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4 THE PRESBYTERIA
A BANNER TO BE DISPLAYED.
What use can a Church have for a creed or a Confession
of Faith? There are those who, affirming the
Bible itself to be their creed, deny the right and value
of any Confession of Faith, or other standard of truth.
But the result has been in such religious bodies the
existence of a concurrence in unwritten doctrine without
a standard definitely stated to which to appeal.
And the fruit is indefinite views and often a sad loss
of harmony.
It has been a large part of the strength and steadfast
ness 01 tne great churches, known as Reformed, that
they have Confessions, firmly based they believe on
the Word of God, which are the standards around
which they gather, and under which they go forward.
The Reformed Churches of the world represented in
the late Ninth Council in New York, have Confessions,
not identical in form and statement, but one in essential
doctrine, so that in many lands, with a various
history, speaking various tongues, they heartily concur
and march compactly and confidently to win the
world for Christ.
A primary use of a Confession is to declare to the
world the truth which the Church understands the
Scriptures to teach. The Church is "the pillar and
ground of the truth": nre-eminentlv a witne<a<; ail
mankind for God, and the message of his truth and
^race. The Church is commissioned to teach all nations.
It is her office, not only to uphold the truth and
to defend it, but to hold it up as a blazing torch before
the eyes of men. Her own members, her children and
youth, and all outside of her have right to ask the
Church what she regards as the vital and essential
truths of her great text-books, God's Word. In the conflict
of human thought, of truth and error, it is the mission
of the Church of Christ to stand and testify to the
facts and truths which she has received by revelation
from the God of Truth.
A Confession or creed is a bond of union and fellowship
to those adhering to it, a banner around which
they rally on the field. Like the flag of a nation, it
affirms unity, and it effects unity. Like the standard
of a chieftain, which draws together his followers, and
holds them in united movement and effort, th^ standard
of a church unites in one body those who have a
common faith, and strengthens and inspires them for a
? -common service.
By her Confession, moreover, the Church regulates
the teaching given by her commissioned teachers, her
ministers of the Word, and other office bearers. Her
ministers are instructed and trained in the system of
doctrine which the Church finds in the Word, and embodies
in its creed. It is the creed of the Church and
of all its witnesses and teachers." Through the mouth
of all its preachers, the Church speaks to its own members
and jto all the world, and in no uncertain sound.
It has a like precious faith, and affirms a concurrent
system of truth, and speaks one great message. It has
a right to keep its teachers, its preachers, its evangelists
and missionaries true to its own faith, and battling
under its own banner.
One of the most vital uses of the standards of a
i o 4-Ua - ? ~ e 1
.a me iiimi nciiDii oi ner own youth, in the
form of catechisms the Churches bring the great truths
of the redemption through the love and the blood of
lN OF THE SOUTH. August 4, igog.
Christ to the minds and hearts of her children. So
would she bring them up in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord. Probably no Church anywhere has ;
a better manual wherewith to imbue the minds of the
young in fundamental doctrine than English-speaking
Presbyterians have in the Shorter Catechism. If it
brings a somewhat tough and trying exercise to the
youthful intellect, the mental and moral gymnastic
which it affords is worth the labor and the pain of
learning it. The men who have grown up upon such
diet are not, as a rule, the weakest specimens of the
race.
The most crucial test of any doctrine is its effect on
character. Now men like the great theologian Dorner,
ana tiie great historian Fronde, men like Mark Pattison
and John Morley, being judges, Presbyterians have no
reason to be ashamed of the ethical results produced
in history by their system of doctrine. History testifies
to its capacity to build up firm, if rugged, character?to
make men strong, brave, upright and pure, and
inspire them to high and noble aims, to give them a
love of righteousness and a passion for liberty, to gird
them to heroic endurance of suffering, and heroic resistance
against wrong. It is a duty which the Church
owes both to her creed and to her people to have them
well drilled in the home, in Sabbath-school, and Bibleclass.
The world needs the discipline of such a system
?*:n ?i -*
ami, never more tnan today.
"VACATIONS FOR PREACHERS AS AN
INVESTMENT."
This was the subject of a striking editorial in a recent
issue of The Atlanta Constitution. It is so full
of soundness that we print it in full. As yoti read it.
remember that it was not written by a minister, but by
a man of affairs, and that it was not originally published
in a religious paper, but in a large secular paper.
There are still a good many people who have an idea
that the minister has comparatively little to do, and
they can not see any reason why he should take a vacation.
It is to be hoped that they will read this editorial.
Here it is:
"If the theory of regular vacations has been accepted
as a conceded commonplace in the business world, how
much more vividly should its principles apply to those
self-sacrificiner men whose imnnrtani- fnn^inn
r ... .O I
safeguard the spiritual status and welfare of the community?
"The clergyman's life has its beginning and ending,
and all its intermediate chapters, in ceaseless activities. ^
Never is he released from a continual mental strain,
whether it be preparation for his weekly discourses or
the even more exacting requirement of mingling upon
intimate terms with all sorts and conditions of men.
"The demand upon his sympathies is proverbial and
perpetual. In sorrow and sickness, sin and suffering,
joy and success and failure, marriage and death, his
services are in requisition ; ajid to each fresh and differing
call he must bring a keen and perceptive mind and
a spirit chastened of weakness and self.
"The ordinary individual would fall upon absolute
fi. _ f ? - ?
wucqjsc ancr a iew aays ot gruelling and contrasted
tests of this nature. Rut the preacher, of whatever
denomination, is expected to endure it smilingly, to
preserve his cheerfulness under all conditions, and to I i
\ !