He
sees its fury in the lightning. He feels
Its placid moods mirrored In the beau
tiful moon. It sleeps under the rocks;
it flows in the river; it stands in the
mountains and sings in the waterfall.
It roars in the Hon, flies in the bird,
blooms in the flower, and resides in
the deep shade of the forests. All na
ture is alive with It. Whatever the
something is, that confronts him and
looks at him and speaks to him from
out the Inside of animate and inani
mate objects, the savage feels he Is
known by it and approved or con
demned by It, and that upon it he Is
dependent for his well-being.
There is a vague nebulous sense with
him that hls Interests will be best
served by getting on good terms with It.
Coupled with a sense of dependence
and relationship, we And In man as
man, from the savage to the civilized
saint, the sense of obligation and re
sponsibility to an unseen power. He
prostrates hhpself before it; he prays
to It; he sacrifices to it; he lifts up
altars and bow* before them to
ship It. Everlastingly and universally
hls conviction is. he must please or
placate, or propitiate the unseen mys
tery upon which he feels himself de
pendent and to which he feels -himself
responsible. The primitive man and
man through ail the stages of
progress is ever engaged In bringing
about an atonement between himself
and the power that encompasses him.
“Creeds change
All outward forms
Recast themselves.
Sacred groves, temples and churches
Rise and rot and tall.
Races and nations
And the various tongues of men
Come and go and are.
Recorded, numbered. ✓
And forgotten In the repetition
And the drift
Of many ages.
All outward circumstances
May be different,
But there lives no man.
Nor ever lived one,
Who, in the silence of hls heart,
Feeling his need.
Has not cried out,
8haping some prayer
To the unchanging God/'
The divine elements of religion are:
t. The revelation the unseen One
makes of Himself through nature, From
the beginning of time outside
objects and forces have united to
form a sort of literature through which
some great being was uttering Itself or
himself.
What meaning the mystery back of
things was trying to make known
through mountain and grove and river
and sky the savage was not able to
determine, but that bJs imagination and
emotion and conscience were deeply
stirred by the interpretation ,he did put
upon their significance to him na one
doubts. Hls religion, crude and gro
tesque as it was, bears witness to what
he felt the power back of all things
was trying to say to him. He saw in
the bird an idea from the unseen One
that provoked this religious feeling.
The stars above him, the forests around
him, the waters beneath him, were to
him so many great languages Ailed
with Ideas expressed by One upon
whom-he was dependent, and to whom
he was responsible. He differed from
the modern student of nature In that
he only felt that things had a meaning,
while the scientist today knows exactly
what the meaning Is» He saw packages
In which he felt something wus
wrapped up, while the modem inan has
untied the bundles and found out what
ihelr contents are. He saw the alpha
bet of creation, but had not learned
the names of the letters, nor how to
put them together In words. He was a
poet with a soul boiling with feeling,
but was like Vesuvius before the sub
terranean (Ires broke through Into rivers
of flame. He was the forerunner of
Wordsworth, who saw In the cloud
an elf telling tales of the sun, and said
that the dead Lucy Gray was still seen
by many on the wild, and that “the
white doe of Rystone is the daughter
of an Eternal Prince/' The savage
was the civilized man before starting
to school. He was Darwin thousands
of years before the naturalist lived. He
was man before he had learned to
count and read and write and cipher.
He was the saint before- he had
learned to say;
'As feel the flowers the sun In heaven,
But sky and sunlight never see,
So feel 1 thee, O God, my God,
Thy dateless noontide hid from me.
As touch the buds the blessed rain,
But rain and rainbow never see.
So touch I God in bliss or pain,
Hls far vast rainbow hid from me.
Orion, moon and sun and bow,
Amaze a sky unseen by me,
God’s wheeling heaven Is there I know,
Although Its arch I cannot see/'
Convention Sermon
Delivered at
Carteravifle, Ga.
THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM
“Go thou and preach
the Kingdom of God.”
—Luke, lx, 60
By REV. JOHN E. WHITE,
PASTOR SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH
This lx the xermon delivered by Dr.
White laxt Tuexday night at the open
ing of the Baptist conference at Carters-
vilie. It attracted more attention than
any sermon of recent months.—Editor.
for the past twenty-five years the
definite direction of Christian faith has
!«n Christo-centric. There is a steady
movement of convergence upon the fact
’hat every knee should bow and every
tonguo confess that Christ Is Lord tt>
the glory of God the Father. This Is to
be particularly seen In the tendency
to got hark to our Lord’s own teaching
"it matters of religion. Notv, that
movement has been going on long
enough and has been sufficiently gen
eral in Its character for us to see what
has i onto out of It. .
