Morning journal and courier., 1885-06-22

that in some sense it is not necessity to our reflective reason, but that the reflective or analytic power neither gives faith it's effec-
 tiveness nor measures it's energy.
 It is this apprehension of faith a loving
 trust in person that enables us to under
 stand the power for goodness which lies in trusting childhood and in unlettered sim plicity when either acts or speaks itself out
 with the energy and directness of simple conviction, which awakens contagious and responsive sympathy.
 While then it is of prime importance that the thinking believer should buttress his faith with reflective thought and be always ready to give reason for the hope that is in him, it should ever be remenb bered that the power of faith to transform the personal life is found in it's loving allegiance to the per sonal Christ.
 We know very well that for certain req sons it was never so hard to believe in this personal and Christian sense, especially for certain class of cultivated men it is at the present moment But on the other hand it was never so hard not to believe, that is never so hard for such men to do without faith. The universe is now so vast, 80 abounding in force and law, and God is so great that it is difficult to imagine that he should concern himself with man, least of all that he should come to man and visit him III pSfSOu- Dut, OH the OGn6r QaQu, 1T Cn0 universe is so great and God is so high, the greater is the need that God should come to man that man may rise to him, and the more bewildered and helpless is man if Christ did not come and has not gone again to God.
 Or, if we follow like thoughts in another direction-What is man to himself without faith? Never, never before was he so help less and alone. True, he knows more than at any previous time, more of the past and the present and the future, more of himself it may be and more of the universe. In one sense he is more at home in this universe than ever before. With what serene, yet with what would fain be a dignifed con tempt, does he look on the scenes of the past; with what a comfortable assurance does he explain and predict and say I told you so, and l now tell you so; wait and see what will happen. And yet if there is no mind behind this visible scene in whom to trust no love in which to confde, no inspiring example to stimulate, no friend stronger than death and rnightier than the grave, surely man was nev universe redoubles and prolongs the echo of his despairing cry, No God, no God. The certainty and universality of law gives him only the calm assurance of scientific despair. The deepened experience of uncertainty in the struggles of life intensifes the bitterness 1f disappointment and the emptiness of suc- cess. In place of cheerful hope in the di-
 
 the Son of God there is contemptuous pes simism that scornfully filings away the very suggestion of hopeful and cheerful faith eli ther in God or man, or a gloomy stolclsm that folds it's hands with piteous smile in forced submission in the agony of despair.
 We pass next to the e1emplifcation of faith in character and conduct. All men in these days who think agree that character and conduct are the grand desiderata in human
 we'll being. Theists, asnostics, opt1mists, pessi nists, selfsts and altruists all consent that the manhood which we attain and ex empiify is the supreme thing to care for, and the achievement of the ideal manhood is the criterion by which to measure sue cess in life. The theory of the apostle is similar. He magnifies character as the chief aim and yet defines the ideal man in a way peculiar to himself. To your faith or in your faith supply virtue, and in your vir- tue knowledge, and in your Knowledge temperance, and in temperance patience, and in your patience godliness, and in your godliness love of the brethren, and in your love of the brethren love or charity. No tice that he does not mean nor does he say add to faith coordinate with it the vir- tues which he names, but let your faith
 manifest or exercise itself in these forms of activity. The New Testament theory is never a. some conceive it, much faith and so many works, believe in Christ for acceptance and do manifold good actions by way of propriety or as make-weight, but let your loving allegiance to Christ be so strong that it cannot but manifest itself in every conceivable form of character and conduct which human nature makes possible.
 The heart that is thus controlled and transformed is human heart. It is en- doWed with human sensibilities and con- nected with it's kind by human relations. For this reason it's loving faith in Christ cannot but make itself felt through every
 LJ. o;,1 variety of human excellence Were this believing allegiance to Christ to make cease to be men it would make us mons ters Were it to dry up the fountains of human emotion or to cease to impel us to those actions which characteristically human it would itself cease to be divine because it would mar and distort the image of God. We are not unmindful that many theological theories and many practical counsels have strong tendency thus to de- humanize man, and we are we'll aware that the theoretical and practical mischief which they occasion effectually condemns them as false and mischievous. The argu ment still remains good: viz, These things are pleasing to God and profitable to men. For this very reason the contrary theory needs to be restricted and the specific obliga- tion to apply our religious indictments in every possible human activity needs to be definitely recognized and faithfully enforced. The teachings of our Lord are most explicit from the beginning in which he so clearly declares the rules of practical discipline ship to the anticipated sentence in which he shall say in judgment, s.Inasmuch ye have done this to the least of these, my brethren ye have done it unto me-" Faith or loving allegiance is not reality, unless it impels to all the varied forms of human feeling and activity, for which our human nature provides occa- oyd tn Ixhiob if iDoTalS hV the calls and appeals of our human life. There is no pos sible opportunity for the activity which man except in the relationships of man with man. The attempts to strengthen ones faith by employing the thoughts upon God alone, in offices ot devotion or in a1mless realization of scenes which the senses cannot picture and the imagination cannot outline, infates and deceives with unsatisfvlng lllu- sions or dissourages and depresses with mor- tifying disappointment. But the attempt to carry this spirit of devotional sspi- ration, into the human affections and relationships both acts and traits to elevate man to God and to bring God down to man. In this sense do we interpret the direction, add or supply to your faith, virtue and god liness and brotherly kindness. By this rule do we reconcile the freedom of unconditional pardon and the joy of believing faith With the impulse to every kind of labor and sacrl- fee which is enforced everywhere in the New Testament.
 With these principles in mind we may ask, what are the characteristicaily Christian duties? What are the forms of Christian activity which the apostle here recognizes as our aim and rule of 1ifel It is obvious that he attempts no complete catalogue of Chris tian virtues and that we find none in the New Testament Therein is evinced divine liscernment and forecast, diseernment of the fact that, to attempt to classify the possible virtues must be a failure, and forecast, that as s man should make progress in individual and social life, new duties would come to the front. the names of which had not yet been devised Some of the virtues named by the apostle are recognized as enthusiastically Christian and in so far novel, hay ing been of infrequent occurrence, among the Pagan Greeks, because there were neither thoughts nor ideals to require them may even say that were Socrates to appear in our modern life with no other conception than those of his own time, 1 ne would scarcely understand many of the names of the virtues that have been created Dy the Christian family, that Plato would I find himself embarrassed by the dialect of the Christian commonwealth, and Aristotle I would be puzzled at many of the terms which
 in o1r aocia1 life