The Penn's Grove record., 1904-08-26

up to-day. Only educate and train: that
is sufficient. Your section IS not 50 white
washed with this system Of ethical culture
as some others / know. But we never can
emphasize too often or too positively the
axlal tenet OF Christ's creed that what a
man needs primarily is not accession ~
brain, but a fresh heart; not Illumination,
put reconstruction, the establishment n
MN by grace OF something that is nJs IN
MIN by nature. Illumination of the brain
Is never clariacatlon Of the heart. There
was a man IN our American life who was
born OF the best family, with a personal
force that commanded men and eaptivated
women, whose furnishings could scarcely
be surpassed, and yet there has not walked
across the pages Of American history a
blackef hearted william than Aaron Burr.
| am as far as possible from saying that
knowledge makes a man worse; my only
contention Is that it has not in itself the
power Of making men better. Ideas, edu-
cation alone, can neither reconstruct the
life nor r~ecreate the heart.
This Is a thoughtful age; men are
bralny; all about US there is a passion for
new ideas; but our most urgent necessity
IS not Of idea but Of power. What we
need most OF all IS not schooling but bap-
tlsm, and that Is to come through faith.
What IS this faith that is to give us the
supreme victory and insure our safety 1t
IS at this distinct point that we begin 70
learn the real meaning and purpose Of
faith. Every little while / am told by one
and another that he would ike to have
faith IN this particular matter IN regard to
the Bible, or N regard to Christ in the fu-
ture life as though if his mind could only
be brought Intellectually to consent to it,
the consummation would be reached and a
great result achieved. Being prepared to
assent to this or that particular statement
IN regard to Christ, for example, Is a very
distinct thing from faith. Faith is per-
sonal attitude, personal relationship. Faith
is such a personal yielding Of ourselves to
another as brings US into living contact
with that other and so makes US recipient
of what it lies in that other to confer. The
child becomes like his father by faith in
his father, because his faith is that inward
surrender that makes him susceptible to
every impression that goes forth from his
father. A child's faith toward bis mother
is not faith that What his mother says is
true; it is faith in his mother, the hiding Of
himself in the one life that enwraps them
both, so that he lives in the sweep Of her
inspiration and grows up toward manhood
by the appropriation of personal vigor, Wis
dom and sweetness hourly made over him.
And that is cast in the same mold as Cos
pei faith, which Is as a cord by which the
living Christ holds the believer to Him
self. Faith is not a condition wherein we
hold to something or somebody, as that IN
which we are held by something or some
body. 1t is not holding a doctrine, but be
have believed" The iron filings stick to
the magnet, not because they try so hard
to stick, but because they are mastered
by the magnet.
Faith, then, has for its very essence a
personal s"elf-commltment, one ounce OF
which is worth a whole ton of intellectual
affirmation. 1t is this sense Of being held
by God that makes a.man safe and secure.
/ do not know how the grace OF God can
take a man like Saul of Tarsus and make
him Paul the Apostle; but no man will
question his knowledge when he says; i
live. yet not I, but Christ lveth in me-"
That is exactly what John B. Cough cried
as he vent like a flaming torch blazing the
wav for a multitude of hopeless drunk
ards. The hope, and the only hope, for
us all is in the grace OF God. v l we're TO
strike a tuning fork on this desk and hold
it to my ear not one IN this room could
hear the sound thereof. but | could hear
it and tune nv violin. Strike it again and
instead of holding it to my ear, set 1t up
on this desk. Instantly the sound would
be heard everywhere. But what do you
hear? Not the tuning fork, for the tuning
fork makes no louder sound the second
time than it did the first. What do you
hear? You hear this hard wood desk,
which has no music in itself, but just as
soon as it comes in contact with a musical
instrument it itself becomes musical and
delights every one that has music In his
soul.
The individual life may be Insignificant
alone by itself: it may come from a good
family or a bad; it may have great force
or little; it may have choice furnishings or
not: but the safety and security OF all Will
depend upon the personal self surrender
to the Son of God. who alone has the pow
er to make them Sons of God, which are
born not of a family or Of force or Of fur
nishings, but of faith.