The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1903-12-17

ten. Eternity can bring US no, hearer
to God than we are now. The great secret
of peace and of power is mastered by him
who comes to know that the comrade-
shin with God, which shall become visible
hereafter, is actual now. The pain. the
strife, the wrong that burn this truth
into the tablets Of ones consciousness
are disguised angels.
of God that brings help to human hearts
can never be grasped as practlcal tratn
ance with Christ carries with it a knowl-
EDGE of the personality of God. All for
mulas are sorry makeshifts. Whoever is
argued into faith may be arg;ed out OF
it. If the foundation of your bellet IS a
form of words, it win be overturned when
ever a neater and more mastery phrase
than ycurs is framed. "No man cometh
to the Father but by Me" BY the way
of philosophical analysis one may arrlVeoat
some concept of God as "a power not
ourselves that makes for righteousness.
Through the labyrinth Of speculative
thought one may reach the conclusion
that God is the unknown quantity in the
equation of the universe. Along the path
of a logical syllogism one may deduce the
idea of God as can absentee God sitting
b.. and watching the universe CO." But
through Christ alone can one learn to de-
fine God in terms of fatherhood. In Christ
alone can one learn that the earth life IS a
disciplinary process-a curriculum OF
parental love-its defects, it's catastrophes:,
it's pains, its mystery, its perpetu sacrl-
flee. all energies under the control OF IN
finite benehcences and competed 10
achieve it's purposes, for He, the best be-
loved of the Father, had path of tears
L>l - 1na hYJf from
cross He shed light upon path by which
men find their way to the heart of God.
From Him we learn that God holds this
poor stricken world in the embrace of an
inexhaustible sympathy and that He pur..
poses to crown the Fl, ~mentary life OF
men with a divine completeness and SYM
metry. Christ is daily translated into the
terms of our moral life and expressed IN
the forms of our human experience. There
is no seminary of theology like that on
Calvary.
Let not your heart be troubled Your
mind NAV be, but your mind will never
bring YOU into touch with God. If we feel
after God we will find Him. If we think
after God we will lose Him. The rela-
tionship between God and ourselves ls a
tie of love, and true love is not the of.
spring of logic. The link between God
and ourselves is that between father and
child. and the mystery OF parentsnlp anG
sonship evades speech and is measured
only by. experience. >,
"Let not your heart be troubled" 1t
be ofttimes saddened. It may be spent
with strain. wearied with toll, broken with
grief-but let it not be palsied with mel
ancholy. Let your life be as the storm.
vexed ocean, whose surface the tempest
lashes into fury, W hile calm eternal and un-
ruffled abides in the unfathomable depths.
"Let not your heart be troubled" 9th
ers may be the heirs of unrest, who with
their back to the source of light look
| out only upon the ever lengthening track
of their own shadow. They travel the
! way of life unattended. They carry the
burden of life unhelped. They toll at
the work of life unaided. They stand on
the brink unfriended A brood of trou
| bles nests within such hearts.
But for you, believing in God as your
| Father, and in Christ as your Saviour, life
is as journey home. A few more days oi
mingled cloud and sunshine: few more
wondrous passings of winter into spring:
a few more hard endeavors in the seed
plot of mortal soil; a few more hot strokes
unon The field Of earthly battle-then the
fight of all shadows, and the blessed vision
| of!the face of God.