The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-04-05


again by a powr within ourselves We are
all the time trying to take short cuts and
never succeeding We think IL we can only
VIII be virtuous. we are mistaken. Men
are made virtuous by confronting tempta-
ton. The mother who tries TO keep her
child away from all temptation simply pre-
pares the boy for an awful fan when he
gets old enough to leave the home IL Is
not by taking away the bonds, II Is by CIV
ing strength 10 the man that he may break
the bonds. that ne is redeemed. Every man
Is like Samson bound by his enemies and
he must walt until he has acquired the
strength witkiD himself. and what God does
for US Is not 10 break the bonds and let
alone; 1t is 10 give US strength TO break the
bonds and then we do not return TO bondage
again. He does not set free this man, caught
by the brigands. and leave him in the Alps
10 be caught by some other brigands over
again. He puts in his hand a musket and
says TO him fight your way TO liberty.
The power OF redemption is the power or
God in the soul 1t Is Christ in US that Is
the hope OF our glory. And the evolutionary
conception of religion does differ from the
old theology and radically in this respect.
The old theology regarded redemption as
something done for man In heaven outside
of him, and the new theology or evolu-
tionary theology. regards redemption as
something done for man within him. The
one is what philosophers call objective; the
other is what philosophers call subjective
II is the spirit of God I'm the soul OF man,
making a man OF him and giving him power
TO be master over himself. And so we are
enemies. For we are in an enemy's country.
That which binds us Is not merely the ami
NAL from which we are emerging, not merely
the temptation which we have taken upon
ourselves by own habits or inheritance. but
our companions and the life that is round
about US. How are we to be redeemed
from these? Is there any redemption? Does
anyone doubt there is?
REDEMPTION OF CITIES
let us take a concrete illustration right
az home. How shall the city and the State
be redemmed from corruption? How shall
New York be redemmed from Tammany and
Brooklyn from a ring? How shall the State
be redeemed from machines and the Nation
from corrupt politicians? How shall Amer
lea be redeemed from corruption? Can any
foreign forces do It? Can any car, any en-
peror, any army from without? II is only
by a power working within that the Nation
can be redemmed from corrupt forces. only
by forces working from within that the city
can be redeemed If Brooklyn cannot redeem
itself from corrupt politicians, if New York
cannot redeem itself from corrupt politicians,
If the State and the Nation cannot redeem
itself-then its fate is sealed. For in the
very nature of the ca 9e it is manhood that
is wanted, and manhood is not accomplished
by striking the chains OF from mems
wrists, and then leaving them to. be bound
them before. You have not redeemed the
African race when you have simply signed the
emancipation proclamation; you must follow
over again. 1t is net enough TO give them
the ballot 1--WE proved thaD; the negro must
be made first a man, then out OF the man
hood shall grow the citizenship. This Is the
whole ministry, and message and teaching OF
Christ, from the first letter to the last let
ter OF the alphabet; the life must come from
within outward. not from without inward.
Ii is only as God works in US to will and to
do His good pleasure that any man Is saved.
1t is only as the man himself takes into
into itself the vital forces. No transaction
wrought in heaven will redeem either the race
or the individual. Whatever is done in heav-
en- must be wrought cut in the soul OF the
man. The sun never bring a bud 10
blossom a seed to growth except as the
rays of the sun come TO the earth and put
the life into the seed and into the bud This
is the truth, then, that redemption by
evolution holds: That the redemptive force
is force within; Ii is God in humanity; 1t
is God in the Individual soul it is God in
toning the conscience; ii is God clarifying the
faith; it is God STRENGTHENING the, will; 1t
is God making the man man; and only as
the man takes God and Is made man that
ne can be redeemed.
land the second element in the doctrine
of evolution is that IL is development from
a lower to a higher stage Evolution does
not believe in going backward. Its ideals
are never histories in the past. Evolution al
ways has its face toward the future. The
doctrine Of evolution is that the world grows;
that Gods way of doing things is by devel-
oping from a lower to a higher stage. Evo-
there is no growth, but that 1t calls arrested
development; and ii knows conditions OF
things in which there is a falling back, out
Ii calls degeneracy. 1t does not believe in
restoration John Milton wrote Paradise
Lost and then having told the story of the
fall he wrote Paradise Regained,' and thus
he interpreted the doctrine Of redemption:
II, who erewhile the happy garden sang,
By one mans disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered paradise to all mankind
And Eden raised in the waste wilderness
EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE.
ITO some extent, at least the old theology
so conceived redemption Man sinned and
fell in Eden. Redemption is to recover him
and put him back in the condition from
which he fell. Now, you cannot reconcile
evolution with that theory with the mott On
that man was perfect, that he fell, and that
he is to be put back in the perfect condition
in which he fell. That is not evolutionary.
Nor can / reconcile it with the Bible. / can
not find from cover to cover in the Bible
anywhere the suggestion that man is to be-
put back again. 1t is not there. There is
not the suggestion that he is to be restored
to Eden. The Bible always marches with its
face to the front. 1t is always anticipating
known in the past. When Abraham
goes out Of the land of paganism to land,
he knows not WHAT. he Is not called back to
Eden. When Moses calls the children of
Israel out of the land of Goshen into the
Promised Land. it is TO new land that is
to be opened up TO them and all their look
ing back is continually reprohated and con-
demned When the prophecy is given to
David, that out of him shall come a king. ii
is not king that shall put Eden back again,
or David or his ancestry back in Eden, it is
a new king to sit on a new throne for
new kingdom. When the exiles are called
out of Babylon Ii is not with any conception
that the old condition of things is to be re-
stored, it is not TO a kingdom of David, not
to a kingdom of Solomon, it is not TO the
glory that Is gone, ii is to a new and larger
cory, and gentiles shall come to thy light
and the nations 20 thy arising When Christ
comes, il is the same thing. He never turns
things around He never twists men round,
so that they shall look one way and walk
the other. He tells them of a kingdom TO
come, not kingdom that has been. He says
to them, Greater things than do shall ye
do, the future has more for you than the
past: 1 cannot tell you all the things. but
the Spirit will come He will tell you all
things 1t is the same with Paul. Paul
never suggests the race 10 go back to Eden.
to go back to Isaiah, or David, or Moses II
is Always toward something larger and better
and nober. And when the Book of REVEAL
ton does picture garden IL is not garden
of Eden. In this garden of Revelation the