Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1899-12-07
REVELATION THROUGH LIFE,
The Beauty of The World is Hidden to
Those Who Harbor Evil thoughts.

NV 0SoOhf " iI "OiiO 10 iflOOCfI ~
Those Who Harbor Evil Thoughts.
Rev. B. j. III. Shaw, pastor of the
First congregational church in Grand
Rapids, will deliver his last address
next Sunday evening in the series on
Agnosticism, which have attracted
such liberal attention and have proven
OF great interest to all thinkers in our
community. The subject discussed
the past Sunday was Revelation
Through Life aud Rev. Shaw spoke to
representative audience thereon in
part as follows:
The churches faith in the past has
been built upon the dualistic philoso-
ply which looked on God and man as
wide apart: all the doctrines were
formed after this idea: the divine
tranScended the human, so that there
was no natural contact: the super
natural was above and entirely distinct
from the natural: divine truth and it's
methods of revelation were UNIQUE:
religious truth was not like any other
truth and could not be known as we
know other truth. 1t was believed to
be revealed in it's perfection through
a few specially inspired men and that
the creeds contain this complete and
infallible word.
By putting truth into the form of
creed it was taken out of it's living
relations and Stiffened into cold and
barren phrase, empty Of all meaning,
or having only a meaning for past
age. The belief is that the creed has
not grown with the new knowledge
Scientific theories have had to change
with every new discovery, they must
harmonic with facts. but the
conception of religious truth
as a perfect and complete revelation
has given it tranSCendant position.
isolating it from living thought and
growing knowledge, and SO taking it
out of vital connection with actual
life. This effort to keep the truth
pure has robbed it of it's life and
power, it has helped to develop the
spirit, for, if the great facts
of the spiritual world could not be
known by natural methods there was
no alternative but to pronounce them
All this emphasis on
man and the present world is re-
action from those unreal methods of
known the supernatural. 1t
was felt they did not harmonize with
experience. Men only knew of one
method for the eascertainment of truth.
If the natural powers were incompet-
ent the search must be hopeless, and
the teaching that divine truth was
different from all other truth and
beyond the scope and power of reason,
has begOtten that feeling. We now
see that the doctrine had no basis in
facts. If they had thought out their
doctrine of human depravlty thor
oughly, they would have seen that if
man had been completely bad he must
be hopelessly bad; if his nature and
powers were so corrupt and impotent
as the creeds represented him a, good
life could never begin in him. There
must be capacity for truth,
susceptibility to goodness, the nature
must be made for them or it could not
open and respond; and this perception
of good power and response to it is
an element of goodness in man. 1t
shows there is something in his nature
which has an affinity with what is
diviner. The fact of any truth or
goodness in human life compels us to
take this view of their origin. We
see they must have a deep and living
relation to us. A truth for which there
is no affinity or capacity, entirely
separate and distinct from us, could
not be put into our nature. there
would be no point of contact. And
this is the only way of escape from
agnOSticiSm: just as the unity of
knowledge opens up path along
which we can move beyond sense i'm
pressiOnS to the ideas of law and order,
so the unity of God and man makes
possible our ascent from the finite to
the infinite.
This vital, natural relation of God
and man is the beginning of all revela
tiOn.
If you will consider what words are
you will see they have no power in
themselves to give a revelation. Words
are only the outer form and record of
thoughts, they decay and die. Growing
and multiplying ideas demand new
forms of expression, the old words can
not convey the new and larger
meanings: there may be a truth in a
sentence, but the fact that book or
speaker does not make the same i'm
preston on all is proof that words do
not have definite and fixed meaning.
The word written or spoken has
always some relation to the intellect
ual and moral condition of those who
read and hear. The degree of apprecia-
tiOn varies. The book cannot convey
truth directly over into the mind of
the reader. The function of the
teacher is to awaken the dormant
faculties and set them to work to find
out facts and principles for themselves:
he is a quickener and inspirer. shows
the student how to go to wOrk-the
natural methods of study. Education
is the development of the inner life
making what is latent manifest,
bringing the unknown to conscious
ness. You could not teach mathe-
maticS, for example, il the principles
were not latent in the mind: it would
be impossible to understand any
science, if the laws of that science
were not laws of the mind also. ''We
only understand that which is within
us" said the French mystic, Amiel.
Before any reality can be true to us
we must see and feel it to be reality.
All revelation implies a perceptive
power and the perception is Il part of
the truth just as the open eye helps to
create the light.
Whatever truth there may be in a
book it is only one side of it, its COM
plement is in the nature of man.
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate'e you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where Truth abides in fulness.
"Take all in word thetruth in God's S breast
Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed,
Though He so bright and we so DIM
We are made in this image to witness Him.