The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-06-08

al pSISoSC vi -.
cred, an indifference to tradition that
amounts sometimes to contempt tor long
established principles, and a growth OF
race prejudice and selfish passion mani
tested in frequent eruptlons OF furious or
cynical lawlessness. Religion, COMPOUNDED
with dogma or ritual, is held by many IN
little esteem, and the church is neglected
by thousands who once gave it their sup
port and by thousands more who, in the
natural course of life, should be among Its
supporters. In the churches there Is a
lack of spiritual fervor and q decline OF
faith in God.
I think that I have not mis-stated the
actual conditions. With no faint of pessi-
mism in my mood; on the contrary, with a
high appreciation of all the GOOD IN the
present life of our country, | am forced to
the conviction that there is great need now
Of a revival of true religion. What does
this mean? What is the religion a revival
of which we need? 1t is a great and con-
trolling sense of God, as the Creator, Sow
ereign, Father and Saviour of the soul:
The nineteenth century was distinguished
nv the emergencies of a new and deeper
sense of the worth of man. This dramatic
allv began in the upheaval of the French
Revolution. 1t was manifested in the
growing demand for popular liberty, in the
rise of the workingman. in the extension
Of p~o!itical suffrage, IN the development OF
popular education, in the rapid growth OF
the Sunday-school, in the spread OF the
missionary spirit, IN a new care lot cnll-
dren, in prison reform, IN the breaking
down of religious excluslveness and the
tyranny of dogma, and in many other
WAYS. The twentieth century. calls Tor a
fresh awakening of the sense of God as the
source and law and goal Of human exist
ence. both individual and social. =.
We need a reperception OF the reality OF
God in the world. Avowed atheism, the
positive denial of God. is rare; practical
atheism is common. Many men have not
God Gin all their thoughts" They have a
widened idea of law in the universe: but 1t
is vague and impersonal. They need to re-
alize afresh the integrity of the divine gov.
There is a divine government or
the world-a government that makes Tor
GOOD and against evil. that is the founda-
Ton and source of all just human law, that
is the ground of individual and social: re-
sponsibility and that rewards righteous
ness and Furnishes wickedness.
This sense of God as a sovereign must
be vitalized by the sense Of God as the In
finite Person. If l seem to mt the oil
vine Being by using terms that are prop
erly applicable only to finite being and hu,
man modes of thought, it is to be SAID
that the term personality Goes not neces'
sarily imply any limitation. We must think
God under forms Of our own rational
and moral being, and our very nature de-
the answer of a divine person to
the persistent and illimitable needs Of the
human person.
For a time many have lost the personal
in impersonal law and impersona.
force. The divine immanence IS grasped
in a way that excludes the Complementary
idea of t~ranscendence. There cannot be
real transcendence without personality
The being who thinks and wills and loves.
even in finite limits, is greater than an I'M
personal universe. Man is greater thar
God, if God be only law. But he Graves 9
deity whom he can revere and trust anc
love with all the force of personal beng
As the mind needs and demands the fun
damental conception of unity IN order to
Interpretation of the world; as
the conscience needs and demands the
of universal and invioiable law, sc
the heart needs and demands tie con
seriousness of a perfect and responsive
coodness-the Almighty FatheT>manlfest
ing and exercising compassion, love anc
providence and revealing Himself in com
munion with His child. These expression.
must have vivid meaning as expressions OIL
The rule of God is in and over the
soul. as we'll as in and over the material
and this rule is the manifestation
of God as the Holy Spirit. =,
We need a renewed sense OF the reality
of revelation as a past and present commu'
C the divine will to man. A mere
God is remote and ineffective. lie
be contemporary. II He spoke once
He must still speak; not in ways OF theo'
phany and miracle, but in ways that are
authentic and authoritative to conscious
ness. This does not invalidate historic
revelation. but it clears it of error and con-
fusion. Jesus represents and embodles
both. He knew the historic revelation as
it was expressed in the life and literature
of the Hebrew people. and in some meas
ure formed His thought on its disclosures
of the divine nature and Will. But lie
knew also its defects and limitations, and
He knew God Immediately, as man may
fortunately and naturally know Him, be,
cause He is Gods child. So there is need
of a new sense of Jesus as man IN full CON-
with God.
We need a new sense of the reality of
sin, not as a Fictitious condition of guilt
and subsection to penalty brought about
by the fall of primitive man, but as an act
ual fact of experience and quality OF char
imperfection, inharmony with the
divine law, selfshHess and wilfuiness and
shame. We have so recently reconceived
origin and our relation to nature that,
for the present, the sense Of personal re-
sp~onsibi!ity is weakened and men are prone
to charge to inheritance and the influence
OF environment what is chargeable to their
own seifshness and passion.
We need a fresh conviction Of the reality
of salvation, not as an escape from the
of our sins, but as a tuinil-
of life in righteousness and love. Inc
idea of atonement as a device for evadlng
penalty, and of salvation as the result OF a
fictitious imputation and a forensic Justlh-
cation, stamped the whole evangeIlc con-
with an unreality from which the
could not be otherwise than Vlo-
lent. The vital element in the old theology
was swamped by the artificial element:
The mind revolts from a bargain with GOD
and a scheme that is fundamentally com.
The soul needs al experience OF
divine love and forgiveness that awakens
rouses the will and transforms
character by unfolding the spiritual nature.
Finally, we need a new sense OF the re-
ality of the soul. Once men ignored the
body, save as they INDUCED OF abused 1t.
We have come to appreciate its Importance
and to care for it in countless ways, but it
bulks too large on our view. 1t is not an
end, but an instrument. The soul is in an
organism, but is not it nor a mere attiu-
ence from it. The soul is the man. Per-
is the browning fact. 1t means
power, character, immortality.
If man is only a cunning organism he
needs and asks no immortality. But, be-
oo,c hp &c q nprcnn-a snlrltnll DGlnp,
with power to think and will and love,
with memory and forecast, with unmeas
ured capacity for JOY and sorrow, with a
sense for truth and righteousness and God
in his best moments he requires immor-
tally that he may have scope adequate to
his consciousness of power, actual or at
tainable; and lie takes his hunger for 1t as