Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-06-19

Q days, they discover him in the great Tenn
PIE, seated among the mightiest religionist'
OF all the world. The walls of no othel
! building ever looked down on such q scene
A Child twelve years old surrounded by sep
tuagenarlans, he asking his own questions
and answering theirs. Let me introduce
you TO some of these ecclesiastics. This is
the great Rabbin Simeonl This is the ven
cradle Hillel! This is the famous Shammai
lhere are the sons of the distinguished Be-
tirah. What can this twelve year lad teach
them or what questions can he ask worthy
their cogitation? All, the first time in ali
their lives these religionists have found
their match and moro than their match,
Though so young, he knew all about that
famous Temple under whose roof they held
that most wonderful discussion of all his
tory. He knew the meaning of every altar,
OF every sacrifice, of every golden candle
stick, of every embroidered curtain, of every
crumb of shev bread, of every drop of oil
in that sacred edifice. he knew all about
God. He knew all about man. He knew
all about heaven, for he came from it. He
knew all about this world, for he made it.
He knew all worlds, for they were only the
sparkling morning dewdrops on the lawn in
front of his heavenly palace.
Put these seven Bible words in wreath
of emphasis: "Both hearing them and
asking them questions"
/ am not so much interested in the ques-
tions they asked Him as in the questions
| He asked them. He asked the questions
| not to get information from the doctors, for
He knew it already, but to humble them by
showing them the height and depth and
length and breadth of their own ignorance.
While the radiant boy thrusts these self
conceited philosophers with the interroga-
tion point, they put the foreinger of the
right hand to the 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 ab-
solute silence or in positive words confess
their incapacity to answer the interroga-
tory. With any one Of a hundred questions
about theology, about philosophy, about as
tronomy, about time, about eternity, he
may have baked them, disconnected them,
flung them flat. Behold the boy Christ
asking questions and listen when your child
asks questions. He has the right to ask
them. The more be asks the better. Alas
for the stupidity of the child without in
quisitiveness! 1t is Christ-like to ask ques.
tions. Answer them if you can. Do not
say; 'I can't be bothered now." 1t is
your place to be bothered with questions.
confess your incapaclty, as | have no doubt
did Rabbin Simeon and Millel and Sham
mai and the sons of Betirah when that
splendid boy, sitting or standing there with
q garment reaching from neck to ankle, and
gird!ed at the waist, put them to their very
wits end. 1t is no disgrace TO say: 81 don't
know" The learned doctors who environ
ed Christ that day in the Temple did not
know or they would not have asked him
any questions. The only being in the uni
verse who never needs to say 81 do not
know" is the Lord Almighty. The fact
that they did not know sent Keppler and
Cuvier and Columbus and Hum bodt and
Herschel and Morse and Sir William Hamil-
ton and all the others of the worlds might
lest natures into their lifelong explorations.
Telescope and microcope aud stethoscope
and electric battery and all the scientific
apparatus 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 in terIogati0n.
But while l see the old theologians stand
ing around the boy Christ am impressed
as never before with the fact that what the
ology most wants is more of childish SIM
plicity. The world and the Church have
built up immense systems of theology.
Half of them try to tell what God thought,
what God planned, what God did five hun
dred million years before the small star on
which we live was created. l have had
many sound sleep under sermons about
the DEGREES of God and the eternal genera
ton of the Son and dlscourses showing who
Melchisedek wasn't, and I give a fair warn
ing that if any minister ever begins ser
mon on such q subject in my presence
will put my head down on the pow in front
and go into the deepest slumber l can
roach. Wicked waste of time, this trying |
to scale the unscalable and fathom the un- |
fathomahle while tho 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 1 perplex ourselves |
about the DEGREES of God? Mind your own |
business and God will take care Of his. Ia |
the conduct of the universe l think he will |
somehow manage to get along without US. |
IL you want to love and serve God, and be |
good and useful and get to heaven, l war
rant that nothing which occurred eight hun
dred quintillion of years ago will hinder |
you a minute. 1t is not the DEGREES of God |
that do US any harm, it is our own DEGREES |
Of sin and folly. You eed not go any fur |
ther back in history than about 1856 years. |
You see this is the year 1899. Christ died |
about thirty-three years of age. You sub
stract SO from 1889 and that makes it only |
1856 years. That is as far back as you need |
to go. Something occurred On that day un-
der al eelipsed sun that sets US all forever |
free if with our whole heart and life we ac |
cept the tremendous proffer. Do not let |
the Presbyterian Church or the Methodist |
Church or the Lutheran Church or the |
Baptist Church or any of the other evange- |
lical churches spend any time in trying to |
a. IL ID I'll Of
everything man does is imperfect. l move |
new creed for all the evangelical churches |
of Christendom, only three articles in the |
creed and 10 need Of any more. II had |
all the consecrated people of all denomina-
tions of the earth on one great plain, and l
had voice loud enough to put it to a vote
that creed Of three articles would be adopt |
ed with a unanimous vote and laundering
aye that would make the earth quake and
the heavens ring with hosanna. This is the
creed propose 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-
iah but have everlasting life"
Article Seoond-"This is a faithful say
ing and worthy of all seceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners, even the chief"
Article Third-"Wo is the Lamb
that was slain 20 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 inter-
lining and annexing and subtraeting and
adding and explaining and you will lose
time and make yourself a target for earth
and hell to shoot at. Let us have creeds
not fashioned out of human ingenuities but
out of scriptural phraseolegy, and all the
guns of bombardment blazing from all the
port holes of infidelity and perdiion will
not in thousand years knock off the
Church of God a splinter as big as a cam
brio needle. What is most needed now is
that we gather all cur theologies around
| the bcV in the TempIe the elaboratiOus