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10 (1210) THE 1
Let the Christmas season be to the children not
simply a time of merry making and of sports,
but tell them the wonderful story, and let them
sing his praise. Let the children rejoice.
NOTES IN PASSING.
BY BERT.
In Genesis twenty-second chapter,
T I 1 t .? " * ~
i esiinys ana eigntn verse, we find Abraham
using this language to his son Isaac:
"My son, God will provide himself a lamb for
a burnt offering." The incident from which
this text is taken is called "The trial of Abraham's
faith." Abraham's faith was many times
tried; but this particular test is by way of distinction
called "THE" trial of Abraham's faith
and for reasons all admit. Now there are two
testings in this experience of Abraham's, in the
first,
Now, concerning Cod's
God Tests Abraham tests of his servants, let it
be understood at once that
God never tests beyond their strength, and never
tests at the wrong time, for "he knowoth our
frame." God always tests faith, where there
is faith to test. It is therefore a mark of divine
Hietintrnicliincr favnp n-Vion find nnfa vnnp
to the trial. It is God's testimony that you have
a faith worth trying. "When faith is sorely
tried it is because it is strong enough to bear
up under a sore trial. The greater the trial the
greater the compliment from God. Search the
Scriptures and see. Those men whom God most
heavily visited were the giants among men. God
never lays a man's load upon an infant. The
strain he puts upon you is the mark of his confidence
in you, just as the weight the engineer
puts upon the bridge is his testimony to its
strength. Ten years earlier God would not have
called his servant to such a cross. That he does
so now is evidence that during those ten years
Abraham had been growing toward God. Now
this test not only showed how much his faith
could stand, but it strengthened it at the same
time. There are experiences in life which come
at great crises. If we rise to them they send us
forward with a mighty bound into deeper knowledge
of God. If we do not, a paralysis comes
upon our faith faculty and we lose both in progress
and momentum. In the second,
I say that God tested
Abraham Tests God Abraham in order that
Abraham might test God.
God brings the soul face to face with a great
crisis, which seems to put a period to all progress.
He has a gracious purpose in view, which
the stress of the time often conceals from vision.
So long as we are conscious of any reserve
strength or ability in ourselves, it is natural for
us to fall back upon and use it, and just so long
as in ourselves we find what we need our eyes
will never seek the Lord. But when the end has
really come, when the last ounce of strength has
been expended, when the last ray of light has
MAVt A 4- V* A 4? AA?M^ L LAAM
guue, unca me iaaL wuiu ui uumiui t uas utrcii
spoken, and still the burden presses and the
cloud is not dispelled, then, and not until then,
does the heart in its breaking seek help from
above. "When we have toiled all the night and
caught nothing, we are in good shape to cast
the net at Christ's command. It is when we
are chained and shackled, and separated from
all human help by frowning walls, and massive
gates and iron bars, and our despairing prayers
arise to God in real supplication that the iron
gates open of their own accord and we pass into
a liberty which henceforth has a new meaning.
m _ / 4.1* a. - x a it. .
Ho every crisis 01 mim is n. cjimien&e 10 tesi r.ne
love, and the power, and the willingness of God.
God knew all that was in Abraham, but Abraham
did not know what was in God. And there
Iras no way for Abraham to find out erospt
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE 10
through the emergencies of his own need. 1
think it is safe to say that from the moment
that outstretched hand holding the gleaming
knife to slay his son was held suspended by the
power of God, and his eyes fell upon the ram
caught in the bushes, Abraham had another
opinion of God.
No man may plead lack of
frod I'roi ides power where God gives command.
Has he told you to offer a lamb?
Do not plead that your hands are empty. Go
forward with the preparations and at the right
moment the lamb will be forthcoming. If you
had the lamb already, what place would there
be for the faith? Does he command Moses of
the halting speech to carry an epoch-making
message to Pharaoh? Let Moses proceed with
his embassy, God will be with his mouth and
that slow tongue will speak with an eloquence
all the more remarkable because of its natural
limitations. To refuse anything he commands
for any reason whatever is lack of faith and
death to power. It is saying to God that there
are difficulties in the way he is unable to surmount.
Carefully God leads us up to the point of the
test. But up to this point some reserve of
strength purely human has been at our command.
Now the supreme moment has come; now
all supports are withdrawn, bow will we act?
Heaven waits to see. Shall we give it all away,
or trusting him alone, step right out into thin
air with the same confidence we have traveled
solid ground? How many have come up to the
thin edge of the heroic and fallen bick into
tragic failure!
Then again let us remember that God will
be satisfied only with what he himself provides
We are not to exert our own ingenuity in providing
and sewing aprons of fig leaves. W# are
to taKp what he gives and be clothed indeed.
