Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-31

where addresses Him in spirit and in truth
speaks to God present And He said that
wherever two or three were gathered to-
gether in His name there He would be in the
midst of them. He taught the universality
of the divine presence, Of the divine atten-
tion to the voice Of prayer, of the divine
love.
Nevertheless, while He lived our life, it
was impossible tor the disciples to realize
that Where He was, God was. When they
were in His visible presence they were
nearer to Him than when they were away
doing his will. So He taught them during
the days after the resurrection to be expect
ant of His presence on all occasions As
they walked along the road, or climbed the
hill, or sat in the upper room, or cast the
net into the sea, they knew not at what mo-
ment He might stand among them. They
BEGAN to feel His presence with them every
where And then He assembled into heaven,
leaving blessing and a promise which they
were now ready to receive, "Lo, am with
you always"
The Ever Present Spirit.
After that they went about carving His
message and the Lord was with them. He
was at thasame time with Peter at Joppa
and with James at Jerusalem; He was
present with Barnabas at Antioch and with
Paul at Rome. Wherever they journeyed
in His service, even the whole world over,
He was with them. Christ is here with US
to-day; it would be hard to believe that if
He were still visibly resident at Capernaum,
He would seem to belong ever so much
more to the disciples in Syria than to the
disciples in Pittsburg. Thus the spiritual
presence of the Master brings wider
blessing than His bodily presence could
have brought The ascension into heaven
made universally possible in Christ's
religion. He went away from the little
company of people on the ascension hill
that He might come back again to all OF us
and abide with US forever. 1t was, indeed,
expedient for us that He should 60 away.
1t was good thing to have universally
thus made possible; 1t was also good
thing to have infallibIlity made impossible.
Absolute iniallibility is always, and in
the nature of things, impossible. An in
fallible teacher is not intallible for us un-
less we are infallible learners An infal-
lible book is not infallible for us unless we
are infallible readers For infallibility
means the total absence of mistake. And
while human nature continues as it is, we
are all going to make mistakes.
He Never Compelled Acceptance.
It is a sufficient definition of infallibility,
however, to say that it is that characteristic
of statement which, when it is present,
compels acceptance. When the voice OF in
fallibility is heard we must believe.
Now, Christ never compelled acceptance.
He was the only infallible teacher that ever
lived Whom He spoke, He spoke the
truth. And yet, it is remarkable in His
teachings that He hatitually retrained from
laying obligations upon mems thinking.
He came not to make us slaves, even In our
minds, but to set US spiritually free. What
He said put no barrier across the path Of
thought; on the contrary His words inspired
| and stimulated thinking. His utterance
was not the end but the beginning OF the
truth Neither did He compel men to be-
lieve; instead of that, He always left pos
sibility for doubt, if q man would. So that
faith might be the real voice Of the man.
"How long dost thou hold us in suspense?'
they asked him; elf thou art the Christ tell
US plainly" But so far removed from
plainness was His answer that, after all His
public teaching, when He was accused be-
lore the high priest Of blasphemy, no two
witnesses agreed together
Must DO Their Own Thinking.
1t was inevitable, however, that the
disciples should have been greatly de-
pendent upon their Master. While He was
visibly present with them, He was such a
supreme and ultimate authority that, of
necessity, they let Him do their thinking
tor them. While He lived among them
they had in their company the voice of in
fallibility. And He knew that that was
not good for them. .----
God wants us to do our own thinking.
He wants us to recognize and accept truth
for ourselves, because we find it true, not
because some infallible voice tells us We
are all the time trying to escape from this
divine task of thinking. We are in search
of an infallible church, or OF an infallible
book, or of an infallible statement OF theo-
logical truth, which we may accept and
thereafter think NO more about it. But we
can no more transfer to others the duty OF
thinking than we can the duty of praying.
To point to the church or to the Bible, or to
Confession of Faith, and say, 'This is
what believe" is not belief.
Not to Compel bus to inspire Faith.
Into sll faith must enter An untrammeled