The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-06-10

| 1t is your place to be bothered with
questions. If You are not able 70 answer,
! surrender and confess your in apacity, as
have 10 doubt did Rabbin Simeon and
/ Hillel and Shammai and the sons of Betirah,
when that splendid boy, sitting or standing
there with a garment reaching from neck
! TO ankle and glrdled at tie waist, put them
( to their very wits end. 1t is no disgrace to
say, II don't know" The learned doctors
who envircned Christ that day in the
/ temple did not know or they would not
/ have asked him any questions
TIE only being in the universe
who never needs TO say Il do
not know" is the Lord Almighty. The fact
/ that they dill not know sent ksppler and
Cuvier and Columbus and Humboldt and
! Herschel and Morse and Sir William Ham,
/ llton and all the other of the worl1's might
| lest natures into their life long explorations.
Telescope and microscope aud ssethoscope
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 interrog alton.
But while | ses the old tneologlans stand
| ing around the boy Christ / am impressed
as never before with the fact that what
theology most wants is more OF childish
simplicity. The world and the church have
| built ND immense systems of theology.
nan OI buciI Try u tell W0aL 0Du LuOuRHI,
what God planned, what G ID did five hun
dred million years before the small star ON
| which We live was created. | have had
many sound sleep under sermons about
the DEGREES of God and the eternal
generation of the Son, and discourses
sho wing who Melchisedek wasn't, and l
give fair warning that if any minister
ever begins a sermon on such a 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 aud
fathom the unfathomable while the nations
want the bread OF life and to be told how
they can get rid of their sins and their sor-
rows. Why should you and perplex our
selves about the DEGREES of Coda Mind
your own business and God will take
care of his. In the conduct of the universe
| think he will somehow manage to get
along without u.s. If you want to love and
serve God, and be good and useful and get
| to heaven, | warrant that nothing which
occurred eight hundred quiatilion Of years
ago will hinder you minute. 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 farther back in history than
about ], $50 years. You see this is the year
1889. Christ died at about 33 years of age.
You subtract 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 under an ecipsed sun
that sets us all forever free if with
our whole heart and life we accept the ire
| mendous prefer Do not let the Presbyte-
rian 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 christen-
dom, only three articles in the creed
| and no need of any more If
| had all the consecrated people of all de-
nominations 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 a 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 per-
| ish but have everlasting life.n
Article Second-"This is faithful say
| ing and worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save
| sinners, even the chiefn
Article Third-''W orthy 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
cresds and patching and splicing and inter
| lining and annexing and subtracting and
adding and explaining 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 scriptural phraseology, and all the
guns of bombardment blazing from all the
port holes of infidel!ty and perdition
| win not in thousand wears
| knock off the church of God a
splinter as big as cambria needle. What
is most needed now is that we gather all
our theologies around the boy in the tenn
pie, the Celebrations around toe simplici-
ties, and the profundities around the clari-
ties. the octogenarian of scholastic research
around the unwrinkled cheek of 12-year
| iuvenescence. Except you become as a
little child you can in no wise enter the
| kngdom;" and except you become as a
little child you cannot understand the
christian religion. The best thing that
Rabbih Simeon ana Hillel aud Sham
mai aud the sons of Betirah ever
did was in the temple, to bend over the lad
who, first made rudy of cheek by the
breath of the Judean Mills 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 dialecticiaus of the Orient, "both
hearing them and asking them questions. I"
Some, referring to Christ, have exclaimed,
Ecce Deus Behold the God. Others have
exclaimed, Ecce homo! Behold the man.
But to-day, ia conclusion of my subject,
cry, Ecce adolescens! Behold the boy.
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BOSTON'S BUDGET.
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