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I
January 10, 1912] THE
doubling its speed, however, each millennium
in geometrical progression; even then our reason
tells us that there must come a time and
there must be a place at which the first one will
be overtaken, and then soon left far in the rear,
and soon actually lagging, in comparison with
the accumulating velocity of its companion.
What then? Repeat this process (starting
afresh each time where the first one was overtaken)
as many times as you choose to imagine
?and what have you done towards reaching the
boundary of space?the finis of the Infinite?
Have you really made a beginning? No; the
great clock of Eternity would not have had time
for its first tick!
Where then did this idea of Infinity come
from? Prom him in whose image we are made.
"There are unfathomable depths in the human
.soul, because at the bottom is God himself."
What value has this thought beyond a mere
intellectual interest? It should have much; for
it may help to give us some faint conception
of the Great Being, who is without beginning
of days or end of years; who fills Eternity with
his existence, and Immensity with his presence;
of whom some old time writer said: "God is a
sphere whose center is everywhere." This Be
lug is lnnniie, eternal and unchangeable in
every great and glorious attribute; his wisdom,
power, holiness, justice, goodness, truth
and love. From him as from an exhaustless
iountain llow all the light, life, beauty and joy,
and all the treasures of knowledge with winch
he delights his intelligent creatures. "Lo, these
are but the outskirts of his ways; and how small
a whisper do we hear of his," exclaimed Job,
alter a beautiful and poetic account of some
of God's works. Yes, we are only on the outskirts
of our knowledge of God; and after redeemed
and glorilied souls shall have spent unthinkable
ages in drinking of the river of his
pleasures, those who have made the greatest
advance in understanding "the thunder of his
power" will still feel that they have merely
gathered a few pebbles on the shore of that
shoreless and bottomless ocean; for whenever
.linite creatures assign a limit, they have to admit
that they have made absolutely no advance
towards reaching the end of the limitless; and
the very expression "the end of the limitless"
shows how human thought and human language
break down when dealing with the infinite. So,
when we read "His lovinc kindness pndnvotU
forever," our minds can grasp the idea that
"forever" has no end, and that his happy creatures
can not possibly live to a period when
this loving kindness will fail them. And when
in this life we are tempted to feel that our repeated
and humiliating failures have exhausted
his patience, let us remember that we can not
exhaust an exhaustless supply.
Suppose we imagine that upon some one
wretched soul were heaped all the sins of
Adam's entire race, and that these were then
multiplied by any imaginable number; human
imagination has to stop at some point, and there
again we are brought face to face with a limit.
Christ's power to forgive and his willingness to
forgive are without limit, and so is his merit;
and one sincere, even if feeble, cry of faith,
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me,"
would put that inexhaustible treasure at the
disposal of the poor sinner, and he too would
hear the blessed words, "Thy faith hath saved
thee. Go in peace." Hence, let us take courage
; for? ?
t
His power and grace are such,
None can ever ask too much.
/
And up yonder?up among and above the
glorious and blazing suns that we call the sta^s!
Roaming all through what we call the Univera^
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S<
only to tind, perhaps, that it is only one of a
myriad of universes, all of them disclosing unrevealed
aud uu imagined causes for ever increasing
adoration of the Maker of all; exploring
the treasures of God's knowledge with faculties
(as I fully believe) ever expanding, and
with minds that will not shrink from grappling
with new thoughts and new problems, and with
memories that will not soon lose what they have
acquired?oh, the unspeakable, unthinkable joy
and glory of it! And all this offered to us sinners
as a free gift, if we will accept it through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Well might old Bernard
of Cluny sing?
Jerusalem the golden,
With milk and honey blest,
Beneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice oppressed.
Lexington, Va.
ABSOLUTE ALIENATION THROUGH SIN.
BY EDWIN A. WILSON.
GODS REMEDY FOR SIN.
Adam's trangression touched the remodest
bounds of earth and grievously tainted every
one born of woman. Ilad it alfected Adam only
it would have wrought an irreparable breach
between the creature and the Creator. Adam
had access to all of Jehovah's glad-handed provision
in Eden, which He had "made to grow"
* * "pleasant in the sight and good for
food." "The tree of life also in the midst ot
the garden, and the tree of knowledge v,f good
and evil." The order of a2cess apparently, at
least the satisfying portion, was the tree of life,
but exercising his untrammelled hence absolutely
free will, he took of the forbidden tree cf knowledge
of good and evil and lost all, as he demonstranted
for all the time the fallacy of the wisdom
of the natural man in his best estate, apart
from Divine illumination. Thus the first man
disobeying, died, to all things Godward, establishing
a distempered federal headship in which
each unit of the race was involuntarily invalidated.
