The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-03-25
"a DEKMUN FUK DUNDAI
A BEAUTIFUL DISCOURSE BY THE REV.
Or. c. [. cooDELL.
Subject; A Sure Method with Doubt-Do
Not BE Impatient with 1T, Only Con-
tinuo to Move Toward the Light You
DO see--Truth win Free You.

BROOKLYN, N. Y.-Suuday morning, in
the Hanson Place M. Il. Church, the Rev.
Dir. Charles J.. Goodel preached on "A
Sure Method With Doubt" The text was
taken from Daniel v: Is, "And l have
heard of thee that thou canst make inter
pretations and dissolve doubts" DR.
Goodell said
II Daniel were alive to-day, with his
ability to dissolve doubts unimpaired and
unimpeached, 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 in6delity
hundred years ago in our universities
and a 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 I'D of the indi-
vidual and the great questions Of the soul
are personal questions. They must be
vidual 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
fought out the great battles of evolution
and we may fairly say that its theory Is
in no way a 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
untenable and the orthodox party by Civ
ing up what could not be defended has
made its position stronger than ever be-
fore.
The doubts to which wish to refer and
which I would be glad to scatter as spec
tiers 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
in society, and cut the nerve of personal
devotion.
It is not strange or unreasonable that
we should have doubts. We begin life
knowing nothing. We Journey in the
land of the unknown at every step. we
investigate and experiment and question.
Little by little with material brought from
the unknown we build the structure
this we form habit which masters us. 1t
will not let us rest Life has become a
great interrogation point, and our, jour
ney voyage of discovery. We sail into
every reckoning bay. One is fair har-
Dor and nothing beyond; another stretch
of sandbar and shoal and we are fortu-
nate if we are able to put againto sea; while
~reat river up whose tide we go to gllor-
ious discoveries in a delectable country.
The man who thinks cannot stop his
thinking. Often he is Knocked by 1T and
pitesslv punished, like some adventurous
mountain climber. but climb he must
though he fail in his quest.
''That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it;
This high man with great thing to
pursue
Dies ere he knows it.
. Tt is no wonder, then, that we afa driv-
en- to doubt, for life is too short to know
ALL
1t 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 Inc whoie neId Oh
religion is beyond the realm of the senses
and of scientific rules; therefore. it is to
be wondered at least of all when we find
that in this field speculation and doubt
run riot.
There is another fact to be considered
which Horace Bushnell states admirably:
'Our faculty is itself in disorder. A brok-
en- or bent telescope viii not see anything
rightly. So a mind wrenched from its true
lines of action, discolored and slnirched
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"
with abusing those who doubt. Doubt
properly pursued is only knowledge in the
raw, and DIR. Parks was right when h.
said: 'Tnfdelity is the ultimate result OF
checking the desire expanded knowl-
edge" Let us frankl sell our young pee-
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 hold 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
"I have heard of thee that thou canstt
was the Kings greeting to the Hebrew.
This same Daniel had stood before the
Kings father when he, too, was sore bur
dened with mystery. He did not claim
for his own unaided wisdom the power
to settle doubts, but stoutly and honestly
owned the source of his power, saying:
''There is a God in heaven that revealeth
secrets" 1t may be said truthfully that
the only sure method for the solution
of life'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 lmpera-
tive. | ought. This relates him to some
great law, and hence to some great law
river. 1t would not seem to be a very
exalted prayer, ooh God if there be, q
| God, enlighten my soul, if have soul"
and yet even prayer like that, with an
honest purpose to follow each faintest ray
of light, would not be ,unayailing. ;.
| In the matter of dissolving religious
| doubts, the ultimate purpose is everything.
No man ever comes to the truth by being
simply curious. Speculation for specu-
| lation's sake leads nowhere. The mind is
| filled with conflicting arguments, 1t is
poor cause which has not something plaus-
self from sophistry to sophistry, from con-
| 4ao,-or.n,r 70 CONTROVERSY darkeninp cnun-