Morning journal and courier., 1885-06-22
Tt or assent to any truth.

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 fered pardon with remuneration of the for l gwen sin, the conservation to his cadse and
 steadfsst and open .avowal of discipleship. l Such faith by no means excludes definite views of Christ's nature and work whence he l came and whither he goes, what he must be human soul and human society as
 o7ing pGsa Pesiaaion of its Christ sfu as aPa tRe 1 master of the heart, who, though he was dead, yet lives, and, behold, is alive for ever 1 more, but who is yet as near and as sympathiz- ! ing to every disciple as when he spake I words of personal tenderness to the weak l est and the most disconsolate or wept tears of sympathy at Lazarus grave.
 That this was the view of the writer of | this epistle and with him of the early church ! is most obvious It was to Christ as fact of human history who few years previous ! had been living person among the haunts and ways of men that he turned back in his l vivid recollections to him who by the charm of his moral loveliness and the power of his ! divine authority had won his believing love I and his fervent devotion. We did not fol I low cunningly devised fables, but were eye | witnesses of his majesty. For he received i'from God, the Father, honor and glory when I there came such a voice to him from the ex- cellent glory, ''This is my beloved Son in ! whom am well pleased. And this voice we heard when we were with him on the | collection of the Christ whom he had known I in the past when coupled with the vivid i'm l pression of what he was in the present that he gathered fresh inspiration. It was the l Christ that he remembered on earth in his 1 many manifestations of personal tenderness, In every act of human sympathy and ma jestic purity, whom he had also followed with wondering amazement as he ascended from bis sight and whom he now centem- plated with worshiping faith. It was this Christ who gave him the courage and hope through which he could endure and do all things, even on the cross or at the stake. It was the reflex of the like faith with feeble energy, but similar in kind, that the Stoic emperor would have heard in any Christian assembly. which, humble and obscure as it might have been, throbbed with the energy that was even then beginning to renew the
 moral life of humanity. For it was by faith in Christ as such person that the Roman world was conquered to his name. If the New Testament is worth anything as piece of history 1t portrays hundreds and thou sands of believing souls, living, suffering and dying for their llegiance to a person whose earthly body had been slain, but who was now alive upon the throne of almighty pow CT, to accept the personal homage of his dis ciples and to inspire them to a kind and degree of homage such the world had never known. No other fact of history is so well established as that: true or false this was the faith that inspired their lives; that whether it was req sonable or unreasonable it was faith in Christ, as person that enabled them to do and sui fer as they did.
 More'than this is true. Christ ss a person exemplihed and honored type of character which the world, as he found 1t, had rejected and despised The characteristic spirit of his life was not in barnony with the virtues which the best leaders of the world were dis posed to honor. It was to honor these very virtues, these virtues which we call Christian, and set them in their rightful place, that he used the whole force of his person, backed as it was with miracles and
 invested with the indescribable charm of his
 mysterious authority. We forget that these virtues, which we now call Christian, were
 characteristics which the Stoic despised and the Pharisee loathed and the Sadducee seorned that Christ was brought to his cross. Still further we forget that it was by this very act of humiliation that Christ exalted these virtues to the throne of the worlds homage and conquered place for them in the heart and reverence of Christendom. Still further; it was by the force and ener- gy of faith in the real Christ that men have learned to honor and love the ideal Christ. It is simply because many generations of men have struggled and prayed and sacrificed and died through their faith in the actual
 Christ that the world has been trained to
 that spiritual discernmept and moral eleva-
 tion which honors the ideal Christ, who
 when on earth had not where to lay his head
 and was driven in contempt from among it's
 dwellings. Atheist and Agnostic Secularist
 and Worldling now unite in homage or in
 loud acclaim before the idealized myth
 the romantic dream in which criticism and
 philosophy profess to have found the secret
 of the mystery of Jesus. Thou hast con
 quered the world, o Galilean.
 Theodore Parker, who scorued to find in
 Christ anything more than the worlds deal
 man, says this man has consummated the
 worlds idea and there can never be anything
 higher or better.
 George Eliot, whose early life seems to
 have been in zeal for the name and cause
 of Christ but who afterwards de-
 nied his personal power, could find
 nothing to give her inspiration or comfort in
 the gloomy depression of her later creed
 which could take the place of Thomas A
 Kempis and the crucifx. Whatever else
 these might signify, they signify the change
 which faith in Christ as person had brought
 in the worlds estimate of Christ
 ideal
 While we lay this stress upon faith as al
 legiance to Christ as person, we may not for
 get that such faith must, in certain sense,
 involve faith in creed expressed or implied.
 We cannot believe in person without some
 intellectual judgment concerning his person
 and his relations to God and man. This is true.
 All knowledge of every kind and every subject
 matter involves some intellectual conviction
 or implied assent. Allegiance of any kind,
 loving and trusting allegiance, consecration,
 worship, hope, trust and self sacrifice, all i'm
 ply belief that the object of faith is more or
 less distinctly known as warrantlng and re-
 quiring the love and confidence which we
 give. Hence. it has been concluded that the
 faith which is required of man and is the
 condition of his better life must
 always be an exact and well
 defined system of truth accurately
 stated, thoroughly reasoned and carefully
 adjusted in all it's parts. Theological divi
 sioas and sectarian strifes tend to deepen this
 impression just in proportion as the atten
 tion is occupied by the discussion and de fense of matters of secondary importance.
 The prevalence of doubt and denial in re-
 spect to the fundamental truths of religion
 tends to unsettle ths minds of thoughtful
 men. Men of reading and education cannot, if they would, be ignorant of the bold as- saults and the often weak and partial defense of the faith with which modern literature abounds. Faith to be anything worthy thinking man must be a reasonable or ration al act and reasonable faith must be a thor ough1y reasoned product, which nothing but thought and time mature. lG follows, many conclude, that faith for them at pres ent is impossible. If it comes at all it must come as the conclusion of patient study and protracted inquiry. Hence many refecting men abandon the prospect of a strong and settled faith in utter despair. Faith, they say, requires inquiry and thought, and thought and inquiry cost time and effort Hence the inspiration of faith must for the present be abandoned by them.
 What shall we say upon this points First of all correct or complete intellectual creed concerning the person does not of itself im~ ply loving allegiance nor involve transform ing energy. Important as it may be for many reasons, it does not of necessity indi- cate any religious or moral worth. There is no more merit involved in a correct theory of religious truth as such than in correct theory in geology or physics. Such correct ness of creed may indicate or promote hones- ty and earnestness of mind, but they do not necessarily involve either. As means of good and sign of good these may be useful, but of themselves they have no excellence or evil. What is still more significant faith may coexist with very scanty creed. Pre- eminently this is true of the countless ques- tions in regard to which theologians by pro fession differ and ouer which Christian .seets two often wrangle To apprehend an object that moves the feelings and impels to heroic actions is quite compatible with utter inabll