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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 11