The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-10-05

read in regard to a medieval dungeon
In which men were confined, and which
was lighted by a single ray of light
through slit in the pavement.
What" he asked, would you think
of the prisoner who persistently closed
up this little slit and refused to let the
blessed sunshine in, even during the
brief hour that it was able to Gomez"
You would consider his action idiocy,
and yet how many of the people of
the world are persistently shutting out
from their souls the ray of Gods pres
ence that would bring to them life.
Where there is darkness, there are
creeping, crawling, Shiny things, but
Where there is light, there is beauty
and life Light and life go very
closely together in the world. Jesus
said, II am the resurrection and the
life" and so it is true that light and
life arc irrevocably bound together in
the spiritual life.
The most crucial point in English his
tory was when King John and the
barons confronted each other on Run
nymede and there was granted with re-
luctance that instrument that Is the
origin Of all our political liberty, the
Magma Charta. From that time on, we
have lived under a constitution and a
bill of personal rights, but Magma
Charta was the result of the wishes of
the people and of their efforts. The
charter of the Plymouth colony was an
agreement between persons who had
felt the need of it before it was drawn
up. The constitution of the United States
was antedated by the men who made
it. On the other hand, the Bible is
spiritual constitution an agreement be-
tween God and man that antedates the
people whom 1t governs.
In a DOlitical organism tha Tnornanf
you touch with a vandafs hand the
charter or constitution under which it
exists, yvu begin to disintegrate the
whole body polite. If you touch this
spiritual constitution you begin to
disintegrate the whole people who live
under its teachings, and this is why
would not have the present school Of
philosophy attempt to make over the
Bible or to explain away certain parts
Of it because l think they have no
right to NEEDLE with the charter under
which we have our spiritual life
You may laugh at a mans personal
pecularities II you will and deride them
as much as you like, but when you
touch his honor you touch something
that is very near and dear to him and
1t would be strange indeed if you do not
hear a protest Just so If you touch
Christ you touch a sensitive spot in the
him with sacrilegious hands, you touch
the very quivering life of the Christian
and it is no wonder that he is sensitive
about having you do It.
That is the reason why do not like
to listen to the learned man who saws
that he admits that Christ was a good
man, perhaps one Of the best that ever
lived; that he was a great thinker and
marked figure in history, but that he
CT i, oil
otherwise. 1t is not this kind of a Christ
that I know is the whole origin Of my
spiritual life, but the Christ that is
eternal, all powerful to save, and who
is God himself
People say that the Bible is literature
and must be considered as such. That
it must be treated along with the works
of Browning and one Shakspere who
wrote some very good things indeed.
They mistake! The Bible cannot be
treated as literature. 1t is unique, for it
is the expression of Gods thought and
1t is comparable to no other writing
that exists
No one could make me believe that
l did not exist physically and how
much more would 1t be impossible to
make me believe that I did not have
the essence of spiritual life within me
The Bible Is g panorama of all the
thoughts and actions and ambitions and
hopes OF men.
a stirring appeal to the teachers to go
into their work with renewed strength,
in the course Of which he said: II
want to say to you: Teach with au-
thority; teach dogmatically' 1 like
that word when it is applied to the
study of the Bible. You must cultivate
the fullest possible Christian life and
CT I'll
say, with no doubts or fears or waver-
ings."
A prayer was offered by the chairman
before the taking up of the collection
which is done to pay the expenses of
the convention. Mr.. and Mrs. Stebbins
sang Saved by grace" in a very art
istic manner, the audience joining at
their request in the chorus of the last
stanza.
The closing address of the evening
was delivered by Rev. Willard Scott
of this city. He commenced his re-
marks by relating the story Of the
career of Abraham Lincoln after his
departure from the little town of
Springfield, Ill. Lincoln had been sub
malignity of interruptions political OPP
ponents could heap upon him. He was
called bastard because he could not
produce the marriage certificate of his
parents, and an inhdel because he
would not make the confession of a faith
that he had not as yet experienced.
Both these facts were explained by the
unsettled state of the times. The
methods of keeping the public records
were lax and there were not the OPP
for becoming q Christian
that people have nowadays.
The speaker proceeded through all
the incidents that led to the CONVEX
sion of Lincoln and cited many facts
to prove that Lincoln was one of the
most consistent of Christians. He used
the life of the martyred president to
illustrate the power that the belief in
God gives to a man and to show how
it is adopted by all the great minds
that make the central figures in the
history of the world The subject of
his lecture was the Word Of God
that of Rev Mr. Wood hay-
Ing been THE word interpreted.'
1.-THE Bible came first from God as
gift from God, and as g. grasp upon
him. The Bible requires us to draw
near to God, to u'2 erstand 1t, and it is
elucidated only when we use it in our
daily life and try to be near it. Joseph
Parker of London says that that is not
by claiming great things for the Bible,
but by showing that they are there,
that we may profit by them.
In the Bible little is said of God In
the abstract but always that the word
is the revelation of God as related to
man and his needs. The Bible is best
defined as the word Of God. 1t is also
man expressed in language for all the
hopes and thoughts of man are writ
ten there. We learn in it as much of
ourselves as we do of God
1T is customary to talk about the
faults of the men who wrote the Bible,
but they were inspired men, for had
they not been, they could not have
written book that is certainly an in
spired one. The Bible is the will of