MODERN REVIVALS.
It is patent to many, even of the less careful
class of observers, that many of the recent day
so-called evangelistic meetings are simply a
"burning over" of the ground, a placing it in a
condition unfit to produce anything substantial
until the unfortunate experience is far enough
in the past to be forgotten or to be recovered
from. The excitement, the emotional singing,
the sensational preaching, the hysterical parading
up and down the aisles begging people to
come up, the story telling, the experience narrating,
the "pitching into" local troubles or
difficulties or gossip or society, the depreoifttion
of the regular, methodical work of the pastors,
in# contrasting or tbem in the hum-drum of
every day work with the evangelistics in their
glitter of story and song and novelty, the gleaning
of the shekels to pay the visitors a sum
which far exceeds, in proportion, the support of
the pastor, all unfit the field for months or
years to come for the application and appreciation
of the ordinary means. It is claimed by
some that so far as evil results thus caused they
are due, not so much to the methods and work
of the visiting evangelists, as to the failure of the
people and pastors to "follow up" the work.
The difficulty just here is that the after work is
of a nature very hard to be handled. The products
of the meeting have come in the storm and
do not readily adjust themselves to the calm
of simple service and activity for Christ. They
/I r\ r?/v4 *a! * ' 1 *' '
.iu ijvil iciiw ur appreciate anyming other than
the conditions under which they were moved,
and in large numbers either fall away entirely
when those conditions cease or else become incessant
in their demands for such a revolution
of the every day methods justified by experience
and efficiency as will make a foolish perpetuation
of the feverish conditions of the "meetings."
i U T H [December 90, 1811' <
A JUDICIAL TRIBUNAL.
With the growth of the church there has been,
naturally, an increase in the number of cases
which come before the highest court for judicial
consideration and adjudication. The demand
upon the Assembly's time for dealing with cases,
many of which are purely local or personal, but
which under the constitution, and because of the
rights of the humblest member of the church in
the smallest as well as largest affairs, must be
given the fullest attention, has sometimes been
so great that there has not been time enough
left for proper attention to other and
weightier matters. The General Assembly
of 1908, therefore, took steps looking towards
some plan for dealing with judicial cases that
would relieve the situation while still affording
to all complainants and appellants every right1
guaranteed them by the constitution of the
church. The matter was placed in the hands of
an ad interim committee. That committee devoted
all the time needful and the utmost care
o the task. Its report was made to the Assem
v oi iauy. That Assembly, and the next one,
having far less than usual in the way of judicial
business, in fact none whatever, did not feel
the need of the relief which was sought and paid
no attention to the matter. The third Assembly,
however, that one in session this year in Louisville,
was burdened with such cases, and the
:nterest was revived, to the extent of the taking
up of the long docketed report of the ad interim
smmmittee, slightly amending it at one point,
and sending it down to the Presbyteries for their
approval or disapproval. This is the report
which is now before the church for its action,
1 ?
in the way of an amendment of the law touching
Commissions. Thus far most of the PresHv.
+
teries have deferred action on it until their
spring meetings. Some of the strongest Presbyteries
have approved the provisions proposed, as
Lexington, Dallas. Savannah, "Western Texas,
New Orleans, and others.
The Assembly's overture on the matter comes
accompanied, in rather an unusual way. by a
statement as to the principles followed in the
framing of the new law proposed. This statement
is unusually full and clear, though brief.
We believe it will commend itsdf to every careful
student of the problem who will analyse it
and will show that in the preparation of the
amendment proposed the utmost caution was
taken to safeguard every principle of our fundamental
law. As a cogent statement we commend
it to all who are interested in the matter, and especially
to the members r\t
n,,r< in' rmnmnrPM 10
whom their Presbvteries have referred this matter.
All such readers will see that the effort was
most carefully made, on the one hand to dcviRe
a plan sneh as the Assembly exnressed the need
of for its relief, and on the other hand to hold
to the cardinal nrincinles of onr chnrch government
and judicial rights and procedure. Care
was taken even as to so small a matter as the
mechanical arrangement of the pmnosed amendment,
so that there wonld he no disturbance of
the present book or necessity for any remembering
of its paragraphs.
The committee*8 statement speaks for itself.
It reads a3 follows:
"The committee adopted the following as general
principles to guide it in reaching its conclusions
and to determine its recommendations:
"1. That the right of appeal and complaint is
inalienable. Nothing should be proposed that
WOTlld intarfoi-B *
. .v-.v, mtu mis rignt in the humblest
member and in the smallest case.
"2. That the court appealed to alone has the
right to determine whether an appeal or com.
plaint is in order. This power is not to be
transferred to a commission." [By this it
meant that the regularity of the appeal or com.