The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-12-16
INTELLECTUALLY FUTILE.
MIR. StansfeId Says Brilliant Nations
Have Been Rotten.


God has spoken, said the Rev. Joshua
Stansfield of the Meridian-street NJ. E.
Church, last night. He has spoken. and
the grim silence of ages is ended. In the
fullness of time He sent forth His Son,
perfect. faultless, separate from sinners,
without guile and no sin in His mouth.
The fullness of the divine revelation is
through the oivine-human Son. In the es-
sential perfection of the character of Jesus
rather than through any words He spoke is
the true voice and salvation of God His
perfectness cannot be explained along lines
of Hebrew ancestry; such antecedents
never could give the world such a one as
He Human birth and divine parentage is
the best explanation of Him.
God spoke many times to men in the
history of the old world, and in many
crises of the race He stopped for the sake
of man. But the revelation was made
faulty and incomplete through the charac-
ter weakness of those through whom He
spoke Through what diverse experiences
He has spoken. He spoke to and through
Jacob at Pencil and Luz. He spoke through
Samson and David, through Isaiah and
Saul, through EZekial and Daniel, through
Amos and Hosea. But ii IS hardly posi-
BILE for us to read Gods world revealed
through these figures of the Old Testament
without thinking of some blot on the char
acter of the man which discounts the mes
father of the faithful you also think of
him as the father OF white lies. II you
would consider the word through Jacob you
also must remember him as the very en-
ried into ecstacies by the Psalms of David
you also blush for him the royal sinner.
But with the coming of Christ the revela-
ton was for the first time made perfect.
The essence of the instrument every
whit as pure and holy as the message from
God Christ completed the revelation.
chi
against the Church of Rome. The essen
tial difference between ROmanism and
Professionalism is this-that man shall have
the right TO approach God without the in
PREVENTION of man or any human obstacle
Rome says he may not. Professionalism in
sists that he shall. For man to step be-
tween God and man is 10 emphasize the
utter unrelatiOnship of man TO God: If not.
indeed, 10 produce an undue sense Of alb
iectnesS Whenever another comes between
man and his God it usually means for both
moral deterioration. The Catholic priest
by innuendo. inference, question and other
seductive arts appertaining 10 his office
becomes a receptacle. and from his exclu-
sive humanness often cesspool of i'm
morality Ii is morally imperative that the
high priest of the race should be nothing
less than divine.
Ito an extent differences between the
Anglo-Saxon and Latin races arise from
the point OF issue between the churches /
have mentioned. More than that the es-
sential differences between the living and
the dying nations of to-day is largely in
the encouraged or the forbidden nearness
of man 10 God.
The fun revelation or utterance from
God Is not primarily through anything Je-
sus said; il is through He himself Man
cannot be saved through a discussion of
His utterances Ii Is the reception of Jesus
himself by faith that will rescue the human
race. Man was never saved by intellectu-
ality. History cannot furnish q single ex-
ample OF people risen 10 high morality
or spiritual power through intellectual
a
acy have followed. usually. periods OF the
highest intellectual attainment. Egypt
Greece and Rome were gilded sewers of
immortality at the climax OF their intel
lcctual brilliancy. Europe. after the
renaissance, and England. after the ref
ormation, were morally rotten"