Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1897-08-17

You want things logical and consistent.
and you say, How could Christ be God
and man at the same timc?" John
says Christ was the Creator: "Aii
things were made by him, and without
him was not anything made" Matthew
says that he was omnipresent: Where
two or three are met together in my
name, there am l in the midst Of them
Christ declares his own eternity: Il
am Alpha and Omega" How can he
be lion, under his foot crushing king
doms, and yet a lamb licking the hand
that Stays him? At what point do the
throne and the manger touch? II
Christ was God, why flee into Egypt?
Why not stand his ground? Why, in
stead OF bearing cross, not lift up his
right hand and crush his assassins?
Why stand and be spat upon? Why
sleep on the mountain, when he owned
the palaces of eternity? Why catch
fish for his breakfast on the beach IN
the chill morning. when all the pome-
granates are his, and all the vineyards
his, and all the cattle his, and all the
partrdges his? Why walk when weary,
and his feet stone bruised, when he
might have taken the splendors of the
sunset for his equipage, and moved
with horses and chariots of fire? Why
beg drink from the waysde, when out
OF the crystal chalces of eternity he
poured the Euphrates, the Mississippi,
and the Amazon, and dipping his hand
In the fountains of heaven, and shak-
ing that hand over the world. from the
tips OF his fingers dripping the great
lakes and the oceans? Why let the
Roman regiment put him to death,
when he might have ridden down the
sky followed by all the cavalry Of
heaven, mounted on white horses OF
eternal victory?
You can not understand. Who can?
You try to confound me. l am con-
founded before you speak. Paul said
1t was unsearchable. He went climb
Ing up from argument to argument,
and from antithesis to antithesis, and
from glory to glory, and then sank
down i'll exhaustion as he saw far above
him other heights of divinity unscaled,
and exclaimed, that in all things he
might have the pre-eminence"
teaching. The people had been used to
formalities and technicalities; Christ
upset all their notions as to how
preaching ought to be done. There was
this popularity about his preaching, the
people knew what he meant. His il
lustrations were taken from the hen
calling her chickens together; from
salt, from candles, from fishing tackle,
from the hard creditor collaring debt
or. How few pulpits of this day would
have allowed him entrance? He would
have been called undignified and fami-
liar in his style of preaching. And yet
the people went to hear him. Those
old Jewish rabbis might have preached
on the sides of Olivet fifty years and
never got an audience. The philoso-
piers sneered at his ministrations and
said, This will never do" The law
yers caricatured, but the common peo-
pie heard him gladly. Suppose you
that there were any sleepy people in his
audiences? Suppose you that any
woman who ever mixed bread was ig-
norant of what he meant when he COM
pared the kingdom Of heaven with leav-
en- or yeast? Suppose you that the
sunburned fishermen. with the fish
scales upon their hands, were listless
when he spoke Of the kingdom of heav-
en- as net? We spend three years in
college studying ancient mythology,
and three years in the theological sem
mary learning how to make sermon,
the world; and il We can
not do it according to Claude's
'Sermonizing," or Blair's Rhetoric"
or Kames' Criticism" We will let the
world go to perdition. If We save
nothing else, we will save Claude and
Blair. We see wreck in sight. We
must go out and save the crew and
passengers. We wait until we get on
our fine cap and coat, and find our shin
ing oars, and then we push out meth
odically and scientifically, while some
plain shoresman, in rough fishing
smack, and with broken oar lock. goes
out and gets the crew and passengers.
and brings them ashore in safety. We
throw down our delicate oars and saw.
What a ridiculous thing to save men
in that way! You ought to have done
it scientifically and beautifully" "Ah."
says the shoresman. IF these suffer-
ers had waited until you got out your
fine boat, they would have gone to the
bottom"
The work of religious teacher is to
save men; and though every law of
grammar should be snapped in the I'M
dertaking, and there be nothing but
awkwardness and laundering in the
mode, all hail to the man who saves a
soul
Christ, in his preaching, was plain.
earnest and wonderfully sympathetic.
We cannot dragon men into heaven.
We cannot drive them in with the butt
end Of catechism. We waste our time
in trying to catch flies with acids in