The news & observer., 1905-11-05

| chose a country, as Lowell used t
say, where the Gospel of Christ hat
gone fiEst; and then he had better
| choose the day i'll which we are iiv
| ing Upon the whole it is the bes
yet known, but our children will dive
/ IN a better. Christ has seen of the
| travail of His soul as the welfare o
the race grows, with whose lot He
identified Himself, and for whose
salvation He laid down His life.
Again, the atmosphere of our day
| is not unfavourable to religion. II
may be hostile to ecclesiastislcm-but
the church is not Christianity; it may
be hostile to dogma-but dogma is
not faith; it may be doubtful about
the miraculouS-but it is friendly tC
the spiritual. Unbelief today is rev.
erent compared with >the Georgian
infidelity, which not only did not be-
tlieVe in dogma, but tlouted morality
Today the average man does homage
both to the character of Christ and
the nobility of the Christian ideal. If
Christian be unreal he will be de-
spised, for hypocrisy was never more
hated: if d Christian give pledges OF
sacrifice he will be respected, for sim
cerity was never more highly appre-
ciated. Compare the treatment me-
ted out to Wesley a the close of the
eighteenth century and to General
Booth at the close of the nineteenth
century; the reception which the first
Indian missionaries had from gov
ernment and the tribute which, in our
day has been paid to Moffat Living
stone. Bishop Harrington, and Faith
er Damien. Perhaps in our time no
two men in Liverpool have had a
stronger hold upon the respect of the
citizens than Charles Garrett and
Monsignor Nugent. Men may be in
clined to question ancient beliefs but
they bow their heads before Chris
tian character. Wherefore take cour-
age, for the reign of character is the
reign of the Kingdom of God.
Besides, are we not fortunate in
having in our day a more persua-
SiVe and reasonable creed? We hold
as firmly as ever that the purpose
of God rules all things but we deny
that His purpose can mean any man
destruction; we hold that sin must
be punished in this world and that
which is to come but we repudiate
the deliberate torture of any human
being by the power of God; we hold
that the revelation of the Divine love
has come through the writer's of Holy
Scripture. but we refuse to bind up
the truth of Christianity with any
historical errors or imperfect morall-
ty which may be found in the Bible.
Above all. we have ceased to look
upon the Incarnation of our LORD
Jesus Christ as mere expedient by
which He prepared Himself for his
death. We have learned to regard II
as the consummation of long pro-
cess of revelation by which God came
at last within humanity ana united
the race unto Himself by Jesus Chrlst,
His Son. The slow evolution or the
ages has it's fitting crown In the IN
carnation. BY the Incarnation the
whole of human life in its INDUSTRY.
literature, science, art. IS sanctlned
and enriched, and Christ becomes unto
every man the light to tighten him,
the strength to sustain nm. ana the
perfection to which he is called
It seems long ago. but it is only for
ty years. that as a lad l sat in GER
tain Scots kirk and heard preachers
explaining the doctrine of election and
beseeching people to trust in the
finished work" At last L came to
think that 1.-The finished work" was a
kind of person. and 1t was to me the
dav of my life when one stood IN the
pulpit-even now | see MS race against
the stained glass window behind and