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10 (614) THE I
is taken out. It is not the coal that is hidden
away in the sombre deeps but the coal that is
mined that warms a man; it is not the clear
limpid water that rises in the mountain spring
and flows musically down to the great sea which
quenches thirst, but the water that is drunk.
The gold that is recovered, the coal that is mined,
and the water that is drunk may be but a very
small part of all the gold and coal and water
that there is, but it is the only part that counts.
It is the knowledge we use, the work we do, the
words we speak that bring blessings to other
lives. It were better for us not to know than
knowing refuse to do what the world needs to
have done. A disciple is not one who keeps in
his treasure, hut one wno hrings iortn out or nis
treasure. Lazarus in the tomb made a dark and
mournful house that had almost lost the character
of home to the weeping sisters, but Lazarus
come forth was the very light of life to them.
God lives with those who are prepared to meet
him.
It makes little difference that the door is shut
to the man insiae.
He who would bring forth good fruit must
be well planted, well watered, and well pruned.
THE RIGHT USE OF REASON IN
RELIGION.
Protestantism and Romanism part company
here. Romanism reprobates the use of reason
in religion. She demands an implicit faith, in
her votaries. She sometimes makes the merit
of the faith to consist in the absurdity of the
thing believed, as in transubstantiation. Faith
must get the victory over the reason. Protestantism,
on the other hand, proclaims that reason
and faith are friends, not enemies. Martin
Luther at the Diet of "Worms, when called on
to retract, said: "I must be convinced by the
testimony of the Scriptures by clear argument."
And ever since, Protestantism has insisted that
it must be convinced by clear argument. It has
opened the Bible to all men and told them to
read and judge for themselves. The nations
that have, obeyed this principle stand in the
forefront of the modern world, while those that
have refused, God has led to the rear.
The reason must be used to judge of the evidence
submitted in proof of any proposition.
There is no other way. God gave men reason
for this purpose. It is foolish to accept any
proposition as true unless one has good reasons
for so believing. Reason must judge of the evidence
and pronounce it good or bad. Reason,
'* <? ?i _ n
men, must judge 01 tne evidences 01 vmrisxianity.
If the evidences are unreasonable, we can
have no faith in Christianity. There is no way
of telling whether Christianity be true or not
except through reason. Christianity invites investigation
of all her doctrines, and appeals to
historic testimony for all her facts, and is impatient
of falsehood anywhere. How tell whether
there is a God or not, how whether Jesus Christ
be divine or not, how whether the Bible is from
God or not, how whether the soul be immortal
or not. except by ascertaining these things
through your reason, searching the universe of
God and searehincr the word of God to find the
truth?
A pain, reason must be used in interpreting
the Bible after we are convinced that there is
evidence to prove it from God. The question
here is, "What is the message that the Bible
brings?" Reason must be used in proper exegesis.
All of the laws of grammar, of rhetoric,
of the language in which the book was written,
the customs and manners of the time when the
author wrote, his purpose and design. In fact,
an exegete worthy of the name must use reason
'RESBYTER1AW OF TEE St
and not fancy when interpreting the text. The
rules governing the interpretation of any other
writing must be applied to the Bible. What are
the truths taught in the Bible? You must use .
your reason to lind out. One need not fear that
in such a course he will be pronounced a rationalist,
as that term is used in literature. The
reason must be used properly, according to its
own laws. The effort must not be made to have'
it do what God never intended it to do, what it
cannot do. The foot is a splendid instrument
with which to walk, but one cannot see with his
foot. Another organ of the body, the eye, enahloc
ona fn con Sn flinrn o rn tliinrro iViorf +lio ran.
wiv*j v/uv iw wvvi kju ui v taut uuv i vu~
son can do and there are things that the reason
cannot do.
For instance, reason never originates truth.
It only discovers it. God alone is the ultimate
source of truth. He placed it in his universe
and in his word. Reason is the instrument by
whioli we discover truth. Sir Isaac Newton did
not create the law of gravitation, ne only discovered
if. Nature and revelation are the sources
fcf truth. God put truth there, and reason is
the only instrument by which we discover it.
The scientist by use of reason discovers truth in
nature; the theologian, truth in revelation. Neither
of them originates the truth nor the objects
of thought. These objects are furnished in the
universe and the Bible, and reason then compares
them and discovers their relations, their
resemblances and differences, and arranges them
into judgments. Reason then may compare these
judgments and draw inferences, and then her
powers are exhausted. Look at a great cotton
mill at work. Great stretches of cloth are coming
from its looms, but before that cloth can
come forth it is necessary to furnish the mill
with bales of raw cotton. No cotton furnished,
no cloth made. So reason must have her materials
furnished her in nature and revelation before
she can bring forth any truth. No human
mind ever yet originated any truth; it only discovers
it. Here we put our finger on the proton
psevdos of rationalism. Dr. Briggs some years
ago taught that there are three sources of religious
truth?the Bible, the Church, and the
Reason. The Church is no source of truth. She
can only teach what she has learned. The
Church cannot originate any truth, neither can
the reason. Either is but the instrument with
which we discover the truth.
