The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-31

Save for my daily range
 | Among the pleasant fields of Holy Writ.
 I might despair. --Tennyson.
 First Quarter. Lesson |. Jehn I, 1-1s l January I, 1905.
 \ REVIEW.
 (I.essons of the next six months are
 in the Gospel and Revelation of St.
 John.)
 John, the divine. is a bundle of para doxes. A fisherman, yet having social access to the high priests palace: Galilean9 yet intimately familiar with Judea; of none of the schools, yet pen-
 ming the noblest thing in literature: so gentle that sacred art has pictured him as effeminate. yet q son of thunder and showing fiery temper ~on occasion; spreading his hands one day in benedic- tion and saying, Little children. love one another" yet the next seeing a heretic in the bath, running from it. and crying. Fly lest, the house fall upon us, for Cerinthus. enemy of the truth, is within!' It would be an in- teresting study in psychology to find how these antagonisms might con- tribute to the making of an ideal character.
 But all curious incidents fade when compared with Johns immortal achievement. At tuo aga oL oue huH- dred years he seems to be standing upon a narrow neck between time and eternity. St. Paul had already made his last missionary journey and writ ten his last epistle. Jerusalem had fallen thirty years before. The Ben jamin of the apostles" Is the only one now alive. The elders of Ephesus are urging him to put in writing the oral gospel they had so often heard from tf 70 aN-IG doctrine seems necessary subsequent to the complete severance from Judaism and the close of the old dispensation. Johns pen is the last with apostolic authority. He yields. He writes.
 The supplementing of the other evan gelists, often referred to, is mere in- cident if not an accident. It is true John omitted many important matters, probably because they had been told by the others. But it was far from his purpose to merely bring up the rear and glean what they passed by" Instead of intending a minute biogra- phical monograph, his writing is an argument. He states proposition and addresses himself to the maintaining of 1t. His noble motif is that the reader may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that believing. he may have life.
 His method is to take scenic incidents and typical persons and report Jesus
 words in connection with them so that there may be a reciprocal illumination. He calls the reader to a halt that he may reflect; he gives the argument in epitome, shows what follows, makes application, and rarely fails to swing tho'suSser If praise.
 - John ana h4A Gospel defy criticism. The soul intuitiv'ly exclaims, This is Divine" It is from = Hd," His writings have been called the gos..el of eternity, | the spiritual gospel the gospel of the | world. He himself has been called the seraphis apostle. The early church did | well to select the eagle as his emblem. He scars high! He sees far!
 Bird of God. with boundless flight Soaring far beyond the height Of the bards or prophets old; Truth fulfilled and truth to be- Never purer mystery
 Did a purer tongue unfold. Adam of St. Victor. Latin poet, 11s2 l A. D.
 Christ the Life and Light of Men. There Is not in literature finer ex-
 ample of adaptation of style to sub feet. The nobiest and profoundest l thought Is here clothed in language
 ample and royal. What the Sistine frescoes are in art, this paragraph is 1 in written speech. Yet with all this | stateliness there Is an inherent sim plicity. The similarity between
 the opening of the Book of Genesis | and the opening of Johns Gospel will
 be readily recognized The prologue
 in the form of Hebrew poetry, which l consists largely of the recurrence to | previously expressed thoughts, with al- 1 tered phrase and added meaning. {. It may be paraphrased as follows: As | the articulate word drops from the l lip of speaker on ear of nearer, so the Messiah comes from God to man. He is the vehicle of a meaning. Not, how ever, an unconscious and involuntary vehicle. For the Word had an eternal existerice with God. He was God from the beginning. So far from being a | mere wave of air, as an articulated | word is, He is person; one possess | ing. too infinite power and intelligence; | for all things were made by him, and came into being. This Logos is source | of life and light for men. He kept | shining by various means into the mo- | ral darkness of humanity, but 1t could | not apprehend him. It was like lamp l trying to penetrate a fog. In l the fullness of time. however, there came a herald--John Baptist-in all
 respects worthy of his transcendent office. His mission was to announce | the coming of the Light who had all
 ready imparted something of himself l to men, one by one, Rs they had come | into the world. For he was all the l while imminent in the world which he had made, although unrecognized. |. Now, at length. in the incarnation. he
 came visibly in a form most easily
 recognizable to a people prepared to apprehend him by long-continued and gracious dispen sations. As far as the
 mass was concerned however, 1t was
 failure. In their obduracy of heart
 they received him not But | to such as did take of him. appro- priating him by faith as a savior. he gave the right to become inheritors of l the divine nature. Such as are begot- ten of God, not merely of a race (lit- orally bloods) supposed to be provi- legged above others. or human nature