The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1889-03-20
CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE As
AN EVIDENCE OF CHRIS
TIANITY.

IL is only necessary 10 caSU inc eye
over the earth to recognise that the
human race by which it is inhabited is
in q condition of fearful lapse from one
of innocence and purity, and that the
moral disease which has stricken into
the very soul of humanity is of the
most malignant and intractable char
acter. A religion for such a race was
indeed difficult matter, and no won
der the Pagan world CROPPED in vain
for some form of religious faith that
would be really reformatory and cor
receive. 1t is right here that Chris
tianity must encounter it's crucial test.
One distinguishing trait of the Chris
tian religion is its spiritual exercises.
So far as we are aware, no other re-
ligion resembles it in this respect The
same feature distinguishes the Protes.
tant professor from the Roman Catho.
lie devotee; and among Protestants it
distinguishes a living church from a
dead church.
These spiritual exercises heve been
common to the saints of God through
out the history of the Church. The
inspired penman has not left on record
the anguish and conflict through
which Abraham must have passed be-
fore with sublime submission he bound
his son for the sacrifice. We get
glimpses, mere or less vivid, of the
soul struggles which doubtless marked
their lives when we read that "Jacob
was left alone, and there wrestled
man with with him until the breaking
of the day.; or of Moses "preferring
the reproach of Christ to the trea-
sures of Egypt; of Job when he cried
out in his agony, CHE breaketh me
with breach upon breach, he runneth
upon me like giant; of Eli when the
messengers brought the tldings that his
son were slain, and that "the ark of
God was taken; of the blind Samson,
after bitter years of inaction and i'm
prisonment, when he embraced the
pillars in the temple of Dagon; Of
David when he cried, 20 my son Alb
salon, my son, my son Absalom
would God had died for thee, o Alb
SALON, my son, my son !"
The Psalms are record of the fears
and hopes, the ecstasy and the anguish,
the multiplied religious struggles,
through which David passed in his
long and eventful life-an experience
set down in the Divine oracles for the
instruction of the Church in all ages,
and which to this day is Incorporated
in every public Christian worship as
the most appropriate language in
which the soul can give expression to
its raptures and its griefs in the temple
of God.
In the New Testament "the sweet
Psalmist Of Israel" seems to have
breathed the tones of his Tyre into the
passionate and devoted spirit of Paul
and here the Christian finds again for
his edifcation and guidance the record
Of believers experience under the
full light of the gospel, the subject of
it being that great Apostle to the Gen.
tiles whose theology has exerted far
more influence on the thought of the
world than the philosophy of Aristotle
Christianity was the first to give en-
phatic utterance to the position that
The inhabitants Of this world are a
ruined race This was it's fundamental
principle. On that foundation it pro.
ceeded to build its system of doctrine.
Far and wide the heralds of the cross
proclaimed to the Asiatic, the Greek,
the Egyptian, the Roman, the broad
proposition that "the world lieth in
wickedness." 1t was no pleasing an
nouncement Eternal damnation was
the sequel
Christianity was, again, the first to
kindle in the human heart distinct
hope The world had grown weary of
speculation and OF doubt. The phil.
osophy Of the Epicuroans-the cold,
cherries atheism of the old Roman
world-had penetrated the minds Of
men. The highest ambition was the
spectacles of the amphtheatre and an
aimless literary culture. Humanity