The result has been that two great
truths have been rescued from neglect
and set In the very center of the Chris
tian's creed—the doctrine of the Fa
therhood of God and the doctrine of
the Kingdom of God. With regard to
the first, I wish to say that the articles
"I faith which do not contain a dis
tinct emphasis of the doctrine of the
Fatherhood cannot be squared with the
New Testament without humiliation
ami exposure of disregard for what was
most clear In the Savior’s teaching and
most dear to the Savior's heart; nor
tan they be squared with the most
prominent evidences of our Christian
civilization, which Is gloriously full of
that practical goodness which testifies
that the Fatherhood of God has made
real the brotherhood of man.
nf the other rescued and re-empha-
sizeu t rut It, the gospel of the Kingdom
"f God. with Which my message on this
"cession Is concerned, 1 wish to say
thst Its restatement has saved the
equilibrium of the Christian religion.
The great doctrine of Grace. In which
the t.ioa of the Fatherhood Is such a
lire.eminent feature, I* capable of ex
aggeration, of dangerous over-empha
sis.
No Inconsiderable number of people
hav, been so delighted with Christ’s
revelation of the Fatherhood of God
that they have rushed Christianity
right into,the arms of Mohammedanism
without realizing It. I nin quoting a
greet authority when I say that the
"hole point of Mohammedanism Is this;
is so merciful that He will not
Punish His poor child because he sins.”
To correct that tendency and maintain
the l>ulance of Christian faith the Holy
"Writ has turned the thought of the
" or PI back try Christ’s wonderful teach
ing about the Kingdom of God. God Is
a father, but He Is also a king. We
arc the members of a family, but
family governed as a kingdom. So the
first point I bring you from this text
Is tliat If we come Into the Kingdom of
God and if'we accept our Lord's call to
preach the Kingdom of God, we come
Into It and we preach it as a kingdom.
Kingdom, Not Republic.
A kingdom la the dominion uf a king.
Its essential Idea is authority centered
In one ruler. The principle of a king
dom stands out In contrast with the
principle represented In our great word
republic. Strength and power arc add
ed at once to our conception of the
Christian religion, when we recognise
that It is the religion of a kingdom, not
the religion of a republic.
Fur Illustration, we cannot accurately
speak of nature as n republic. Nptiirc
is a kingdom. A sdpreme authority
rules In nuture. It Is a system which
turns about one center. The universe
is not a mere federation of forces.
There Is no original self-determining
will In a star, a flower or a bird. Nature
Is not controlled by the consent of the
governed. It Is a kingdom in which
even - atom moves by direction of a
superintending Intelligence, whose will
la law. Nature Is full of harmony, be- c
cause obedience to law reigns through
out, her realm, our Father who are In
the heavens. Now. above the kingdom
of nature Is this other kingdom In the
sense that the spiritual above the
physical.
The emperor Kaiser William of Ger
many visited a grammar school In the
city of Bonn. The teacher gave him
the opportunity of testing the Intelli
gence of the scholars. ’’Now, what
kingdom does tills belong to?’’ he
asked, holding out a silver coin.
In a chorus they all cried: "That be
longs to the mineral kingdom." "Well,”
and he took from hls pocket nn orntigc,
“what kingdom docs this belong to?"
Again all responded, "The vegetable
kingdom." “Good," the king said. "But
now look,” as he pointed to hls own
person. "What kingdom do I belong
toT’ A look of blank dismay passed
over the faces of the loyal scholars.
They did not like to say that their em
peror was an animal and belonged to
the animal kingdom. At length, In the
silence, a little girl held up her hand.
She could answer. "So you know, little
frauleln? You can tell us. What Is It?"
"You belong," she said, "to the King
dom Of God." The emperor was great
ly touched. He took her In hls arms
and tears were In hls eyes. “I hope, I
trust you are right," he said.
Above this kingdom of nature Christ
raised the banners of another kingdom,
which He called the Kingdom of God.
It was regulated by different laws, con
tained different tribunals and It con
cerned the souls of men. It was an
empire of hearts. But it was a king
dom. To enter It required surrender to
a King. To be a citizen of it demanded
the recognition of a sovereign 1 will and
submission to Hls laws. \
My emphasis Is no mistake. The need
of our preaching Is the note of the di
vine sovereignly. There are thousands
who call themselves citizens of the
Kingdom of God who labor under the
deadly error of thinking that It Is a
citizenship of the American brand In
which they can think uqd feel .and act
after their own will, their prejudices,
their own natural dispositions. The
moral Inefficiency of Christianity Is the
subtle anarchy that pervades the rank
and file who forget If they ever realized
It tliat they ure In a kingdom where to
think as otic pleases and feel as one
pleases nnd do as one pleases Is not a
privilege nor n right. "Go thou and
preach the Kingdom of God.”
