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January 6, 1909. THE PRESBYTERIA
no mere man has ever succeeded in keeping these two
great commandments perfectly or adequately, either in
letter or in spirit. And no man has ever consistently
and adequately made the effort. His very purposes are
vacillating and his efforts are intermittent. If men are
to be saved by keeping the two great commandments,
then none are ever saved. These commandments are,
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with
all thy strength," and "Thou shalt love thy neighbor
it 1 r ff r\ * i- . -1
us uiyseii. whc must nave a degenerate conception
of moral standards who thinks that any mere human
life ever fulfilled these requirements; and how crude a
conception of moral adjustments must one have who
thinks that trying to keep these laws in our halting,
feeble, and pitiful way, entitles a soul to salvation or in
any adequate sense constitutes Christian character. It
is undoubtedly the Christian's duty to keep these high
standards before the mind as the ideal of the soul
toward which he shall ever aim, but there are vital,
fundamental facts entering into Christian character
which are not stated in our Lord's definition of moral
onngation.
Christian character consists, in part, of being a partaker
of the redemptive work of our Lord, by virtue of
which guilt is removed and the soul is brought in legal
union with Christ so that "there is therefore now no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." The
soul is found in him not having its "own righteousness
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith
of Christ." This character has yet a more experimental
aspect. We accordingly find that it has vital sources
and is sustained and receives its quality through union
with another life, Christ dwells in the heart by faith,
Christ is "in you, the hope of glory." "Christ liveth in
me," says Paul, and we must insist that this indwell
ing of Christ is an essential part of Christian character.
His love refines the affections, his wisdom illumines
the intellect and his volition determines the will.
Christian character is the product of divine grace, and
is the fruit and expression of gracious influences affecting
the soul. When that character is seen we do not
say that it is the product of an effort to keep the moral
law, but rather it is the product of a Divine agent imparting
a Divine energy to the soul and giving that
soul holy qualities. The Christian character is one
whose very life and all excellent qualities are the evi
dence, the effect, the creation of the indwelling Spirit
of God. It is sanctified; it is a regenerated life; it is
nourished with spiritual food; it inhales a spiritual
atmosphere; its sources and qualities are God-given.
We would say then, as a partially adequate definition,
that a Christian character is one which by faith
is a partaker of Christ's redemption through his atoning
blood; is a partaker of his life by vital union with him;
is sanctified by the indwelling of his Holy Spirit; is
consecrated by that Spirit to his service; and who
sincerely accepts as the summary of all moral obligation
the two great commandments, sincerely seeking
and depending upon the Divine Spirit to qualify the
soul for glorifying God in body and spirit, which are his.
N OF THE SOUTH. 15
The Defence of the Faith
TWO TYPES OF FOOLISH MEN.
A recent writer, whose good common sense and
scholarship are not less than his power of imagination
and striking illustration, describes two of the most
foolish men of whom he can conceive. He puts the
matter into the form of a traveler's story. The traveler
approaches a great range of mountains that lifts itself
into the clouds and spreads its foundation over an area
of many miles, making the gigantic backbone of a continent.
As he draws near to its foot he beholds there
a man lustily trying to turn over the mountain.. He
justly pronounces him the most foolish man he has
ever seen. The mere thought that he can with his little
hand spike uproot and remove the mountain. The
haps, in ascending the mighty range and going down
traveler journeys on, spends many hours, a day peron
the further side. Arrived at its foot, he espies
another man. This one is in a state of great excitement.
He is leaning with all his might against the
precipitous face of the mighty mountain, bracing himself
with all his might as he presses his shoulder against
rock. When asked by what he is so stirred and for
what he is working so strenuously, he answers that
word has come to him that there is a strong man on
the other side trying to overturn the mountain and he
is not going to allow it to be done if it can be helped,
that he intends to protect it and hold it in its place.
The traveler pronounces him even more foolish than
the other.
T?1 It - - - "
ine " impregnable rock of the word," as Gladstone
called it, cannot be overturned by the power of the little
human intellect and the great human enmity. The man
who, puffed up with conceit, thinks he has found the
way to do it, shows himself to be devoid of both knowledge
and wisdom, of knowledge of the futility of all the
efforts of the ages to destroy or pull down or overturn
the Bible, and of wisdom as to the reasons why it cannot
be destroyed. That man is even more foolish, however,
who is alarmed for the safety of the Word of God
and who exhausts his strength in the effort to prevent
the enemy of the Bible from destroying it. The Bible
has stood thus far. Tho same elements which have
given it permanency in the past are in it still and will
sustain it. It is "the word of God which liveth and
abildeth forever."
I live for those who love me,
For those who know me true;
For the Heaven that smiles above me,
And waits my spirit, too;
For the cause that lacks assistance,
For the wrong that needs resistance,
For the future in the distance
And the good that I can do.
?Barton.