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INTO NAmiOUS LIQHT
(Continued from last week.)
* If we dwell upon revenge, there can be no
room within us for forgiveness. If we cherish
hatred, from whence can love spring 1 ? Where there
is constant doubt, there can be no faith. Where
there is never ending despair, there can be no hope.
If we spent the greater part of our time in diagnos
ing disease, and commenting upon the suffering
caused thereby, instead of using every effort to ap
ply the best known remedy for its cure, we would
be called inhuman monsters. As with a sick body,
so with a sick soul. The monster sin is the soul’s
devouring disease. Every being who has reached
the years of accountability is conscious of that
fact; but 0 the millions of sin-sick, perishing and
starving souls who have not found the Great Phy
sician, the Divine Healer; who have not drunk of
the Water of Life; who have not fed upon the
Bread of Heaven. Your own soul, Julian, is one of
these same despairing ones. Is it not so? Is it.
net so?”
“0 my soul! Is it not so!”
“So, Julian, the consuming desire of my life is
not so much to tell men that they are sin-sick, as
it is to point them to the Great Physician. If I
could only help you to see that Christ lived for
yon, to show yon the way, the truth and the life;
that he died for you. to redeem yon with his own
precious blood; and that he arose from the grave
for you, that you also might be resurrected from the
dead, the spirit of Christ himself would convict
your soul of sin.”
“I see it all most clearly from an intellectual
point of view: but I cannot feel that God 'has any
personal relation to me or interest in me or in any
other human being. He seems to me as a great
energy, a great force, a great power manipulating
the material universe, and I cannot get beyond that
conception, should you preach to me from now until
the end of time.”
“Feeling! Feeling! Feeling! There is that
great stumbling block, feeling, looming np before
von, as it does before so many others. Would that
it were left out of the religious vocabulary! God
says believe, he says nothing about feeling. Many
people in seeking God, deliberately shut their eyes,
then go groping about in utter darkness in the ef
fort to somewhere, somehow and some time run un
against “great blocks of feeling” which will just
knock their eyes wide open to suddenly see God in
all his fullness and glory; and in some hour of emo
tional excitement, they may shout, ‘Glory. Hallelu
jah! I’ve got the old time religion!’ And. on this
principle, the very next day, if they feel like get
ting angry, they give way to their feelings: and if
they feel like swearing, they swear; and if they feet
like taking a drink, they take it. So, Julian, your
mind sees most clearly God’s plan of redeeming
fallen humanity, but you refuse to believe it in
your soul, because you cannot feel just like some
one else professed to feel on being awakened to
God’s relation to him. Believing is simply seeing
with the mind’s eye, and acknowledging it from the
heart.”
“Nor can I accept the theory of blind faith.”
“It is not ‘blind’ faith which God requires, it
is faith lighted bv his Word, faith through touch
wilh Him in his visible and invisible world. Indeed
man’s every movement is by faith. He acts each
hour on the faith that he will live another hour;
he retires having faith that he will sleep; he
has faith that he will be able to arise from his bed
before he attempts to do so; he conducts his busi
ness on faith, investing his money on faith; the
farmer plants in faith; every telephone or tele
graph messenger is sent on faith. Why should
man live by faith in the material and mental world,
which is one of constant change, and refuse to live
upon the same principle in the spiritual world, which
is eternal? To realize what faith has done to revo-
The Golden Age for August 16, 1906.
By LLEWELYN ST EP HENS.
lutionize the moral and spiritual world I have but
to remind you of the thousands of martyrs who
triumphed in faith at the burning stake; of the
dark days when faith caused the persecuted Chris
tians to leave their homes and hide in caves and
mountains, suffering starvation or exile to foreign
lands before they would deny their faith in God;
of the time when God’s Book was buried in graves
of darkness to be resurrected in the light of victory.
What you say of the faith which changes the
drunkard to a gentleman; takes the frivolous so
ciety woman from the ball room to the sick bed of
the poor and needy; gives the timid girl strength to
rise up before a sneering world and exclaim, ‘I
gladly give up the world for Christ!’ ’Tis the only
faith that has stood the test of ages, the only light
that Satan has never extinguishe'd. ”
“I know, John, your interpretation of all these
principles is very beautiful. There are many true
maxims in your Bible, but its innumerable contra
dictions and mysteries make it impossible to accept
it as a whole, In several places it states the sub
stance of the theory, that the whole plan of crea
tion was pre-arranged before this world was creat
ed; that a beaten track was laid out for each man
before he became man; that he was predestined to
live a. certain life, die a certain death and go to a
certain place of either eternal hell or eternal heaven.
Tt says that no man can go to God unless the Spirit
draw him; that one vessel is made to honor, another
to dishonor: a blind man was destined to be born
blind that through him the Christ might show His
power; and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to reveal
His power. Then in utter contradiction it says that
‘whosoever will may come unto me,’ ‘ask and ye
shall receive,’ ‘pray without ceasing,’ ‘call ye upon
him while he is near,’ ‘if ye have faith of a mustard
seed ye can remove mountains,’ ‘come unto me ALL
ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give
you rest.’ How are you going to reconcile all these
contradictions? If the former be true, then man is
no more than a block of wood, a mere instrument in
God’s hands. Even if a man would, he could not
do otherwise. If so, he is not responsible. If not
responsible, how can punishment he just, or the
judge be true and righteous? Ts God is all creative,
all wise, all just, all loving, and all merciful, why
did he foreordain a world to such a fate before that
world existed? To me there is no more plausible
theory than that the souls in these bodies of ours
have existed in some other world prior to this.
