National Republican., 1883-05-28
THE KINGDOM OF TRUTH.

army of the redeemed, the church triumphant
in heaven. And this is my prayer for you all.
Amen.
THE KINGDOM OF TRUTH.
DIR. RASKINs DISCOURSE ON cHRIsT's REPLY
TO PLATE.
"Art thou a king, then ?" Jesus answered,
"Thou sayest that l am king. To this end was
born, and for this cause came into the world,
that should bear witness unto the truth" John
xviii 81.
Truth may be defined to be the shortest
distance between two points like the course
Of an arrow, from the thumb of an archer.
Children, who are of Gods kingdom, have a
genius for truth. Society teaches us white
lies; the arrow of artless childhood pierces
them in the bulls eye. Just as in archi-
lecture, so in religion, nothing can be done
without regard to straight lines. Yea, let
God be true, and every man liar" II
there is not truth in religion, there
is nothing there. AS between man and God,
the Bible reveals tho truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. The life and
death of tho Goldman is the shortest dis
tance between these two points. " For there
is one God and one mediator between God
and man, the man Christ Jesus" There is
no roundabout method in the Bible. There
is only One to whom the porter openeth.
There He stood in presence of the Roman
PLATE; the man of sorrows aud acquainted
with grief; the seed of the woman predicted in
Eden the gentle saying, ecce homo! Be-
hold the man the few crying out, cruelty
him God is love but when He comes here,
He comes as truth, for love always walks in
the guise of truth.
/. remark that to claim thing to be true
does not put 1t into the kingdom of truth. II
it is rightfully there, Jesus taught it; and il
He did not teach IL, 1t Is not rightfully there.
Old Polonius humored Hamlet as to the shape
of certain cloud. 1t was a camel, q weasel,
whale This is the way some people look
at truth-as thing to be called this name or
that, according to their humor or their i'm
agination. The idea of kingdom is that OF
certain territory under law. We talk about
the mineral kingdom and the vegetable king
dom. Minerals and vegetables have medic
inal properties which belong to them, which
are theirs by constitution. Over the king
dom of truth Christ presides as king
He establishes certain truths by His
teachings, life, and death, The word king is
rather offensive to us. And yet at this very
hour tho greatest empire of the world, that
was friendly to us in the day of our trial,
while mother England permitted rebel
cruisers to prey upon cur comm cree, has
/ her coronation ceremony. A king, as Carlyle
defines him, is the nations able man. The
king of the kingdom of truth, should be
truths prince, her first one. As such, Jesus
/
John Stewart Mill, who calls him the ideal
representative and guide of humanity" by
| Theodore Parker, Goethe, and even Strauss
himself, who says: "To have religion without
Christ is us absurd as to have poetry with
out Homer!or Shakespeare"
.. / remark that the denial Of moral and
spiritual truth affects not the realm of truth
but only the character and destiny of him
who denies it,
"What is truth 2" asked PLATE. 1t is a
question to be answered by Pilates own
word: Behold the man! This Goldman Is
truth. 1t is charged that we Christians are
not consistent with what we profess to be.
lieve. This is true. But Jesus of Nazareth
was. How could He have lived differently
was not true? We accept the criticism and
we record the admission that mans belief
should affect his life does affect his life; that
il matters a great deal what a man be.
lievcs Still all infinite truth can be yielded
to only imperlectly by any finite being
Tho infdel believes a great many things with
| which his life is not consistent. To let in all
the infinite truth which any man believes
always upon his finite soul, would make life
uncomfortable unless supernaturally sustained
Napoleon / could not understand how the
dead Christ could still live in His followers
This is the e'secret Of the eternity of His king
dom.
| napoleon was iOIBOIJeui llVluBi so was nan
nibal, dead. This Jesus of Nazareth lives for.
ever. Every believer carries about in his own
spiritual being the experience of the truth
which his Master taught The Master form:
| His own image in his inner man. There are
mystic chords of memory which unite
the believer to all the great truths which
Jesus taught. He has been crucifed
with Christ; he has risen again; hC
walks with Christ in newness of life he has
the key to the whole system of truth in his
own experience. You study the manuscript
and the higher criticism. | study the soul OF
men--the living epistle. What Christ taught
finds It's correspOndences within me- To me
daily He proves Himself equal with the
Father, to have all the attributes of God He
proves the truth of all He taught. We say in
our hymn that we will not be ashamed O.
Jesus. We are ashamed of Him when We
are ashamed of the truth He taught. Nothing
but believing this truth will mold us int
His likeness. This is memorial week, w,
testify again our gratitude to the dead, wht
witnessed good confession on battle felC
aud in hospital whose bones lie in so many
a national cemetery in different parts of th
great land They believed in the truth fo
which they fought. They sealed it Will
their own blood. As Christ died to max,
men holy, so they died to make men free
They show us the spitit in which we shoult
testify to the truth.