The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1903-12-02
ut of great tribuiatlons, it may be, having

blood of the Lamb. Till then, goodbye.
That which they had was metal polished
On one surface sometimes of silver, but
usually it was round Piece OF meta. . ,rb2Oh POI,
was attached handle. Now, You can see
such mirror would not reflect clearly, az
our splendid mirrors do, the images that
were before it. Now it is that furnished
the Apostle Paul with this strik king illus
tration: For now we see in mirror, IN
riddle"
Why, the gospel itself, is as a camera. OBJ
scura, in which we see reflected the things
| OF eternity. What We see is not the thing
itself, but only the reflection of it: What
we see cannot be the thing itself, but only
the reflection OF it. That is what the gos-
pei is. The fourfold gospel does not give
us the living Christ; it only gives the i'm
age of the living Christ. It is imperfect IN
so far as man has had part in it, and III so
far as the reflector will give only an I'm,
perfect image of the reality, and we must
never forget the fact that what we are
looking upon in spiritual things is not the
objects themselves, but only the. reHec-
tions. Nor must we forget that the deli
milton is made enigmatic, that the objects
look like riddles to US also, because the eye
of the soul has not clear vision. What we
see, depends on what our heart is. How
often we are troubled by the mists and
foes that arise from the lower levels OF our
own lives. How often you and l know
what it is to be lost in the fogs that settle
down upon US as the racing yachts were
the goal; utterly lost, hidd en- themselves
and hidden from all about them; and like
the challenger, we ore apt to get out OF
our course and lose time in the race tor the
goal. So we must not forget that both the
mirror and the eye that sees contribute to-
ward the enigmas of our life and the enlg'
mas that surround US.
Let us look for a moment or two at
lifes riddles as they relate to God Him
self Now, I have deal Of sympathy for
the multitudes of men who find it hard to
see God. They hear from the pulpit OF
Gods omniscience, His omnipresence, His
eternity, He fills inmensity, God is spirit
Now, what sort of an idea can man get
from these descriptions of the Eternal!
And he hears, You must love God" that
the sum total Of the gospel in a word, SO
far as duty is concerned, is this, Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy mind" And he says to us, How can
love Him? He is inconceivable to me. l
cannot form an image Of Him. cannot
see Him to know Him, to love Him."
Now God understands this heap better
than many theologians do. So He said,
the ,"Utterance of God" the Word, shall
come into human relations; He shall take
on Him, the nature of man; He shall de-
scend the ladder of divinity, emptying
Himself, until He reaches the lower rungs
of humanity, until He shall move in the
valley of human life 80 that men can touch
Him, so that men can hear His voice, so
that men can look upon His face and in
hearing Him and in touching Him and in
seeing Him, they shall hear and touch and
see the living God.
God cannot be seen by any eye; there is
no mirror large enough to reflect Him, and
even in that which is "the express image
Of His person." the Christ l have been
talking about, we have been seeing, as
said only a moment ago, only the reflection
of Him. We do not see Jesus; we only
see the image Of Jesus in this fourfold or
fiyefo,d mirror, the New Testament. l am
saying this in order to relieve skeptic
minds of real difficulties. I am saying this
to relieve Christians of real difficulties:
The one thing we need to cultivate above
all else is sincerity. We should not say
that We see God when We do not. We
should not pretend to have larger visions
than we possess. When it is impossible
foc us to have clean, clear cut definition,
we should simply wait and realize with the
Apostle Paul that what we see is really in
a mirror, and makes it look like riddles to
US very often.
We are puzzled over the mystery Of the
incarnation. How could God come down
and clothe Himself in an infant of days.
Our unenlightened friends are trying hard
to eliminate the miracle of the incarnation
from theology; They had better realize
we cannot understand The mystery of the
Trinity. Who can comprehend that august
doctrine? We must simply wait. There
are SO many things we cannot compass
that if we try to we shall find ourselves
hopelessiy landed in the foqs. We just
want to remember that what we have, even
in the Bible, is only a mirror in which we
see. as only in riddle, the realities,
Now let US notice again life's riddles as
they relate themselves to ourselves. What
strange creatures we are. What strange
things you and I sometimes do! How un-
accountably we sometimes act! What rid
dies we are to ourselves! Can you under
stand whv YOU took a given course the
other day? You step aside from your own
ideals and your own predeterminations, as
to what your career should be. Can you
understand why you said those things the
other day? Why YOU were so blind as to
do those things? How often men have said
not understand why I did that thing. Why,
really, I cannot explain it." You cannot,
unsaved person, you cannot explain why
you remain in state Of alienation from
God. If what the Bible says is true, there
is pending over you an endless hell, or
there is avaling for you an endless life of
bliss. Now, would you not think that such
alternatives, "a kingdom or. wrath" open
to you, you would settle the great cues
sixty years with the greatest problem in
the universe still unsolved. 1t has been
my privilege to deal with a great many
men who had lived until they were thirty
or forty or fifty years old, and many of
them have said, cannot understand why
I did not yield before. What riddles we
are to ourselves! How strangely we act!
How often men fail in their strongest
that an Elijah would never be found a
quaking coward, whining under a juniper
tree; a man who could defy the king and,
what is worse defy the woman. the wife
of the king, falling down and asking that
he might die. Elijah is not the only one.
Some men that you know have failed, when
they failed, in their very strongest point
What dn enigma we are to ourselves Who
can understand himself? I would give
to kn9w NY yS own IasSe Se{ rhrl 5nan ali else
But look at the enigma of so many lives:
Take, for instance, the problem of personal
suffering. Why is it that there is SO much
suffering? Why is it that some Of the oeet
people are crucihed SO awfuliy? Why is it
that some of the most refined souls have
the arrows driven furthest into their quiv-
ering hearts? Do you know why?, Can
you explain it? Can you explain the re-
verses that come. and come to the very
best Of people? DO you know why some
of the nob,est of mea ard women are re-
duced f.om comfort, from affiueree,