St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-01-28
Rev. Samuel Smiths Congr egation at
the Peoples.
FAITH is A NECESSITY.
An Entertaining and Instructive Dis
course by a Leader Among Pro-
gressive Men Of the Day.

be held at the Peoples theater, the
members of the Peoples church will
worship in their new church on Pleas
ant avenue. The subject of Rev.
Samuel Smiths sermon yesterday was;
Faith in Christ. ;
Though we inger for the third Sum
day upon the word faith,'' he said. 81
warn you to beware of servility to mere
words and formulas. Were Christians
asked to define the essential doctrine of
faith. And vet the author of the Cos
| pei by st. John, which has been we'll
named the heart of Christ wrote his
entire account and never once used the
the word faith. But John was
the apostle who leaned upon the
Masters breast, who showed the most
utter devotion to His person, and most
of all exhibited faith in his relation to
the Master. There is nothing more mar
| row and belittling than slavery to
words. The Bible is never so. 1t IL
Illustrates and reinforceS the same great
| truths after thousand metaphors. and
forms of expression, that we may be de-
llvered from every metaphor and every
form of speech, and at length developed
spiritual men and women gaze upon the
unveiled truth.
/ have spoken of faith as related to
thought and action. We now consider
it as related to personality, which is
the profound and vital end. not only of
faith, but of every true and great thing.
Personality is essentially spiritual. 1t
consists not alonein individuality, but in
individuality comes into knowledge of it.
self. Personality is the despair of sci
ence. Because it is actuated by an ever
moving will, it cannot therefore be cal
culated. 1t breaks all letters as
SAMPSON DID HIS ROPES.
Nature is at last insoluble and all our
knowledge ends in mystery, because all
being ends in God. Personality in man
is Elusive, we cannot calculate it. The
teacher of boys and girls has found in
this quality the defiance of all laws ana
methods. The physician might. per-
hapS. foretell the effect of medicine,
and predict the future of his patient,
did lie know what moods of fancy the
mind would pursue, or what fiery sor-
rows would haunt the brain and veX the
heart. Because no category Of tissues
and organs is an inventory of man, so
medicine is not all exact science, and
can never become so. 1t is in the realm
OF probabilities.
The relation of persons is the touch
of faith by the light of knowledge shin
ing on the home OF mystery. Society is
possible only through faith, and the
more profoundly it is assured by secur-
ity and virtue, the more tenacious be-.
comes its grasp. Ii by repeated
disappOintments men were hurled down
from faith in their fellows, and a
universal scepticsm of man and woman
should ensue, there are not standing
armies, nor jails and gibbets enough to
hold society together; chaos must ensue.
AS politics and Institutions depend
upon faith, SO also do commercial trains
actions. 1t is because men tell the truth
more frequently than they lie. that
trade is possible. Faith in stocks, bonds,
banks and the future are the very sub
stance of commercial life. Since Christ
is the supreme Person and religion is
the supreme human interest, so faith in
Christ is the highest exercise of per-
sOnality and the supremeSt joy of man.
The records of Socrates and Caesar, tile
incarnationS of philosophy and of ac-
tong down before Him.NO claims were
ever SO audaciOuS, no successes were
ever SO unparalleled, no influence was
ever so widespread. Open the books of
the world and erase everywhere the
uame of Socrates, uncover the pages of
history and efface the name of julius
Ceaser and our knowledge would be in
deed affected. Civilization would be
wounded. But were you to attempt to
efface the thoughts and words and life
of Jesus of Nazareth, you
WOULD NOT SCAR HER.
you would stab civilization to the very
heart. | can not wonder that Jesus
came. Men everywhere needed an an
nOinted of God. Decipher if you can
the prophecies Of Isaiah and Ezekiel.
but believe, the aspirations and yearn-
ings of man have forever prOphecied
him. Science, too, predicts him. Life
aperfect expression. Fed from mighty
but invisible fountains it has
not been able to exhaust itself
in the incomplete. 1t journeyed
upward until it reached man. 1t had
force enough to still unfold him under
nobler conditions. A Christ who,
through sainthood, empties the tides of
humanity back into the sea of God, COM
pletes the circle of life and satisfies
scientific expectation. The Christ that
man longs for, and that science promi-
ses, the gospels reveal. Faith in Christ,
therefore, is founded upon recognition
of His supreme personality. Religion
makes an appeal to us not found in other
forms Of thought. The religious
teacher speaks our heart language,
gospel of God is at least half written on
every human heart. So does the intelli-
gence easily come, if it will, to recogni-
ton of Jesus. | do not lean to
all the doctrines that have been
framed in regard to Him. l for
ever appeal from the Jesus of dogma to
the Jesus of history; from the Christ of
theology to the Christ of the Bible. Nor
do l mean that even thus we can make
complete inventory of His resources,
nor should any reasonable man demand
that he be able strictly to define and eX-
haust the personality of Jesus, before
he will :trust Him any more than he
must share all the knowledge of his
physician OF his chemist before he
Will rely upon them. But this rec
reyealer of God, or, as He is called, the
Son of God. But where else can we
find revelation of God at all? Not in
science. which can reveal force; not in
philosophy, which can talk to us of
force; but alone in the Christian re-
Hgion which speaks to us of a loving
Father. But He must be recognized as
the revealer of man. or, as he delights
to call Himself, He was the Son of man.
He alone has been able to reveal the
moral possibilities Of man in an
UNSTAINED EARTHLY LIFE,
and so presents to us final philosophy
of time and sense. Because, therefore,
He is the reyealer of God and the re-
vealer of man, He has the right to claim
the spiritual leadership of humanity.
The practical recognition Of this leader
ship is faith. Jesus Christ has His linn
itations, but they were not in the realm
of the spiritual. / would not care for a
thousand mistakes in science or history
that might be incidental to the Scripture
record, but one moral mistake of Jesus
of Nazareth, would dethrone His gospel
and hurl down His cross. Faith in