The Penn's Grove record., 1904-05-20

an increase of irreverence for what is sa-
cred, an Indifference to tradition that
amounts sometimes to contempt for long
established principles. and q growth of
race prejudice and selfish passion mani
tested IN frequent eruptions of furious or
cynical lawlessness. Religion, confounded
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 a decline of
faith in God.
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
by the emergencies of a new and deeper
sense of the worth of man. This dramatic
ally 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 political 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 for chill
dren, in prison reform, in the breaking
down of religious exclusiveness and the
tyranny OF dogma, and in many other
ways. The twentieth century calls for 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 ommon. Many men have not
God gin all their thoughts" They nave 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 a divine government of
the world-a government that makes for
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 limit the d.
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 does not neees-
sarily 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 Irvine 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
-oz1 a--1A-1A-.. ~-,A1AwA -1--z-.IN-
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, Sc
the heart needs and demands the con-
seriousness 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 nave 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 a past and present commu-
n~ication 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 embodies
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. Blu He
knew also its defects and limitations, and
He knew God Immediately, as man may
legitimately and naturally know Him, be-
cause He is Gods child. So there is need
of a new sense of Jesus as man IN full COM
| munion 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
acter-as imperfection, i%nharmony with the
divine law, selhshness and wlltulness and
shame. We have so recently -reeoncelved
our origin and our relation to nature that,
for the present, the sense of personal re-
sponsibility is weakened and men are prone
to charge to inheritance and the influence
of environment what Is chargeable TO their
own s~elfishness and passion.
We need a fresh conviction OF the reality
of salvation, not as an escape from the
consequences of our slns, but as a Iulnll-
ment of life in Righteousness and love. The
idea of atonement as a device for evadlng
penaltv. and of salvation as the result Of a
fictitious imputation and a forensic Justih-
cation, stamped the whole evangehc con-
ception with an unreahty from which the
reaction could not be otherwise than vio-
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
mercial. The soul needs an experience OF
divine love and forgiveness that awakens
motive. rouses the viii 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 or abused 1t.
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 a mere atttu-
ence from it. The soul Is the man. Per
s~onality is the browning 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 beng,
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 be requires mmor-
tally 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 fuldllment 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 1t
sinks into a doubt and often into a denial.
1t is not science, but subsection 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
nifcance of life, and catch gllmpses OF ITS
far stretching horizon.
The reality of God as sovereign and
father, the reality of revelation as a past
and present experience OF divine eommunl-
-. 1t g -.1va4,an - a FflHlI-