The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1905-01-27


And so with prayer. IL comes IN our
experience--just this: Spirit with spirit
! meeting. spirit with spirit talking. Not
the going after something. though il may
be that, but the receiving something pre-
eminent communion, fellowship, compan-
iohship. 1t is this conception, into which
some of us have come unwillingy: into
which some Of us have drfted, we do not
know how; into which some have grown
gradually and some with a wrench from
which we have not recoyered-thiF copcep-
ton of the universal presence which
might perhaps have Il e effect of denial
of the personality of God were il not for
the message of Christianity, and that mes
! sage we undertake 20 couch in accurate
theological phraseology. Because we. do
iced a personi6caton of the Eternal. be-
cause we must have some image that we
can see some conception that we can
grasp, some humanized thought. that we
make Him of stone, we make Him up in
our Imagination. And after all, whether
that image hangs on the wall, or is pic
tured in stone, or is simply engraved on
our brain it is still an idol: something
that stands for reality, God saws, Il am
too great, too infinite, eternal Tor you 70
define or grasp. The agnoStlc is right IN
saving. You do not know Him. but in or
der that you may know Him | will come
and dwell among men and fill one human
life full of Myself. and through that life
you shall interpret Me. You may thus
obtain your desire for one you can take
by the hand into whose ewes YOU can look
and whom you can comprehend. 4
We are to see not only what God has
done in the past, hut what He is always
doing. Always God was in His work and
He always is in it, forgving, plying, help
ing, feeding, comforting. Strengthening.
We do not know it. but He is always here,
in the hearts and lives Of men, doing what
He did in the past, still saying to Nicode-
mus, "You need to be born again." to the
Pharisee, "Woe unto you that devour
widows houses" to the weeping sisters,
"Thy brother is not dead There is no
dying" to the penitent, sinner; crushed by
the memory of a wasted life. GO in peace.
thy sins are forgiven thee" The life Of
Christ did not stop at the cross. ! will
not say that we look at the cross too much,
but I will say that we have looked at the
resurrection too little Christs is a con-
tinuous life. That is what He means when
He says, IT am with you always" We
must realize that He is here and now in
the lives of men. My conception of the
Bible has undergone great change and L
cannot any longer g, to a text and say,
THAT settles it," Snail | then shut the
Bible no and say it is but a record OF past
life? No, it is the revelation of the eternal
life, the Interpretation of God in human
experience, not only in the devout but also
in the undevout: not only in the believing,
but in the sl1eptical, The Bible SEEING to
me like great orchestra of 100 men ali
playing to express the musical life that is
in the conductor. II is God speaking
through the experiences of men. believe
that God is carrying us through transit
ton time (all times are transition times),
and taking away the idols upon which we
rested. and which we have counted sacred,
in order that He may carry us back to
Himself; and that, if we take the exper-
fence of the past twenty centuries and UNI
derstand the message it sends, its litera-
ture, history and religious life Alright. we
shall find it all explains these words of st.
Paul: we are not to ascend into heaven to
bring God out of the past. nor look to the
future, but we are to look about us and
understand that He is still directing the
destiny of nations and ourselves. We are
to look within us and know that the aspir-
atoms, the desires, the dissatisfaction in
ourselves the longing for something higher
and better-these are the voices of God.
He was always and always will be in His
world; and through the church and the
Bible and by the revelation of Himself i'll
the Christ God manifest in the flesh. He
is bringing us, not to the church, not to
the Bible. not to the mediator, but to
Himself. He ever lives, He ever indwells
"closer than breathing, nearer than hands
or feet"