The curse of sin and death as snrelv
touching and tainting the first Adam's unborn
millions as the righteousness of God clothes
every believer in Jesus Christ. Adeaui's sin
was so indefensible, that the Lord God "drove
out the man," and closed up every aveuue
extant to his return. "Lest he should put
forth his hand, and take of the tree of life and
eat and live forever."
All that the primeval man had was held contingent
upon his obedience. He was the only
one ever placed on probation. His failure was
so deep, so dark, so damning, that David said,
"Behold I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did
my mother conceive me.'' Speaking of Israel, the
Lord said, "and wast called a transgressor from
the womb." Paul, borne along by the Hoiy Ghost,
wrote: '4 There is none that understandeth, there
is none that seeketh after God." The corrupting
seeds of sin and death inhere in all, inert to
sense, but with limitless procreative power. So
that the stigma fastened upon God's crowning
.act in creation, is an assured blot on his seed
forever, hence all once born are as absolutely
unprofitable as a stale egg or a corrupting
piece of meat.
THERE IS A REMEDY.
As dark, as dreadful, as far-reaching as the
taint of the race, there is still God's remedy "for
sin and for uncleanness." Where sin began,
there the Lord God in the garden first applied
his remedy for sin and uncleanness to the sin
sick head of the race, for we read that "unto
Adam also and to his wife did the (Sovereign)
Lord God (Elohim Jehovah, he that is, and thar
was, and that is to come, the Triune Gcd) make
eo&ts of skins and (in electing grace) clothed
) U T H (27) 3
them." The initiat'v* was with God. A.dam had
no more susceptibility Godward, apart trom the
operation of grace through the Spirit, than any
other of his latter day progeny,. Here in this seed
plot is shadowed forth the "Lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world." Here the I. ?rci
God tested the work of His hands and found
him in his essence wanting. Here Jehovah essays
to teach to the race a lesson which they are
slow to learn, that man, at his best, contingent
upon his obedience, was a failure. Here the Lord
God practically affirms and honors His "Word
before it had been chronicled for man's learning
that 44Without Shedding of Blood is no remission.
'' Object lessons, in type and shadow in
the most Holy Scriptures, tell of God's estimate
of the typical value of the blood,4 4 For the blood
is the life" and the lesson is taught down the
ages by myriads of smoking altars that the
4bloody way" is God's way. His token to Noah
was a bow * * in the cloud" after the judgment,
but his token to Israel, before the threatened
judgment, was 44the blood," and he, blessed
be his holy name, said, 4 4 When I see the blood I
will pass over you," for 44It is the blood that
maketh an atonement for the soul." Not 44the
blood of bulls and goats" and a standing Priesthood
44 which can never take away sins," but this
man (Christ Jesus), 44after he had offered one
sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right
fiand of God." Blood is used over four hundred
times in the Scriptures; about ninety in Leviticus,
over one hundred times in the New Testament.
It is found in twenty-eight books of the
Old Testament and fourteen of the New. Thus
it is that God, through shedding of the blood,
linds a way typically to clothe our first parents
with rightousness as a garment, and thus illustrate
His ultimate method of putting away sin,
for it was after sin that the plan of salvation
was pictured. Many of the references to the
blood in the Scriptures were to emphasize its ultimate
value as a remedial measure as shed by
Jesus Christ on the cross. The eternal God was so
intent upon leaving sinful man without excuse,
that it is written, "There was a man sent from
God whose name was John." Of this man it is
said, "He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost,
even from his mother's womb." Now this Holy
Ghost man "bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit
HI-- - -1 "* * *
uvui ncavcii line u aove, and it abode
upon him." "And I knew kim not; but he that
sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto
me, upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending,
and remaining on him, the same is he which
baptizcth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and
bear record that this is the Son of God." The
chain of evidence is complete, not a single link
missing?God back of the Holy Ghost man. The
One that sent him. The One that instructed him.
So that John, seeing Jesus coming unto him,
could say, by inspiration of God, "Behold the
Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the
world."
"Neither is there salvation in any other;
for there in none other name under heaven,
given among men, whereby we must be saved."
"There is salvation then, but one way. By
a name, by one name, by one name alone, by one
name for all, apart from this name for none, certain
for all tvho trust in this name alone."
MY MOTHER'S BIBLE.
"We search the world, and truth we cull?
The good, the pure, the beautiful?
From graven rock and written scroll,
Ai#l all old flower fields of the soul;
And, weary seekers of the best,
"We welcome back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Was in the Book that mother read.
?Selected.