A Present Reality.
The expression, "The Kingdom of
God,” Is not original to Ike New Testa
ment. It and Its equivalents are found
scattered throughout the Old Testa
ment. The remarkable difference, how
ever, between the Idea the Jews had of
the kingdom nnd the Idea that Christ
proclaimed was that He proclaimed the
kingdom as a present reality. "Be
hold:" Ho cried, “the Kingdom of God
la at hand." Jewish thought concerned
Itself exclusively with the Kingdom of
God us an Ideal to be realized In the
future. Christian thought holds It us
an Ideal realizable In the present. It
was not something to be. It was. The
Jews had dreamed until they became a
nation of dreamers. Their faith loht Its
appropriating power. TJhelr religion
lost Its hold upon life. Christ broke
upon them with a vital message. "The
kingdom Is here nnd now,” He said.
He sent Hls disciples forth to proclaim
it as a present reality, rnnunandlng
them to say, "The Kingdom of God
has come nigh untc you."
A few years ago the English colonial
secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, went
upon a grand missionary Journey to
Houlh Africa. It was Just after the
Boer war. just after the British govern
ment hait been set up. He went every
where preaching. Preaching what?
Preaching the'kingdom of Great llrlt-
DR. JOHN E. WHITE.
uln. He did not preach It na a govern
ment to be received at some distant
time. He persuaded the Boers to yield
to It and enter Into Its privileges. This
tuny Illustrate what Christ means by
the gospel of the kingdom. The king
dom is here. We are to persuude men
to realize it here us ■practical fact.
Without attention to this we have very
often missed the meaning of the Lord's
prayer. Every note of that prayer Is
Instinct with a present meaning. It
was a prayer for disciples mid In the
present tense: "our Father who art In
iieuvcn, hallowed be thy name." When?
At some future time? “Thy kingdom
••ome, thy will be done on earth us tt Is
in heaven.” When? At some distant
time? No. He means, "Thy kingdom
be welcome In our hearts, thy will be
done today In our lives." It Is a prayer
of appropriation.
What Is the Importance of lilts?
Here Is the Importance of It. There Is
an habitual disregard of the present
practicability of the laws of the king
dom. There Is also a deul of mysticism
nbout tile second coming of Christ that
contains n manifestly Immoral effect,
since It denies that the kingdom of
righteousness Is possible for.tltq pres
ent age. With such teaching. If Its
teachers arc logical, there must be a
htmo insistence, upon the power of the
kingdom to assert Its present, practi
cal reality. Clirlstisaid tile kingdom of
God was like a grain of mustard seed.
It would grow and grow till It sheltered
the nations. He said It was like leaven.
It would work and work until the earth
was leavened. It Is a passion we all
Indulge to look forward -to a golden
age.
'That far off divine event
veti
wn
ole creation
Poets have sung of It. Prophets have
foretold It. Preachers have proclaimed
It. But the providence of Owl in the
gospel of the kingdom has a grander
note than that. It assures us that the
kingdom of God is not n dream, but a
working plan, fitted down to the neces
sities of this present world. It tells
that the kingdom fun come on eartli
even as It ts in heaven. Do you believe
that? How can you doubt It? Unroll
the records of foreign missions and
mark the changes of darkness to light,
of death to life on the maps of heath
enism. Unroll the records of evangel
ism, the records which many of you
hold In memory dear of souls whose
king was Satan, whose sovereign now
Is the King called Jesus,
A Personal Possession.
When f’hrlst said to the Jews, "Be
hold the kingdom of God Is within
you." He reversed three thousand years
of sincere religious thought, it is very
much easier to think of the kingdom of
God ns outside of us. Thht appeals to
our Instinct for the spectacular. It
presents no particular pressure uf per.
sonul obligation. It involves us ns
spectators and well-wishers chiefly.
"The kingdom of God Is coming," we
say; "let us stand still nnd see ihe
glory of God.”
Probably nothing Is more Inevitable,
certainly nothing more difficult to
avoid, than the tendency to fail Into
the way of thinking of the kingdom of
God as external, institutional und gen
eral In Its character. The result Is that
the individual Christian concerns him
self with the duty of doing something
help the cause of the kingdom on,
rather tiian with the duty of being
something that actually establlahes the
kingdom of God among men.
I suppose every one can see that If
this means anything It means quite a
considerable responsibility. Since Mr.
