The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-02-12

This INTERRUPTION OF the nHIuful INV Cdlltu
the Christ comes to US attended by some great
and unique considerations. need not review
the common evidence supplied by the pages of
history. Many persons of high standing have
left word that this parsonage arose from His
grave. This testimony has always lain open
to you ell. Do not fear to give 1t weight: it is
very direct and powerful. prefer to lead you
to note the fact that all the rationallsm and
naturalism that have risen up in such power
and richness of late years have not been able
| to exclude miracle from the universe. Their
logic has reduced the number of the depart
ures from the kingdom of law. but has not
been able to cast one single doubt upon the
miraculous as being actually possible and prob
able. Under that form of thought wonders
diminish in number but increase in dignity.
1t was long ago confessed by eminent Chris
tian logicians that no miracle need be thought
credible unless it was performed for tire
of DIR. Trench, an evangelical Christian, fully
Celebrates this idea that beneath miracle a
great reason for its permanence must exist.
The acute rationalism of our century,
while it lessons the number of these variations
from law, cannot do more than join with
Christian logic in affirming that wnen, God
pushed aside His common order of sequence
II was for some great end.
The destructive power of science is called to
a halt by the fact that the universe itself is
miracle. 1t finds law In the world, but the dis
covery comes too late-to escape miracle
science must find law that can make
world. Once here all the phenomena of our
heavens and land and sea. all the phenomena
the laws can be found which regulate them or
continue them, but to get all these things here
naturalism is compelled to bow its head in
silence and ask help from the absolute will of
q lawmaker. Now, the continual wish of God
is law, an isolated wish is q miracle. In
securing its universe science is compelled to
admit an isolated wish and thus joins with
the Christian in assuming miracle.
Naturalism is compelled at one point
in its process to open the gate of WON
derland and let in a universe. We
nYFnfn ~ fhnf nValN n
universe is here, but because the reason for
the miracle is so vast. All the stars and plan
cts with all their beauty and grandeur all the
sublime distances and motions i'll the depths
of space, all the floods of light sweeping
through the solemn silences Of the upper
| realms, all the occupants of any or all worlds,
all the bloSsoming fields, all the singing birds,
all the rational beings who think and love and
! smile all the inmost recesses of the mind and
| soul, unite to compose reason for that mira
Gle we call the material world. In obedience
| to a call so loud so eloquent, so fearful, the
will of God rushes outward into life. One
miracle, the universe, came. 1t is justified
not simply by the fact, but by the grandeur of
| the fact.
Science, thus compelled to ask its own world
| from miracle, is not in a position to deny that
reason might return vast enough to war
| rant one more isolated wish of God. Having
gotten her world by miracle science should
| permit the religious soul thus to secure its
prize. And the Christian hastens to accept of
the offer and to believe in the supernatural of
| Chri t. This wonder is not founded upon any
| inadequate cause. The soul does not repair to
this Jesus as savage or barbarian marks
the flight OF birds or as a Caesar watched q
| shooting-star to learn some path for personal
vanity TO follow, but to the wonderful in Jesus
the soul turns as to something that marks out
| the highway of the human race as to a new
| universe of the spirit vast as that one of the
body which materialism so loves. In the super
natural origin OF the material world the Gre
! ator expresses His love of all those forms and
qualities which fill up this limitless space;
/ a. in m in hn ,.icf
to cause to pass before us the kingdom of the
! soul. Upon miracle both countries find foun-
dation. The most ardent imagination cannot
| Affirm that the clamor of demand for q mate
| rial was deeper or louder than the clamor of
| demand for spiritual being and an immor-
tality. The miracle upon which the latter re-
sun and moon and the light and shadows rest
| Man is not great when his foot rests upon
time only; his greatness demands the world
where life does not end nor hopes fail. The
| wonder OF the material fails unless we add the
| wonder of the spiritual. The sun shines in vain
| for the mind of man if the grave is to termi-
nate the light of life. We love our children
and friends in vain if we all move toward an
! endless separation to come in q few days or
years. Our physical realm is made vaua-
BILE by the assumed spiritual empire that
surrounds it and reaches beyond. Let
history be emptied, indeed, of its stories of
marvels, let the lives of the saints be rewritten
| II need be and Invested of the miraculous, let
this be called an empireof uniform cause and
]
mense deviations from that iron-like causation
the miracle of creation and the miracle of
Christ. BY gateway of wonder man came
| upon this globe; by the same gateway let us
hope to pass out. The supernatural in this
Jesus is the best hope of the world; it is the
only hope. He is the place where earth blends
| with Heaven-that line where sea and sky
meet. He is the only miracle we need, but the
need of Him is infinite. Our public morals,
our intellectual development, our private
| friendships, our sad partings here our meas
ureless love of life, all ask that Jesus Christ
may always stand before mankind as the en-
| blem of supernatural, blessed shore.