Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1889-06-21

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
Hamilton and all the other of the
worlds mightiest natures into their life
long explorations. Telescope and
microscope and stethoscope and electric
battery and all the scientific apparatus
OF all the ages are only questions asked
Mt the door of mystery. Behold this
Nazarene lad asking questions, giving
everlasting dignity to earnest interroga-
tion.
But while see the old theologians
standing around the boy Christ l am
impressed as never before with the fact
that what theology most warts is more
the church have built up immense sys-
TENS 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 discourses
showing who Melchisedek wasn't, and 1
give fair warning that if any minister
ever begins sermon on such subject
in my presence I will put my head down
on the pew. in front and go into the
deepest slumber I can reach. Wicked
waste of time, this trying to scale the
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 I perplex ourselves
about the DEGREES of God? Mind your
own business and God will take care Of
His. In the conduct of the universe l
think He will somehow manage to get
along without us. If you want to love
and serve God, and be good and useful
and get to Heaven, warrant that
nothing which occurred eight hundred
quintillion Of years ago will hinder
you minute. 1t is not the DEGREES
own DEGREES of sin and folly. You
need not go any further back in history
than about 1855 years. You see this is
the year 1889. Christ died about thirty
three years of age. You substract 30
from 1889 and that makes it only 1856
years. That is as far back as you need
to go. Something occurred on that day
under an eclipsed sun that sets us all
forever free if with our whole heart and
life we accept the tremendous protfer
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. 1 move a new creed
for all the evangelical churches of
Christendom, only three articles in the
creed and no need of any more. If I
had all the consecrated people of all
denominations 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 a unani-
nous vote and q 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
whatsoever believeth in Him should not
perish but have everlasting life.
Article Second-"This is faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation
that Christ Jesus came into the 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 oil.
creeds and patching and splicing ant
interlining and anneXing and subtract
ing and adding and eXplaining and yol
will lose time and make yourself a tar
get for earth and hell to shoot at. Let
: us have creeds not fashioned out of hui
! man ingenuities but ont of scriptural
phraseology, and all the guns of bonn
) bardment blazing from all the port holes
of infdelity and perdition will not in &
thousand years knock off the church OF
God o splinter as big as q cambria
needle. What is most needed now
is that we gather all our theologies
! around the boy in the Tenn
pie, the Celebrations around
; the simplicities, and the profundities
around the clarifies, the octogenarian
of scholastic research around the I'M
wrinkled cheek of twelve year juvenes-
,, cence. Except you become as little
!; child you can in no wise enter the
!, kingdoms; and except you become as a
little child you cannot understand the
Christian religion. The best thing that
Rabbin Simeon and Hillel and Sham
mai and the sons of Betirah ever
did was in the Temple, to beud 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 heal
ing them and asking them questions. "
Some referring to Christ have exclaimed
Ecce Deus! Behold the God. Others
have exclaimed Ecce homo Behold the
man. But day in conclusion of my
subject I cry, Ecce adolescens! Behold
the Boy.