McKinley's assassination at Buffalo the
visit of the president to a city causes
no little anxiety to Its authorities. To
he accountable for the safety of the
head of the nation Is not a'stnall re
sponsibility. "The kingdom of God Is
within you”—not In a city, hut In
you: not In the church, but In you. You
realise, do you not, the tremendous
obligation of that? If we can say of
another great engagement of life that
“so sacred are its sanctions and so se
rious are Its responsibilities that It Is
to be entered into by no one thought
lessly or Inadvisedly, but by every one
thoughtfully, prayerfully and In the
fear of God,” what may be said of so
grave an engagement as this, "the
kingdom of God within you?” Yet the
realization of that responsibility Is .the
very soul of the Inspiration of personal
Christianity. It takes that realization
to make a great Chrlztlan. Julius Cae
sar calmed the fears nnd emboldened
the courage of the sailors In a storm
by reminding them "tu vehl Caesar”
("you carry Caesar”). Napoleon fairly
multiplied the French nrmy by two, by
making every soldier feel us though he
alone was carrying the honor of the
emperor and the empire. Once, when
the surgeon was cutting close to a
Frencfi gendarme's heart the man,
feeling the knife touching near the
cardiac, smiled at the surgeon and
said, "Cut a little further, doctor, and
you will find the emperor.”
Not otherwise are the prodigies of
Christ's earliest followers explained.
The marvelous successes of the apos
tles lay In their realisation that Christ's
kingdom rested on their shoulders.
Christ succeeded In making Hls dis
ciples personally, Individually, respon
sible tor the gospel. The apostle Paul
set this murk of the great responsibili
ty at the very front of Christian prop
aganda. "The kingdom of God was
within him." For him "to live wus
Christ.” It Is not the easiest Chris
tianity. Perhaps this Is why one may
reasonably question If It Is the char
acteristic Christianity of our times. It
Is not the only way to be religious, nor
exactly the natural way to be relig
ious.
There Is an Incident familiar to some
of you, of a gentleman who waa be
reaved of bis wife, who left behind u
little girl. She was all that waa left
him. He gave himself up to her and
us she grew in beauty und loveliness
hls heart wounds were cured. She wus
hls Joy. They were like lovers In de
votion to each pther. They made an
engagement that In the afternoon when
he would come from Ills business und
she from her school they would meet
at a certain comer and go home to
gether, and this they did, spending the
evenings In u beautiful comradeship.
One evening she excused herself and
went to her room. He did not see her
till the next afternoon. Sho met him
as usual and they went home together.
Again, after'dlnner, she excused heralf.
The next day It was repeated, and for
several'days, until the shadow settled
back on the man's life and hla heart
was bleeding. He Inquired, but dlte
laughingly refused to explain. After a
week of suffering he gave himself up
to utter loneliness of spirit and their
okl relations were gone. One evening
she .excused herself from the table as
usual, but In a minute returned nnd.
standing behind the door, she suld,
"Papa, now shut your eyes." Then she
flew In and flung about him a hand
some smoking robe and merrily klsaed
him. "It's your,birthday. Don't you
know It? I made It nearly all with,
my own hands. That's what I’ve been
' ig every night."
Uncled with hls tears, halt of suf
fering still, he pushed the elegant robe
away and said, "Oh, my darling, don't
over do that again. It Is not that I
want; l want you, you yourself.”
I think you understand now what
It means to have the kingdom of God
within you. I think you feel the truth
nnd see why God gave Hls only begot
ten Hon, "In whom dwelt the fullness
of the Godhead bodily," why "God was
In Christ.” He gave Himself because
He wanted you yourself. It Is Ood for
a man and that man you. "My hus
band Is kind to me; he provides every
thing; he embarrasses me with gifts,
but, oh, doctor, he doesn't love me; he
realty loves some one else; yet he
promised you and me that be would ho
altogether mine ae long as we both
should live.” You feel the heart of the
tragedy beating there. Do yoif not un
derstand that Ihe heart of tragedy Is
beating here, here In this congregation,
because our Father is mtxslhg Ills
child, because there are such glaring!y
Imperfect attachments to Christ, tie-
“the gift without the giver le
"Here, Lord, I give myeelf to Thee;
TIs all that 1 can do."
And that Is enough. There’s nothing
left after that. The man and all that
hls signature can control and command
goes along with that.
THE GEORGIAN WISHES ITS READERS—would
stop and go over their Saturday paper and see if there
is any lack of good things for them to read Sunday.
We do not print a Sunday paper—NOT GOING TO.
- Saturday’s Georgian is a paper for Sunday, too.