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other? Ik this Christianity the iiuai religion, or
look we for something else? Right is so often
on the scaffold, and wrong on the throne."
You will remember Luther's experience. "At
one time 1 was sorely vexed and tried by my own
sinfulness, by the wickedness of the world, and
by the dangers that beset the church. One morning
1 saw my wife dressed in mourning. Surprised,
1 asked her who was dead; she replied,
4 God in heaven is dead.' * Ilow can you talk such
nonsense, ivatie'/ I said, 'How can God die?
Why He is immortal and will live through all
eternity.' 'Is that really true?' she asked. 'Of
course,' I said, still not perceiving what she was
aiming at, 'How can you doubt it? As surely as
there is a God in heaven, so sure it is that he
can never die.' ' And yet,! she said, ' though you
do not doubt that, yet you are so hopeless and
discouraged.' Then 1 observed what a wise woman
my wife was, and mastered my sadness.''
Yes, these moments of doubting come to all of
us. 1 believe that while some doubts are sinful,
because born of irrational prejudices, or bred of
Ml ? . I ? ' "
an ni-reguiaiea me, tnat yet there is no sin in
doubting in itself, it is simply a certain fluctuation
of the mind, this way and that, while as yet
in the matter in question, it has no convincing
evidence. Yet we will all agree that faith is
better than doubt, and we are never encouraged
in the Scriptures nor would common sense
justify us in cultivating an inner habit of intellectual,
moral, or religious scepticism. We are
encouraged to ask questions of God and man, to
read books, weigh evidence, reject fallacy, prove
all things; but all this with the view to the ending
of hesitancy, to the settling of faith, and the
holding fast that wliich is good.
And so I am glad that John's doubt is recorded
here, not only because it shows that great
and good men along with ourselves have had
their moments of perplexity, doublings, questionings;
but because it also suggests to us what to
do with these?to do just as John did.
GO STRAIGHT TO THE MASTER HIMSELF WITH THE
DOUBTS
and let him deal with them?wisely, faithfully,
tenderly?as he does here. John was in perplexity
about Christ, and he sent directly to
Christ to ask about lifts perplexity.
So I believe that we should carry our perplexities
straight to Jesus. Tell them to him. He
understands. Leave it in his hands. He can
unravel and clear it up for us. Some one has
truly said,
"Who comets to God an inch, through doubtings
dim,
In blazing lights God will advance a mile to
him."
Those are in some respects to be envied who in
:i j iii? 1* ? *
ciuiu-iiKt; simplicity Deneve without doubt or
question; but there is a special blessing for those
who by the very force of their nature must
wrestle with doubt, yet in the trying hour find no
occaisrion of stumbling in him. They come out
of the conflict more than oonquerers through him
that loved them. John then takes his doubts to
Jesus, and we want to consider in the next place
as applicable to our own cases
HOW OHKIST DEALS WITH JOHN'S DOUBTS.
"By a miracle, opening the prison doors, and
making it so perfectly plain to him that not
Herod but Jesus is King? By a sudden outburst
of vengeance, destroying hosts of unrepented
sinners and alarming all the country side, and so
satisfying the sternest thoughts of the Baptist
in hfe cell? Not at all. He deals with them as
he intends to deal with doubters always; points
quietly to the many tokens of his divine mission
?not in the way of judgment wrought on sinners
nor of any grand demonstration which will
admonish the nation, but in the quiet progress
PP-: SBYTERIAN OF ^HE SC
of hils helpful, healing, comforting work: "Go
and show John again those things which ye do
see and hear; the blind receive their sight, and
the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the
deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor
have the gospel preached unto them."
f|1. il. .. . .
xu me same class ot testimony we may appeal
today, and the man who will not be convinced
by it would not believe though one should be
raibed from the dead to come back and tell him
of the truth of it.
"Facts are the irrefutable evidence of Christianity.
They are like Joseph's wagons. The
words of Jacob's sons could not convince him
that Joseph was alive, but when he saw the
wagons that his son had sent, then he believed.''
So the religion of J esus is not a mere theory; it
is proved abundantly by facts. The facts are of
two kinds. First: individual lives made better
by it; that fact that it does change for good all
those who receive it unto their hearts. It would
be folly, a waste of your time, for me to take time
to show you that the Gospel of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ is the one thincr that will
brighten and beautify the darkest and meanest
iives. The bringing home to the souls of men
the love and tenderness and sympathy of a personal
Saviour is the one thing that can open up
to them visions of a life of purity and peace.
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy
laden and 1 will give you rest" is the message
which all through the ages has encouraged and
strengthened the oppressed and exhausted toilers.
We are to-ld of an exquisite stained glass window
made by an apprentice out of the fragments
that his master had rejected as useless. Before
Christ, all builders of states and organizers of
society depended mainly on the higher classes
and regarded the poor and lowly as of but little
account. They were thrown aside as useless fragments.
