The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-03-04

hero recognizes that after all there IS a
God, and concludes by saying: 1T is 20
fear God and keep His commandments,
| is the completion of man
To take an isolated passage fom the
| Bible would be to msinterpret it, said
| DR. Hume. The Bible does not teach pes
| simism because it gives the Words~of a
man in pessimistc mood.
In reading the psalms as lyric history,
| the speaker said we were brought into
closer fellowship with nature and q
more exalted worship Of God. 1t was
shown how we could study the Bible as
| q progressive revelation, because in pc
rusing it as progressive literature Of a
great nation, we could see how life and
Immortality were brought to light
DR.. Hume said in part:
~s "One golden thread runs through the
many parts of the Book: One God one
law, one Messianic hope, ono view of the
salvation of the race. one purpose which
makes history the unfolding of Provi-
| dence and gives it a beginning, a.i6dle
| and an end. This Christie centric toncep-
tion of the history of the world is ne
| ceSsary to true culture and 20 the right
understanding of the movement of hui
man experience. This conception under
lies all great poetry. Tennyson is the
imaginative eXpoUnder of the divine or
der of that ideal to which the whole
creation moved. Browning shows how
aspiration, energy, development of every
power of man may, through God in. us
and over us, work III harmony with law
The seeming contradiction between the
two is settled in the regenerate believers
consciousness and experience. DO we
not see how the intelligent study of the
Bible sets us upon an individual relation
to God and His truth and prepares man
for that religious freedom which is The
parent of civil and political liberty. and
how all social reform springs from in
diVidual transformation? So the vision
of the city of God, of the perfect com
monwealth, in the unconscious prophecies
of heathendom liz the Utopas and in all
the dreams of the poets, is to be a real
lied fact in Gods own time.
Put there must be both culture and
religion in those who teach US this Book.
Let us only keep our Christian ex-
perience of Gods converting grace clear
and warm and we shall have in us the
solvent of many 'knotty' problem.
Let us set the psalm by the side of the
historical period in which il became the
voice of Gods suffering o. triumphant
flock. Let us study Ecclesfastes as a
series of dramatic pictures of the world
ly spirit seeking rest and finding none
until it finds God. Let us give up Sc
lecting specimen bricks" from this
great architectural composition, Gods
Word, and preaching what the whole
context and trend of the book would
prove not to be the truth. Thus TO COM
bino the literary study of the Bible with
the deVout Spirit would make it live be
fore us and work in us It would no lon
ger be fetch to be handled with super
stitious half ignorance or relegated to a
preacher priests dCgmatic interpreted
ton, but would be ''thc man of our Coun-
sci and the guide of our life, >" AID Chris
tian people would come into that vial
oneness Of conviction and belief and con-
duct with is worth more than mechani-
cal, traditional uniformity, because it
would grow out of personal access to
God and His holy truth under the OPP
GRAFTON of that Spirit which employs di-
veIsites of influence in saying and in
forming this diversified but after all one
and the same human nature that is in
us all. Here is the plea for better, more
effective methods of teaching and study
ine the Bible, the plea for the higher
Christian education for pastors and peo-
pie"