The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-01-08

The reason trouble is so troublesome is
that we seldom put God in the present
tense. We transpose Him into the dim
past and dwell upon the wonders He
-'-rought in the days Of the fathers We
transpose Him into the remote future
and dream OF the glories which shall be
ours when all the wells which now hide
Him shall be lifted. Cbrist's cure for trou-
BILE is to live with God beside us in our
every day eX0eriences to take God to
the Office, partner in our business; to
take God to the parlor, a sharer in our
pleasures; to be in the companionship of
God when througs surround us or when
We tread a way where no one else but
He can walk or enter the shades of
loneliness whereby all but He are forgot
ten. Eternity can bring us no nearer
t, God than we are now The great secret
Of peace and Of power is mastered by nm
who comes to know that the comrade-
ship with God. which shall become visible
hereafter is actual now. The pain, the
strife. The wrong that burn this truth
into the tablets of ones consciousness
are disguised angels.
"Relieve also in Me-" The realization
Of God that brings help to human hearts
ran never be grasped as practical truth
in any other way. A personal acnuaintt-
ance with Christ carries with it knowl-
edge of the personality Of God. All for
mulas are sorry makeshifts. Whoever ls
arguod into faith may be arg"ed out OF
II. If the foundation of your belief is
form of words it will be overturned when
ever n neater and more mastery phrase
than yours is framed EMO man cometh
of PHILOSOPHICAL analysis one may arrive at
some concept of God as "a power not
ourselves that makes for Righteousness"
Through the labyrinth of speculative
thought one may reach the conclusion
that God is the unknown quantity in the
EQUATION Of the universe. Along the path
of a logical syllogism one may deduce the
idea OF God as can absentee God sitting
b. and watching the universe 60" But
through Christ alone can one learn to de-
fine God in terms Of fqtherhood. In Christ
alone can one learn that the earth life is a
disciplinary process-a curriculum OF
parental love-its defects. its catastrophes,
its pains. its mystery, its perpetual sacri-
fee. all energies under the control of in
achieve it's purposes, for He, the best be-
loved of the Father, had path of tears
which ended at the cross. but from the
cross He. shed light upon path by which
men find their way to the heart of God.
From Him We learn that God holds this
moor stricken world in the embrace of an
inexhaustible symnathv and that He pur-
poses to crown the FRI ~mentary life of
men with a divine completeness and SYM
metry Christ is daily translated into the
terms of our moral life and expressed in
the forms of our human experience. There
is no seminary of theology like that on
Calvary
'Iet not your heart be troubled" Your
mind may be, but your mind will never
bring Won into touch with God. If we feel
after God we will find Him. If we think
after God we will lose Him. The rea-
tionship between God and ourselves is
tie of love- and true love is not the off
spring of logic. The link between God
and ourselves is that between father and
child, and the mystery of narentship and
sonship evades speech and is measured
oniv by experience.
Let not your heart be troubled" It
be ofttimes saddened. Tt may be spent
with strain, wearied with toll. broken with
grief-but let it not be pAlsied with mel
ancholy, Let your life he as the storm
vexed ocean, whose surface the tempest
lashes into fury, while calm eternal and I'M
ruttled abides in the unfathomable depths.
Let not your heart be troubled" 9th
ers may be the heirs of unrest, who with
out only upon the ever frightening track
of their own shadow. They travel the
way of life unattended They carry the
burden of life unheped They toll at
the work of life unaided. They stand on
the brink unfriended A brood of trou.
bles nests within such hearts
But for you, believing in God as your
Father, and in Christ as your Saviour, life
Is as a Journey home. A few more days of
mingled cloud and sunshine; few more
wondrous passings of winter into spring:
a, few. more hard endeavors in the seed
plot of mortal soil; few more hot strokes
upon the field of earthly battle-then the
fight Of all shadows, and the blessed vision