The national leader., 1889-06-15

temple as though to start their thoughts into
more vigor and then they would look upward
and then they would wrinkle their brows and
then by absolute silence or in positive words
confess their incapacity to answer the inter
rogatory. With any one of hundred ques-
tions about theology, about philosophy, about
astronomy, about time, about eternity, He
may have baked them. disconnected them,
flung them fiat. Behold the boy Christ asking
questions and listen when your child asks
questions. He has the right to ask them. The
more he asks the better Alas for the stu
pidity of the child without inquisitiveness!
1t is Christlike to ask questions. Answer
them if you can. Do not say: 81 can't be both
cred now" ItlS your place to be bothered With
questions. If you are not able to answer,
surrender and confess your incapacity, as I
have no doubt did Rabbin Simeon and
Hlllel and Shammai and the sons of Betirah
when that splendid boy, sitting or standing
there with garment reaching from neck to
ankle, and girdled at the waist, put them to
their very wits end 1t is no disgrace to say:
Il don't know" The learned doctors who
environed Christ that day in the Temple
did not know or they would not have asked
Him any questions. The only being in the
universe who never needs to say: II do
not know is the Lord Almighty. The
fact that they did not know sent Keppler
and Cuvier and Columbus and Humboldt and
Herschel and Morse and Sir William Hamil-
ton and all the other of the worlds mightiest
natures into their lifelong explorations.
Telescope and microscope and stethoscope
and electric battery and all the scientific APP
paratus OF all the ages are only questions
asked at the door of mystery. Behold this
Nazarene lad asking questions, giving ever
lasting dignity to earnest Interrogation.
But while see the old theologians standing
around the boy Christ | am impressed as
never before with the fact that what theology
most wants is more of childish simplicity.
Tho world ard tho Il b,,ilt
mense systems of theology. Half of them
try to tell what God thought what God
planned, what God did five hundred million
years before the small star on which we live
was created. I have had many sound sleep
under sermons about the DEGREES of God and
the eternal generation Of the Son and dis
courses showing who Melchisedek wasn't, and
give fair warning that if any minister
ever begins sermon on such subject in my
presence l will put my head down on the pew
in front and go into the deepest slumber can
reach. Wicked waste of time, this trying to
scale the unscalable and farhom the un-
fathomable while the nations want the bread
of life and to be told how they can get rid of
their sins and their sorrows. Why should
you and l perplex ourselves about the DEGREES
of God? Mind your own business and God
will take care Of His. In the conduct of the
manage to get along without us. If
you want to love and serve God. and be good
and useful and get to heaven. l warrant
that nothing which occurred eight hundred
quintillion of years ago will hinder you min
ute. 1t is not the DEGREES of God that do US
any harm, it is our own DEGREES of sin and
folly. You need not go any further back in
history than about 1856 years. You see this
is the year 1889. Christ died about thirty
three years of age. You subtract thirty three
from 1889 and that makes it only
1856 years. That is as far back
as you need to go. Something oc-
Cured on that day under an eclpsed
whole heart and life we accept the tremen-
dous proffer Do not let the Presbyterian
Church or the Methodist Church or the
Lutheran Church or the Baptist Church or
any of the other evangelical churches
spend any time in trying to fix up old
creeds, all Of them imperfect, as everything
man does is imperfect. L move new creed
for all the evangelical churches of Chris
tendom only three articles in the
creed and no need of any more If 1 had
all the consecrated people of all denomina-
tions of the earth on one great plain, and
had voice loud enough to put it to vote that
creed of three articles would be adopted with
unanimous vote and laundering aye thas
would make the earth quake and the heavens
ring with hosanna. This is the creed pro-
pose for all Christendom:
Article First-'God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son that
whosoever believeth In Him should not per-
ish but have everlasting life."
Article Second-"This is faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation that Christ
Jesus came into this world to save sinners,
even the chief"
Article Third-''Worthy is the Lamb that
was slain to receive blessing and riches and
honor and glory and power, world without
end. Amen"
But you go to tinkering up your old creeds
and patching and splicing and interlining and
annexing and subtracting and adding and ex-
planning and you will lose time and make
| yourself target for earth and hell to shoot
at. Let us have creeds not fashioned out of
human ingenuities but out of scriptual phrase
ology, and all the guns of bombaTdment
| blazing from all the port holes of infidelity
and perdition will not in a thousand
years knocked off the Church of God splin4
| ter as big as cambria needle. What Is most
needed now is that we gather all our theolo-
| gies around the boy in the Temple the elabo-
rations around the simplicities, and the pro-
| fundities around the clarieties, the octogena-
rian of scholastic research around the
unwrinlzled cheek of twelve year juven-
escence. Except you become as a lit
the kingdom" and except you become as a
| little child you cannot understand the
| Christian religion. The best thing that
Rabbin Simeon and Hillel and Shammai and
the sons OF Betlrah ever did was In the lemple,
to bend over the lad, who first made ruddy
of cheek by the breath of the Judean hills
and on His way to the mechanics shop
where He was soon to be the support
of His bereaved mother, stopped long enough
to grapple with the venerable dialecticians of
the Orient ''both hearing them and asking
them questions" Some referring to Christ
have exclaimed .Ecce Deusl Behold the God.
Others have exclaimed Ecce homoi Behold
the man. But to-day in conclusion of my
subject cry, Ecce adolescens! Behold the
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