Again, reason cannot, previous to experience,
tell either the nature of things, their qualities,
or their effects. A child has to learn by experience
that the fire burns. Reason previous to
the experience could never tell it. One who
had no experience with fire would be as absolutely
ignorant of its qualities and effects as
the world was a short time ago of radium.
" w iiax is 1X7" ne wouia asic. iteason previous
to experience could never tell him. Reason must
simply depend upon experience, her own or
someone's else, for her facts. Oolumbus, sailing
west, even after reaching the shore of America,
could never by reason have told what was beyond
that shore. Men had to explore to find the
rivers, the mountains, the plains and the valleys.
So reason cannot tell what is beyond the grave.
We need to be told by one who has come from
heaven, even Christ. No man previous to experience
ever could have reasoned that the
Roentgen rays could show the bones in one's
hand or reveal what lies beyond a brick wall.
Twenty years ago all men would have said that
such a statement contradicts reason. What they
would have meant was, that it contradicted thear
experience. No man previous to experience ever
could have reasoned the bio-logical law of fche
propagation of the species through parents, and
yet. there are men even now silly enough to proclaim
that the virgin birth of Christ contradicts
reason. "Reason cannot stand before the universe
> U l U [June 5, 1912
and say, "Thus things ought to he, and thus
things must be!" Reason can only sit at the feet
of Mother Nature and say, "I have learned
though experience that thus things are." "When
you ask reason to tell you previous to experience
what the nature of a thing is, or what are
its qualities, you are asking of reason an impossibility.
SUBLIME IMPUDENCE.
Ultramontanism is not dead. It is the underlying
principle of the Roman Catholic fabric.
Its present impossibility of application is no
proof that the consistent advocates of that
Church would not put the principle into practice
if they could. It lies at the bottom of the
claim of the pope's temporal power. It was
ultramontanism that cropped out, perhaps in a
very careless moment, in Cardinal O'Connell's
recent speech concerning an American "principality"
of the greatest and oldest "monarch"
on earth. The words were no rhetorical flourish
or figure of speech. Underneath them lay the
fundamental principle of the cardinal's ecclesiastical
creed and belief as to civil government.
That liberty loving Americans will tolerate
the impudence of such doctrine and teaching is
hardly to their credit. And it is not believable
that they do tolerate it. It is only those
who have the spirit of flunkeyism that will smilingly
assent to it, and the politicians who very
mistakenly think that by their complaisance they
will gain the good-will of the prelates and the
votes of the prelates' followers. The people who
are impressed by skirts on men's bodies and red
hats on their heads are not of great weight anywhere,
and the political aspirants who truckle
to the ecclesiastical power of the hierarchy soon
find their graves. When the great bodv of the
intelligent citizens of our country realizes, as
it must do very soon, that the be-skirted and unctuous
men of a certain religion are trying to
sway the policies of our country, it will rise in
its might and indignation and make itself heard
in no uncertain tones. And it would be the same
with any other form of religion. The people
do not want the Church's interference, as a
Church, in fcny of their civic affairs. Their instincts
and actions correspond very accurately
to the principle of the Master, who taught that
men must render to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's and to God the things that be God's.
Let the Church keep out of politics!
The sooner our citizenry learn the real position
of the Roman Catholic hierarchy as to the
fundamentals of government, the better it will
be for them and for the state. That hierarchy
"is opposed to our public schools. It is opposed
to education by the state. It is opposed to civil
marriage. It is opposed to freedom of speech
and of the press. It is opposed to Bible societies,
and to the free circulation of the Scriptures."
It is opposed to the application of the
ordinary laws of the land and of all lands to
the cases of its priests, and holds out over the
superstitious minds of its deluded followers the
awful threat of excommunication if they dare,
without ecclesiastical consent, to bring before
the courts any of the men of "the cloth." It
swks to interfere with the rights nf men. and
arrogantly brands every child born of parents
not wedded by its ecclesiastical process as illegitimate
and every pair not so united as living
out of wedlock.
How long will our reasoning people endure
such impudence?
No matter how much you have to do, remember
you can only do one thing at a time. You
can get though it all by doing one thing at a
time, and that's the only way you can get
through. You are lost if you try any other way.
?E. K. Warren.
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