The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1904-05-18

cynical lawlessness. Religion confounded
with dogma or ritual, is held by many in
little esteem. ard 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 decline of
faith in God.
| think that I have not mis-stated the
rctual conditions. With no taint OF pessi.
nsm in my mood; on the contrary with
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 moan? What is the religion a revival
of which we need? 1t is a great and con.
trolling sense of God. as the Creator, Sow.
creign, Father and Saviour of the soul
The nineteenth century was distinguished
by the emergencies of a new and deeper
sense of the worth of man. This dramatic.
ally began in the uphcaval of the French
Revolution. 1t was manifested in the
yrowing demand for popular liberty, in the
rise of the workingman, in the extension
If political suffrage, IN the development of
popular education in the rapid growth of
the Sunday school, in the spread of the
missionary spirit, in new care for chill
lren, in prison reform, in the breaking
down of religious exclusiveness and the
y
ways. The twentieth century calls for a
fresh awakening of the sense OF God as the
source and law and goal OF human exist.
cncp, 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 lin all their thoughts" They have a
widened idea of law in the universe. but it
is vague and impersonal. They need to re-
alize afresh the integrity of the divine gov
eminent. There is divine government of
the wor,a-a government that makes for
good and against evil. that is the founda.
tion and source of all Just human law, that
is the ground of individual and social re-
,ponsibi'ity and that rewards righteous.
ne-s and Furnishes wickedness.
This sense of God as a sovereign must
be vtaiized by the sense of God as the In.
finite Person. If | seem to limit the di.
vino Being by using terms that are prop.
cry applicable only to finite being and hu.
man modes of thought, 1t is to be said
that the term personality does not neces'
sariiy imply any limitation. We must think
of God under forms of our own rational
and moral being, and our very nature de.
mands the answer of a divine person to
the persistent and illimitable needs of the
human person.
For a time many have lost the personal
God in impersonal law and impersonal
force. The divine immanence is grasped
in a way that excludes the complementary
idea of transcendence. 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 than
God, if God be only law. But he Graves a
deity whom he can revere and trust and
love with all the force. OF personal being.
As the mind needs and demands the fun
damental conception of unity in order to a
rational Interpretation of the world; as
the conscience needs and demands the
sense of universal and inviolable law, SO
the heart needs and demands the con-
sciousness OF a perfect and responsive
goodness-the Almighty Father-manifest.
ing and exercising compassion, love and
providence and revealing Himself in COM
munion with His child. These expressions
must have vivid meaning as expressions OF
reality. The rule of God is in and over the
SOUL as well as in and over the material
world. and this rule is the manifestation
of God as the Holy Spirit.
We need a renewed sense of the reality
OF revelation as past and present commu'
nication of the divine will to man. A mere
historic God is remote and ineffective. He
must be contemporary. If 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 embodes
both. He knew the historic revelation az
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 He
knew also its defects and limitations, and
He knew God Immediately, as man may
lcgitimately and naturally know Him, be.
cause He is Gods child. So there is need
of new sense of Jesus as man in tull COM
munion with God.
Finally, we need new sense Of the re-
ality of the soul Once men ignored the
body, save as they INDUCED or abused it.
We have come to appreciate its Importance
and to care for it in countless ways, but 1t
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 mere atiiu-'
ence from it. The soul is the man. Per-
sonality is the crowning fact. 1t means
knowledge, power, character, immortality.
If man is only a cunning organism he
needs and asks no immortality. But, be-
cause he is a persona spiritual being,
with power to think and will and love,
with memory and forecast, with unmeas-
ured capacity for JOY and sorrow, with
sense for truth and Righteousness and God
lin his best moments ne It'lul'cs '"hhoi
.taity that he may have scope adequate to
his consciousness of power, actual or at
.tainable and he takes his hunger for 1t as
Gods assurance that the promise OF pres
ent experience will have fulillment in the
future. In his baser moments, having eX-
hausted his body by labor or by dIsslpa'
ton, he longs only for rest from WEAKNESS
OF nerves or the tyranny OF appetite. Then
Immortality has no charm, and belief IN It
sinks into a doubt and often into denial.
IL is not science, but subjection to sensa'
ton till it rules us, that breeds the DOUBT
of Immortality. When we live on the high
er planes of our being we feel the real sig
rfcance of life, and catch glimpses OF It's
far stretching horizon.
The reality of God as sovereign and
father, the reality of revelation as past
and present experience of divine communi'
cation, the reality OF salvation as fulfill
ment Of life, and the reality of the soul as
the imperishable person - these, freshly
seen and felt as the great and permanent
elements of human experience, viii new
create the august and commanding sense
of duty, dissolve and dissipate the mater
ialsm which degrades our nature, ennoble
life by giving it new value, revive the
spirit of prayer and worship and put new
energy into all our moral enterprise. 1t 10
our shallowness, or utter want, OF spiritual
life that robs us OF power and JOY as chil-
dren OF God.