They were guilty of some sin before taking posses
sion of these bodies in this world, to have heen
cursed with such a fate as life in this hell. There
has been no light thrown upon this, except that our
souls may he the spirits of the angels cast from
heaven when Satan made war against God.”
“For you to give your mind such flights of imagi
nation, then scoff at the Bihle plan of creation, fall
and redemption, is too unreasonable to he dis
cussed. The Bihle says that not evon the angels in
hpaven know all the myster’es and plans of God.
Thon for mortals to discuss and r°aaon and doubt,
and by so doing hlasnhenm the Infinite God who
made countless worlds. °nrl nponled them, for all
we know, and holds the reins of them all in His
hand with unlimited knowledge and power, yet is
so careful of the smallest thing, rot a snarrow falls
to the ground without His knowledge and consent,
numbers the very hairs of every head and paints the
lilies of the field—to doubt and question and con
demn the plans of such a One because we cannot
cinderstand them all. makes me tremble and shud
der. Julian. Th’s is mv conclusion of the whole
matter. The unitv of the Bihle is found in view
of its being a divine revelation and not a human
philosopy. There are two sides to the Bihle. God’s
side and man’s side. We cannot understand God’s
side of it. so it is best for ns to leave it in His
keeping. We can understand man’s side, or the
part that God enjoins upon roan to do, for it is
made so plain that as God, Himself, says, ‘Though
a fool, he may not err therein.’ All things are
mysteries to us that are unknown to us. Things
mysterious to some minds are not mysterious to oth
ers. The human mind tries to peer into thousands
of mysteries which it will ever fail to grasp, sim
ply because it is not capable of going beyond certain
limits. Take the example of the animal mind; for,
to all appearances, it is, in many respects, like ours,
but its intelligence is limited. There is also a limit
to human comprehension. My Christian faith has
no more mystery about it than there is around those
things upon which we look every day and hour.”
“But, aside from the contradictions which ap
pear to me from a spiritual standpoint, upon a
scientific basis, there is no harmony between many
of the absurd statements of the Bible and the facts
which science ’has proven beyond any intelligent
contradiction.”
“0 that scapegoat, ‘contradictions between
science and the Bihle’! It is quite time to assert
and maintain their positive harmony. The only con
flict has been between some wrong induction from
nature and some false interpretation of scripture.
A true interpretation of both discloses their perfect
agreement. Though the Bible does not teach
science, its teaching is always in harmony with
science. Though the dramatic days of Genesis, the
Mosaic days, or the days of Jehovah—with whom
a thousand years are as one day—be measured, ac
cording to man’s reckoning, in hours or ages,
though the time element be excluded from them al
together, they will still appear as coincident fiats
of creation and phases of evolution. Does astrono
my tell us of an immensity of space, with regions
beyond regions which we cannot even conceive?
The Bible also teaches us that Jehovah inhabiteth
eternity, and the heaven of heavens cannot con
tain Him. Does astronomy tell us of countless
orhs, moving with tremendous forces, in fixed or
bits under immutable laws? The Bible also teach
es us that He hath ordained the heavens and estab
lished in them His power and faithfulness. Does
astronomy tell us of wonderful adaptations of plan
et to sun, with changing zones and climates and
seasons? The Bihle also teaches us that wisdom
was with Him when He prepared the heavens, and
He hath garnished them bv His spirit. Does as
tronomy hint to us of a variety of habitable worlds,
with a correspondin' l, variety of intelligent races?
The Bihle also teaches us of the heavens as the
of angels and archangels and of a heavenly
Father and His house of manv mansions. Does
ns+ronomv tell us that our earth is akin to other
orhs in mechanical and chemical constitution, and
suggest that we may be sojne day knit together with
them hv etherial vibrations in physical sympathy?
The Bible also teaches us that the angels desire to
look into the mysteries of human redemption, that
its manifold wisdom is now made known to princi
palities and powers in all heavenly places, and that
there is rejoicing among them when one sinner on
earth repenteth. On the one hand, geology clearly
indicates that there have been successive periods of
energetic evolution ending in a period of repose and
order: and, on the other hand, the Bible declares
that in six days God created the heavens and the
earth, and rested from His works on the seventh
day. Tt matters not whether these days of creation
be considered in the time of man’s reckoning, it will
he seen that the periods or successive days of crea
tion are in harmony with geology. And, further
more, the essential truths in the story of Eden stand
unimpaired, whether we view man as the product of
the whole evolution of organic nature or as an in
stantaneous formation; -whether we view his sinful
ness a a primative lapse or as a present condition;
whether we regard his ideal Godlikeness as im
pressed upon him thousands of years ago or as still
in process of development.
(Continued next weefe.) . 4
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