Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-12-14

i must nave help! l am so weak ana broken
l can not help myself know not how.
That moral force of which so much is spoken
Will not sustain and fortity, me now,
Unjust, must have help!
Some outside aid, some. Strength from spirit
sources,
We all must have, in hours like this. or die.
To One, to all, of those mysterious forces
Which men call God, 1 lift my voice and
cry:
Come near, come near to me-!
Ella Wheeler, IN Chicago -Adrdncc.
-
THE THEOLOGY OF THE HEART.
There is a dogmatic theology of the
church creeds which has been derived
with more or less of accuracy from the
Scriptures, and teaches the existence,
character and attributes of God. There
is also a theology of the heart which is
as old as humanity, and confirms all
that the Scriptures teach of the exist
ence and PROJECTIONS of God. The be-
lief that there is a God and the yearn-
ing to know Him are intuitive and uni
versal. 1t was this heart-theology
that led the psalmist to say: Gas the
hart panteth after the water brooks, so
panteth my soul. after Thee, o God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the liv-
ing God" 1t was the same heart
hunger and belief that caused Job to
say: ''Surely 1 would speak to the AL
mighty, and desire to reason with God.
0 that | knew where I might find Him!
that | might come even to His seat. 1
would order my cause before Him, and
fill my mouth with arguments" 1t
was an intuitive conviction of His ex-
istence that led the Greeks to erect an
altar to the unknown God, and inspired
the profound speculations of pagan
Plato concerning His being and attri-
butes.
st. Paul teaches that the common con-
s%titution of .'all nations that dwell on
the face Of the earth' leads them to
seek the Lord, if haply they might feel
after Him, and find Him" This per-
petual search proves that atheism is re-
pugnant to the human heart, and does
violence to the moral nature of man. 1t
is in conflict with his ineradicable in
stincts. desires and hopes, which all re-
qulre a personal, living, loving God as
the author, preserver, and savior of the
race. God is the felt necessity of every
rational soul. A sane man may imagine
he has reason to doubt the existence of
God, but his heart bellies his conclusion
by still yearning for the living God.
Only the fool hath said in his heart,
''There is no God" So universal is the
longing for God and the belief in His
existence that it is not without reason
that many Christian thinkers doubt
either the entire sanity Or the entire sin
certify of those who profess to agree
with the fool. There is a strong prob
ability that, notwithstanding their pro-
fessions of atheism, few sane men are
quite as far from God as they aver.
Their hearts protest against their the
DRY. In many cases the faith of child
hood and of a godly ancestry fingers
to utter the same protest; and where
the deepest instincts Of the soul unite
with the influences of Christian nurt-
ure against it, a perfectly sincere and
u%nwavering belief in atheism is impos-
sible.
The heart clings to a belief in God
as the only ground of hope for the
future. To be without God is to be
without hope in the world. If there is
no almighty creator and preserver of
man, there is no power to deliver him
from death. If he does not possess an
indestructible life derived from God he
can not hope to survive the death of the
body. The hopelessness OF atheism
is. therefore, essential to it. To unso-
phisticated minds, this hopelessness is
appalling. 1t deprives the soul of it's
only sufficient support in sorrow, pain
and death. 1t takes away the strongest
incentive to noble endeavor and patient
endurance. To those who sorrow with
out hope, the anguish of bereavement
is unutterable. and the thought of their
own death horrible. Few men can face
death and humiliation with
Byron's assertion: II have no concep-
zion OF. any existence which duration
Would not make tiresome," reveals his
despair, rather than his satisfaction, 1T
the prospect. Even the Stoics were sus-
tanned in their contempt of pain and
death by the vain hope of eternal union
with the immortal gods.
The loss of a great hope is like the
setting Of the sun; it leaves darkness be-
hind. The confessions of Atheists re-
veal the fearful gloom of those who
have lost faith in God and a future life.
Strauss affirmed that he was going into
darkness. The dying Atheist, Clifford.
said: 81 have lived to see the sun shin
ing out of an empty sky" Another
says: 'The theory Of Atheism in any
shape is. scientifically considered, SUI
pertluous; and l am not ashamed to
confess that, with this virtual neeation
OF God, the universe to me has lost it's
soul OF loneliness; and when at times I
think, as think l must, of the appalling
contrast between the hallowed glory Of
that creed which was once mine and the
lonely mystery of existence as | now
lind it, | shall ever feel it impossible to
avoid the sharpest pang of which my
soul is susceptible"
In striking contrast to the gloom of
atheism is the testimony of Heine, the
German poet, who had lost his faith in
God and a future life, but afterward re-
gained it by the study of the Bible: "He
who has lost his God may find Him
again in this book; and he who has
never known Him is here struck by the
breath of the Divine word. Yes. I have
returned back to God, like the prodioaI
son, after having kept the swine With
the Hegelians for some time. Was Il
my Indebtedness that drove me backp