The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1904-01-14
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
a BEAUTIFUL DISCOURSE 6Y THE RE y.
: DR.. C.. |. COO0ELL:

( DR.. c. |. coooELL:
Subject A Sure Method With Doubt-Do
Not BE Impatient With It, Only Con-
Time TO Move Toward the Light You
Do ,see-Truth Will Free You.
BRooKLYv. N. Y.-Sunday morning IN
the Hanson Place NJ E. Church. the Rev.
Dr.. Charles j.. Goodell preached on "a
Sure Method With Doubt" The text was
taken from Daniel V: Is, <'And have
heard Of thee that thou canst make inter
pretations and dissolve doubts" d.
, Goodell said:
If Daniel were alive to-day, with his
ability to dissolve doubts unimraired and
uninpeached. he would be the busiest
man of his time. And vet ours is no
more an age of doubt than any other
which preceded it. There was in6deiity
a hundred years ago in our universities
and hippant skepticism among educat-
ed people which is now quite outgrown.
but it will always remain true that every
generation must settle its own doubts.
The generation is made uc of the indi-
vidual and the great questions of the soul
wrought out for the most part by lndi-
vi6nal stress and struggle. There are
phases of doubt that receive greater en-
phaSis than others at a given time. In one
generation a deistic philosophy seems to
triumph in another agnosticism is at the
fore The generation now passing has
fouyhS out the great battles of evolution
and we may fairly say that its theory Is
IN no way menace to the Christian faith
There have been hot battles on the field
Of biblical criticism. Positions once held
by the two great forces have been proven
untenabie and the orthodox marty by Civ
ing up what could not be defended has
made its position stronger than ever be-
fore.
The doubts to which I wish to refer and
which I would be glad to scatter as spec
ters of the night are not so much Of the
theoretical as of the practical sort. They
are the kind which make stout men weak
which paralyze great upward movements
ia society, and cut the nerve OF personal
devotion.
II is not strange or unreasonable that
We should have doubts. We begin !,te
knowing nothing. we Journey III ne me
land of the unknown at every step. we
investigate and experiment and question.
Little bv little with material brought from
the unknown we build the structure
which we call knowledge. and in doing
this We form a habit which masters us. 1t
wiz not let us rest. life has become
great interrogation point. and our Jour.
ney voyage of discovery. We sa'l INTO
every Reckoning bay. One is fair bar
Dor and nothine beyond: another strstch
of sandbar ard shoal and we are fortu-
nate if we are able to nut taeain to sea; while
another proves to be the mouth Of
-ceat river 10 whose tide we 60 to elor-
ions discoveries in delectable country.
The man who thinks cannot stop his
thinking. Often he is mocked by 1t and
pitilesslv punished. like some adventurous
mountain climber. but climb he must
though he fail in his quest.
'sThat low man seeks little thing to do,
Sees it and does it;
This high man with great thing to
pursue
Dies ere he knows it.
It is no wonder. then, that we are d-iv-
en- to doubt, for life is too short to know
ali.
It is not to be wondered at that our
doubts concern themselves chiefly with
religious truth. In the very nature OF
things religious truth is supernatural. 1t
is not so much contrary to, as beyond. our
senses. It's principles are not like the ak.
IONS of mathematics. The whole field OF
religion is beyond the realm of the senses
and of scientific rules; therefore. 1t IS TO
be wondered at least of all when we hno
that in this field speculation and doubt
run riot.
There is another fact to be considered
which Horace Bushnell states admirably:
s:Our faculty is itself in disorder. A brok-
en- or bent telescope will not see anything
rightly. So mind wrenched from its true
lines Of action. discolored and smlrched
bv evil. will not see truly, but will put
blurred. misshapen look on everything:
Truths will only be as good as errors and
doubts as natural as they"
In view of all this, let us have done
with abusing those who doubt. DonDt
properly pursued is only knowledge. in the
raw, and DR.. Parks was right when l.:
said: "Infdehtv. is the ultimate result OF
check;nr the desire for expanded knowi-
edge" Let US frankly tell osr Young peo-
nle that doubt is not final condition save
to dishonest mind. Through the doubt
of to-day they will come to the knowledge
of tomorrow, and let us also remind them
that what they held as the truth to-mor-
row should have great expansive power.
so that coming days will give more light
and add to the proportions of the truth
eI have heard of thee that thou cans.tt
make interpretations and dissolve doubts,
was the Kings greeting to the Hebrew.
MS SdQe OouLSl uoo sSooo cShoA> S-|o
Kings father when he, too, was sore bur
dened with mystery. He sdid not claim
for his own unaided wisdom the power
to settle doubts, but stoutly and honestly
owned the source Of his power, saying:
ssThere is a God in heaven that revealeth
secrets" It may be said truthfully that
the only sure method for the. solution
of ife's problems and the dissolving of its
doubts is by entering into right relations
with Him. If it is objected that one OF
the great doubts of life relates to His
very existence the answer is, Every man
is conscious of the great ethical impera-
tive, I ought. This relates him to some
great law, and hence to some great law
eiver. It would not seem to be very
exalted prayer, "Oh God, if there be a
God, enlighten my soul, il I have SOUL y
and yet even = prayer like that, with an
honest purpose to follow each faintest ray
of light, would not be unavailing.
In the matter Of disso!vi1,g religious
doubts, the ultimate purpose is everything.
No man ever comes to the truth by being
simply curious. Speculation Tor specu.
htiou's sake leads nowhere. The mind is
filed with conflicting arguments. 1t is a
Door cause which has not something plaus-
fble about it, and so the mind chases it,
self from sophistry to sophistry, from con-
troversy to controversy, darkening coun-
col and coming ont nowhere.