Newspaper Page Text
February 3, 1909. THE PRESBYTERIA]
of Geneva is ridiculous. His last years were embittered
by the revival of the Sacramentarian struggle, by
the fanaticism of the German leaders, and by the ferment
of the Italian colony of the city. Well might he
say with Marnix d' Aldcgonde?"Repos ailleurs."
The French Reformation crushed by war, bitter opposition
at home, a city decimated by the most virulent
epidemic of plague, known for many years, himself
4 1 4 _ A iL - f A ' < - r
mcu iu ucttin uncii ana longing ior rest?such were
his last days.
His naturally weak constitution was hopelessly shattered
by an attack of quartan fever in 1558. Yet he
never diminished his labors, but staggered on under the
burden. When Beza returned from France, the flame
was burning low in the socket. Calvin lectured for the
last time February 2, 1564; four days later he preached
his last sermon. With unimpaired mental powers, but
wasted and weak unto death, he bade the Genevese
Council a characteristic farewell, as also to the ministry
ot the city. Then came the touching parting with
Farel, his lifelong intimate; and with Beza, his successor,
bosom friend and admirer.
And then he passed away, alone and quietly as a
babe falls asleep, mourned by the city he had entered
as an alien, which he loved as a father and which he
left as a conqueror, by the entire Reformed Church, he
had founded, and had built up in the faith.
He sleeps in an unknown crave, according to his
own request. The stone that now indicates the place
at Geneva was put down at a guess. His monument
was Geneva itself and his immortal fame. None of the
Reformers so influenced the history of the world as he
did, and when, at Geneva, among the statues of these
Reformers to be unveiled in 1909, his figure will tower
above the rest, it will but be an expression in stone of
a historic verity.
Presbyterian Seminary, Louisville, Ky.
CHRIST CRUCIFIED.
The very center of the Christian religion is marked
by the two words which form the title to this article?
Christ crucified. This is not to say that the very center
of the Christian religion is your theory of the atonement
or mine. The theories deduced from a fact are
not so important as the fact itself, but, whatever may
be men's theories, the supreme fact of the Christian religion
is represented by the cross, the unique and crowning
evidence of that wondrous love of God which was
manifested unto the world in his Son, Jesus Christ.
This great central fact of the Christian religion
always has been and always ought to be the one great
theme nf the fViriction nnlnif \T/-vf 4-U??4- ...? -1
^w... .wviMti j/viij/ii. aiol uiat W t UUgUL ell*
ways to be restating the fact itself, but that we ought
to be continually pointing out the meaning and the import
of that sad yet glorious event on Calvary's mount.
"We preach Christ crucified," said Paul, and we of this
day must continue to preach Christ crucified, even
though to the hearers of our time there seems to be
nothing of value in our theme; for men to this day
often do not look deep enough to see the tremendous
meaning involved in the simple fact of Christ crucified.
?Cumberland Presbyterian.
. t'f?
N OF THE SOUTH. 9
A SERMON IN THE FOG.
Shakespeare saith:
"Sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonsh;
A vapor, sometimes, like a bear or lion,
A towered citadel, a pendant rock. *
A forked mountain, or blue promontory,
With trees upon't, that nod unto the world
And mock our eyes with air.
It was Shakespeare, too, who found sermons in stones
and running brooks. So let me find a sermon in the
fog. While many parts of our country are peeping
heavenward through a snowy blanket today?and their
part of mother earth is in the grasp of the old giant that
chills and freezes, we are groping about beneath a dense
fog that enshrouds homestead, field and fold, and as we
see dimly, as through a veil, all nature shivering, we
wonder, and shiver too, as we draw near our ingle and
put on another lightwood stick to make at least a seni"
balance of glow inside, when all is so gloomy without.
T?- ."o :_J- ? f - J ?' *
ii io who lug nidi i ciiuuus us oi me aays ivioses tens
about in the second chapter of Genesis, 5th and 6th
verses, when the world was very young. "For the Lord
God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there
was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a
mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the
ground."
So just on the eve of God's crowning work of creation :
it was the great mists that watered and made soft the
soil that should yield harvests for man and beast. So
this fog, or mist, at which we repine today was God's
chosen messenger in the early dawn of creation to prepare
the way for the Adamic race that should dominate
our world and control every living creature.
tm- _ n j. 11 1 1. ? ..?
a ae nrsi mougni in my ntue sermon is, tnat togs have
benevolent uses. Before man became the master of our
sod, the mists were sent to prepare the way for the
plowshare and to make soft the seed beds in the Garden
of Eden. The hand that hurls the thunderbolt sends,
too, the soft, sweet ministrations of the fog, that awake
to new life the germ in the seed of the sower, and when
"the mists have rolled awa)'" we see in the place of a
harrowed field, once bare, the tender shoots of the
living grain making earth rejoice in her garniture of
green.
The fog is also a blessing to man, in that it mercifully
hides from man the ugly things in his landscape.
The great Master of the seasons knows that it is not
best for man to have all spring, or all summer, all sunshine
and no shadow.
The spring is beautiful and, being the birth period of
the seasons, has much to make it a most welcome visitor
after the gloom of winter.
The sweet summertime, with bird-song and flower
blooms, and luscious fruitage, is a season beloved, but
the Divine hand that sends the summer knows that
autumn, with its chill mornings and crisp white frosts,
must follow the summer and give us pure, wholesome
ozone to drive away the malarial influences of prolonged
heat.
And then the cold of winter, the white blanket of
snow, or the fog-bath, that hides away for a time the
dead things around us.
Then, too, the fog is sent to make known to man the
Master's varied methods of dealing with this earth of
will do in winter time. For other lands, he finds the