Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-09-15
HUMAN REASON.
IT'S INsuFFIcIENCY TO KEEP MAN IN
THE WAY 0F HOLINESS.
Rev Won Herrlich's Sermon Yesterday a
St. PauPs-The World as Christ
Found 1t.

first verse God, who at sundry times and
in divers manners spoke in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets, hath in these
last days spoken unto US by His son." Mr..
! Won Herrlich stated that although mans
reason might have been sufficient to keep
him in the way of peace and holiness be-
fore the world became depraVed and sinful,
vet, even then, his knowledge was INSULT
cient and imperfect. But" said ne, we
will endeavor first to show the insufficiency
OF natural religion, and then the absolute
necessity of Divine revelation"
After defining natural and revealed re-
ligion as the two fountain-heads from
whence flows all our knowledge of God
and His will and attributes, Mr.. Won Herr.
hch spoke of man in his fallen state, cut of
rom direct communication with God,
| and with nothing to build his faith and
hope upon. Man harrassed with the
mighty problems of life and destiny-death
and Immortality, drifting about without
rudder or compass, with no way to steer or
guide himself In looking over the his
tory of the past-at the two attempts at
progress and ciyiliZation-one based upon
mere human intellect, the other on the
] human reason enlightened and sanctified
| by revealed religion, we can more fully ap-
preciate and see the force of our argument
Egypt, Persia and Assyria had thought fol-
ages upon religious matters, and had left
| their learning as legacy to the Greeks and
Romans.
4ut what was the climax of these in
| tellectual efforts of them all in religious
and spiritual directions?
Their great philosophers believed in q
| Supreme Being and in some state of exist
ence beyond this-but here their knowl-
edge reached its utmost limit The result
of their efforts was great learning and re-
markable genius, but it was a learning
that could not satisfy the simplest queries
of the longing soul, nor shed one ray OF
light upon the great problems of life and
destiny. As to a remedy for sin-what
means were necessary to gam Gods favor;
whether repentance would blot out the
sips of the past; whence We came and
whittier going? These were some of the
| questions which unaided reason could
give no answer. But, just when the
| human intellect had reached its utmost
| limit in its search for truth, Just when
men were cropping in despair. Christ came
to teach them the will of God and point
the way to life and Immortality.
AS CHRIST FOUND IT.
Mr.. Won Herrlich gave a graphic
! description of the world when Christ came.
Moral and spiritual darkness was upon
| the face of the earth. Druidism was abso-
lutte in Britain, and while the infant Savior
slept in His manger cradle at Bethlehem,
the dark altars Of Stonehenge quivered
with their human victims; while IN
Greece and Rome the impurity and cor
ruption of their deities and worship
is almost inconceivable. II was the human
reason Of the refined and cultured
Greeks and Romans that peopled the
skies with thousands Of yindlciiye, IN.
! chas.e and adulterous deities And surely
we cannot expect the morals of people
to rise higher than the char
: actef of the gods and goddesses
they worship? 1t was the human reason
that piled upon the Carthagenian altars the
bodies of thousands of infants as sacrifices
to their monster god Moloch. 1t was the
reason of the learned stole that made God
only shining link in chain of fixed and
miserable fate.
II was the cultured reason of the cpl
curean that made God merely cold ab-
straction-seated away off beyond the stars
wrapped in sublime and profound indif-
ference, not caring how many storms might
rage at his feet nor how many worlds be-
meath became desolate. Unaided reason
never gave the world any cleeS knowledge
of the will and character of God-Do uni
form laws of morality, no infallible guide
to lead himl What was vice on one side
of mountain range, on the other side, at
| times, was counted g virtue.
With all the cultivation of intellect the
great problems of existence were still un-
solved. The agonized mother, as she stood
over the cold and marbled form of her life
less child, could get no tidings from Greek
philosophy Of that great beyond to which
| The soul of her loved one had departed.
| Even the dying Socrates, with q pathetic
distrust of his own reason as to the NOR
tality or Immortality of the soul, says ~
am on raft drifting ! know not whittier;
but is il not best TO accept the probabilities
| in the absence of some sure word from
God ?"
But Christ came, said the speaker, and
reared the divine beacon light of knowl-
edge and salvation upon the Rock of Ages,
which threw its bright rays over the dark
valley of death-down into the depths OF
our troubled natures-and over into that
kingdom beyond this. Before Christ came
death was an unknown abyss-an eternal,
dreamless sleep. What wonder that His
! tllc udTii Vi
piness and hopel What wonder that before
that effulgent, supernal light the pagan
torches fickered and went out and the
lamps of pfiestess and vestal virgin died in
| darkness at their shrines
But prone 10 wander, man soon forgot
that human strength must be built upon
submission to God. The naughty intellect
| of man soon said rs not this reason which
God has given me sufficient guide ?" We
, would not underrate the human reason.
| We must use il and profit by it. But II is
I incomplete without that higher light
I which alone comes from above. 1t was
only when man cast aside the teachings OF
Gods word, with It's messages OF love and
forgiveness, that the horrors Of the lnqul-
sition became a possibility, and il was by
| the corruptions in the church that the
French Revolution was ushered in, and
those corruptions were mainly due to the
encroachments of the human reason upon
the simple and clear statements of the word
| of God. Reason is the great presiding at
tribute of our moral and intellectual
natures, but when it sets itself up against
the revealed will of God the inevitable re-
suit is sin and disaster. History shows us
that outside of revelation there is no sure
and certain basis to build upon. 1t is
either the shifting sands of
THEORY AND SPECULATION,
Or the restless waves of unrest and guess
! work. Whatever is born of human reason
is liable to change-there is no euclid for
thought and opinion. One generation
makes laws, but the next changes them;
but with the laws of God there is mo
| yariableness nor shadow of turning" No
one has yet even attempted to annul the
laws of God in nature nor to abrogate the
beatitudes. There is no guesswork nor
speculation. THUS saith the Lord" is the
emphatic utterance. In response to every
question or need of our weak human ma
ture Gods word has the supply and gives
the answer, and no one has ever yet shown
God to man and man to himself; it solves
the problems of sin and evil. 1t breaks
the silence of death and opens the portal TO
kir...d1..,a hcs....al tLsn ~ AL. u. IL %