Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1882-07-20
&eaaiug fot the Sabbath.
CONDUCTED BY
REV. ROBERT LATHAM.
THE INCARNATION A NECESSITY.

1t is to be always remembered that ministers
do not make the objects offaith. These exist.
They stand out in the universe. They are
facts. They do not depend upon being be-
lieved by men. No man may believe in their
existence hut that has not the least effect upon
their existence Whatever controversies may
rage among men on the question as to wheth-
er there he any sun, there is the sun in the
heavens all the same. The distant fixed stars
were rs ponderous and bright before the i'll
struments of astronomy brought the knowl-
edge of their existence to men as they were
after. Our knowledge, as our ignorance, did
not touch these facts. But it did touch the
facts of our existence.
1t does make Il difference with us whether
we know fact or not. The existence Of God
: does not depend upon our knowing it, but we
are greatly affected by our knowledge or ignO-
rance of that largest fact in all the universe.
The work of Christian minister is not to
make a truth, a saving truth, but it is to dis
cover what are saving truths, and to make
those saving truths known to his felloWmen.
To attempt to make men believe as q saving
truth some proposition which does not embody
Il truth, but does contain an idea which, if re-
ceived. will give the teacher thereof power
over his fel!ow-man, is a species of priestcraft,
and all prieStcraft is isdespicable. But to strive
! to make man know what really does exist is
; to give the highest proof of dsinterested phil
antlrOpy.
| 1t is not very difficult to make men under
| stand the statement, ''There is God" In
! deed, when once heard, all nature pours in on
the most ohtuse intellect and the most careless
mind, such abounding proofs of it's truth that
it is kept before the eyes of men. But, grand
est and most fundamental fact as that IS, 1t Is
most barren fact in it's abstract statement.
The truth is, that distractions have little
power on the human imagination, on the
heart, and on the life. Men must have some
thing TO concrete They must have notion
of a being or thing, not as in the intellect Of
the thinker but as is in nature, with its
qualities; or they must have the quality OF
| the attribute as it consists with some sub
stance, some thing, some being. 1t is so in
earliest childhood, and 50 down to the latest
old age Many learned and accomplished peo-
pie would to-day be more interested in II fable,
a tale, picture, a simle, that carries the
truth concretely than the most perfect pre-
sentation of ideas of truth. 1t was knowl.
edge of this which crowded the preaching OF
Jesus with parallels or fables, and which makes
the sparkle or Splendor of any human Ian
guage.
We want to ''realise' everything. 1t is a
greater and loftier thing to idealise; but life
is 100 SllOII 10 40 llluCu vi lllttl. VIC ttic uol
yet in the swaddlng bands of our bodily
senses lie seems to us most good who makes
us ''see' anything or ''feel" anything.
| 1t is so of God, our Father. 1t would never
have been any use to us to tell us that God
| is father, if the relation between human faith
er and child had not been made. Men whose
minds are the most thoroughly disciplined
have an extreme difficulty in conceiving the
abstract idea of so simple a relation as faith
er;" but every child knows enough of its
meaning to make God dear to him, because
concretely, that is, in nature, in a real man,
he has seen exhibited the characteristics of
| fatherhood.
The whole nature of man demands con-
crete God.
We cannot live on thin distractions. We
must know and see and hear and feel our God.
When the best human intellect has done its
mightiest to comprehend the abstract ideas
of power, wisdom, truth, and love, and the
abstract idea of God and, going further,
joined as best it may, those attributes with
that Being, it has what does not come down
to it's home, its heart, it's business. God must
manifest himself, or he can be of little help
and comfort to us.-C. T. Deems.