The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-01-29

widening energy while we stand near
enough to Him whom we believe in to have
His presence made ever more immediate
to us, His reality more real to us. 1t is
for that reason that some believers can be-
lieve very nicely and vet behave very bad.
ly. There is not the slightest incompatible
ity between being orthodox and being viii
famous, only in order that that may be
possible the orthodoxy in question must be
a dead orthodoxy. last years leaf though
still glued to this years tree.
When Christ taught lis 10 pray Give us
this day our daily bread" He probably
meant us to understand that in the spirit
ual life as well as in tbs stomach continue,
GUS health means consecutive supply. There
is no lncompatibility between your paror
being brilliantly luminous at noon and
black with Egyptian darkness at midnight.
Light is not laid on in fast eolors; neither
is the light of God, and the heavenly ra-
dance that was upon us in 1902 is no guar
antee against devilish blackness being upon
us in 1903. Even Chrisys power over us is
valid only for the time that it is over us,
so that the liveiest Kind of orthodoxy,
provided it is merely a mummifed re-
siduum from an extinct experience, is no
kind of an embarrassment to the very
liyeliest kind of depravity. 1t is all right
to believe in the doctrine of perseverance
of the saints that persevere. but that doc
trne, applied in cold liberalism, has done
as much as any one thing perhaps to pre-
vent their persevering. If the money a
man has liz his pocket to-day is thought by
him to be sufficient to pay all his debts,
defray all his expenses and secure all de-
sired comforts and Injuries for an indefi-
mite time to come he will feel no incentive
to going out and earning a couple of dol
lars tomorrow, and so his confidence in the
absolute and everlasting sufficiency of his
present pocket containings may easily is
sue in his turning pauper. Those illustra-
tions only serve to indicate what ] mean
by saying that a man may be as orthodox
as Calvin and as wicked as he knows how.
The principle we have been discussing
also explains why it is that so many people
who show good deal Of Christian zest at
the start so soon get tired of being Chris
tians. To have earnest views of Christ and
to be intensely interested in them and con-
trolled by them cannot, unfortunately, be .
taken as a certain sign of the continL lnce
of that interest. The falling off. the cool
ing down of Christian enthusiasm IS com
mon experience. Even the disciples. at
Jesus temporary withdrawal from them
at eruci6xion, threw up the whole matter,
resumed their old life and went back to
their fishing. Interest is not self-sustain-
ing. Enthusiasm, like burning candle,
consumes itself in its own heat. The sun.
so astronomers tell u.s. would burn itself
darkness were not special provision made
for keeping up the suns temperature.
At the same time there are lines of eff
fort and employment where interest, on
the contrary, never does seem to flag,
where heat is not only maintained, but
with a mercury that is rather steadily on
the rise Setting aside the familiar and
rather shop worn instance OF the money
getter, who, the more he gets. the intenser,
as a rule, becomes his ambition to get.
that is only one of the many pursuits
where the like enhancement OF interest.
mounting up in many cases to the height
of a steadily growing passion, is seen to
evince itself Examples of this are, L
should say, especially frequent among
scholars devoted to the scientific investi-
cation of nature and natures beauties and
iflarvels. But III the instances of such ad-
vancing and stehdily intensifying interest
the particular fact would beg you to no.
tice is that what keeps the Investigators
heart glowing with warmer and warmer
fervor is not the array of facts that have
been brought distinctly within the range
definitely to tabulate, and Of which. in
some tine baSt he has issued complete
and finished catalogue. 1t is the constant
stepping forward on to new ground that
keeps his thoughts alert and his heart
agloW, Whatever it be-. the old IS always
tfresome, only the ne~ is interesting. To.
the naturalist TIE world retains it's fasciniISle
ton, although an old world, because of the
deeper entrance he day by day gains into
OF newly discovered wonderfu,nesf SNdl
beauty that she thereby makes oyer to
him, In the same >Way there are certain
books that we read and re-fead. In wav
they are old books, but it is not their old
itass that tasc!nates Us but a certain ever
lasting neWitssss shat lay beyond tie Teach
OF ouT previous pefusals, as eyes that look
quietly, and intensely into the night-sky see
stars that are sunk too deep in the frma-
glance. And that suggests the old holy
book, the Bible, which is always new and
which the church always loves, because
there is that in it always which our last
reading was only on the edge of discover
ing. If the church should ever come to the
end of the Bible it would throw it away.
Some people have thrown it away al
ready; some who seem to themselves to be
Christians have thrown it away; it seems
to them they have come to the end of it.
To them there is nothing new in it any
more, So of course, by The principle we are
illustrating they can do nothing but throw
it away. The OK knows enough to feel
when it is dark, but never sees a sunset.
All of this leads up easily to an explains.
1AOh VI LuC AdCI SLdtcu u LlOHleuC ago tHdE
so many who have begun to be Christians
get tired of being Christians after while;
it has ceased to offer them anything new
to which interest can attach and by which
therefore enjoyment can be kept alive.
They reached little conviction as to the
real import of Christ, entered into GER
tain amount of relation with Him. had
1egre of experience of Him, learned little
u what He could do to strengthen in weak
ness, brighten in darkness, comfort in sor-
row and disappointment, and then every
thing stopped. Instead of "going on to
know the Lord" drawing closer and closer
TO Him, and pressing forward into the
deeper and deeper meanings involved in