But these very fragments that the "builders"
disallowed?groups of lowly fishermen,
ranks Of desnised niihlir??na .
A x VUU1VU UV1UUUU1C3,
outcast lepers, womeu who were sinners?has
Christ saved and formed them into a combination
of beauty and perfection that has proved
his crowning glory and cast all human organizers
into the shade.
The second class of facts bids us lift up our
eyes and take a larger look and consider that
wherever Christianity enters a community or a
nation it elevates them. Go back as far as you
please: "If we ask who destroyed the great
social evils of Rome, Lecky answers, "The Christian
missinnnrip? " A
??iic 11 luc ruue triDC
of the northern forests began to be nation?, Hallam
answers: "When Boniface crossed the Alps
on life Christian mission." Asked for the beginning
of England's greatness. Green tells us
the story of the two Christian teachers who
one winter's night entered the rude banqueting
hall of King Ethelbert.
In the volume containing the U. S. census are
a number of maps or charts showing by means
of varying shades of color the degrees in which
various things pertaining to our country's wellfare
prevail in different parts of the land; as for
instance, wealth, ignorance, various diseases,
different classes of the population.
"Now if there were to be made two maps of
the world, one showing the happiness, oomfortH,
morfllitv ffnnd rlcL^wlo i ?
,,, ucucwiciii guxs, means oi
innocent enjoyment, the light shades showing
the countries in which a large degree of happiness
is enjoyed, and the shadeh growing darker
as the blessings grow less; the other may be
showing the prevalence of Christianity, the lands
where the purest Christianity is most prevalent
being represented in white, and the shades darkening
as the lands have less pure Christianity,
>
I U T H [September 18, 1912
or it is less prevalent, down to the blackness o?
utter heathenism?it would be found that these
maps almost exactly coincide. The more Christianity
the more happiness; and blessings lessen,
and sorrows multiply in proportion as there is
less of the Christian religion. These are facts
like Joseph's wagons, that should convince men.
By their fruits ye shall know them."
But you say that this may be true of the past
of Christianity?how about its future? Has it
the seeds of universal progress or has it exhausted
itself by former labors, ana become old and
decrepit ?
"Plainly that religion alone will survive that
is aggressive, full of youth and enthusiasm, and
that every day plans new campaigns. Confessedly
there are only three systems of religion that
can in any sense be termed competitors of Christianity.
Here is Confucianism. But this religion
itself declares that its golden day is in
the far past, and that it only remains for the
Chinese people to look backward to Confucius,
to cherish no faculty save memory, and have
110 worship save of their dead ancestors. The
old Confucianism is big with destruction, and
totters toward its fall.
Here is the religion of India, with its untold
millions of gocta and idols. But having tested
democratic institutions for a century, the world's
best thinkers now feel that the caste system,
emphasizing caste distinctions, is false in philosophy
and false in fact, and ruinous to progress.
Therefore it has been said that every
Christian college in India smashes a million mud
idols, and the religion of harems, of child marriages,
and of caste is doomed.
Mohammedanism remains, but MohaminedanA'iin
unveils God's throne as iron, and his arm.,
as blood. Its method of conquest is the sword.
Its missionaries are warriors, and its heaven is
a vast harem, where each soldier is to have a
hundred wives. The bald savagery of Mohammedanism
is revolting to the races that believe
in law, liberty, tools, and progress."
So we may believe and with reason that Christianity
alone has the golden age before iit. The
U'avlrl l?oo ?- - ? 1
iioo uiuuc |jrugnaH in many uungs, many
things it has outgrown. But Uod abides, as
everlasting as the summer sun, and Christ's love
is as eternal as the summer; and the Christiau
religion liath foundations that are permanent,
that nothing can overthrow.
Every day its conquests are new; ask concerning
the Messiasliip of Christ, "Art thou he that
should come or do we look for another," and
the answer comes back: "In his name, blind
India and lame China are beginning to see and
to walk; leprous Japan and deaf Africa have
begun to clean up and hear; dead South Sea
Islands have come to life, and all over the world
the poor, hopeless millions axe having their first
chance in history. All that Jesus was, he is;
al'l that he did, he does. He has written his signature
in the brow of time, and assumed all
power in heaven and earth.
And the new enthusiasm represented by ten
thousand eager students in our colleges and universities,
now ready to start to Africa and India,
and China and South America, the wealth flowing
like a golden river to support those Christian
heroes, the hospitals, the schools, the printing
presses, the churches, the manual training
schools, the exhibits in rtn-rlr />o?i,toTB of all
that makes for a Christian community a111'
which are the direct outflow of Christ's coming
into this world, means the transformation ot
heathen lands, and the bringing in of a new era
when there shall be a federation of the world
based upon the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood
of man, the divine book, God's word, one
Saviour and Redeemer and Teacher and Master,