The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-01-16
RECTOR DISCUSSES
 DR. LYMAN ABBOTT
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lContinued From Third Page) M ---------->-------7-9~---- auioh and its value, casting 1t aside alto sether' and along with it the promise ol salvation If the popular understand ins or Dr. Abbott's meaning here was Inueea hls meaning. then nobody would tahe issue with him more heartily than l. Tor hold it to be as certain that the pihle contains Gods highest and pro- toundest-and in this sense, ultimate message to the soul of man, as that the sun makes warmth for the body and hght Tor the eye. Belief in the bible S inspiration goes hand in hand with belief Tn God and the soul. The sacrifice of one pellef were loss of the other But to believe that the bible is divineiy inspired, that 1t contains Gods saving word to man, and that by obedience to such word man may work out his salvation Is not necessarily to accept 1t as ultimate In the sense that God is shut up within its pages; that He has never spoken to humanity except in it's language and cannot address Himself directly to human souls to-day, because there is a book between Him and them. This, doubtless. was Dr. Abbott's meaning-that God speaks to man in the pages of the bible, but speaks to man outside them, too; one message not eontradcting the other, but each enforcing the other, as any truth anywhere enforces every truth every where.
 Analysis of Infidelity.
 Is this infidelity-a shutting God off from the soul and the soul away from God-by annihilation of their one place of meeting? Nay this is not inhdelity; 1t is rather deeper, higher and grander faith than the generality of mankind have raf s..ts to men and women that God is greater than they have understood Him to be; that His speech to humanity is not ex- 1, hausted; that He has messages for us all if we will hear them, wherever we are fresh from the heart of His infinite fatherhood, and that, if all His syllables spoken to mans soul from the beginning should be written. every one, the world itself would not contained the books that contained theml
 Time was-shall we forget-when God was and man was, and the bible was not And very wonderful things man did in that long ago time, very wonderful dream his heart dreamed very wonderful truths his soul saw. because Gods in- spring presence drew near to him and led him and held him safe, through his dark wildernesses, and across his wind swept plains, and up his cragged heights Aye, very wonderful things man long ago did, and dreamed, ard saw, in his wild 1 erness and valley and mountain height walk and labor of fellowship with God and therefore it was that man grew great and wise enough to speak for God and transmit His speech down to us in the language of those books we call the bible.
 God is the Same.
 As it was in the beginning, so is it now and so shall it ever be. The soul that is man, the spirit that Is God. may have their meeting place, and walk in fellow ship anywhere. God has not withdrawn Himself from earth. because once re- vealed; nor put Himself under pledge of silence having once spoken. For us to think of Him as under such a pledge, or withdrawn from any portion of the uni verse that is all His, Is not to pay Him greatest reverence, but lesser than is His due-is not to put emphasis on our faith but rather on our unfaith.
 Therefore 1t would seem that. if Dr. Abbott is an infidel he is one. not because he denies too much and believes too lit- tie, but because he denies too little and believes too much. In other words, to adjudge him as infidel we must invert the definition of infidelity And that, fancy, we are none of Us tempted to dol put ltilpttu we are. uOuDtleSS, some O1 us, sometimes, to charge w1.n heresy or suspect of infidelity those who differ from us in the quantity or the quality of i their religious faith. without pausing long to consider if the quantity O. our own was infallibly measured for us, or its quality beyond the grace of betterment Let Us strive against this temptation as often as it would master Us. Let us strive 1 against and overcome it, recalling the | l11is fnly af ,f,t tragedies; recalling that. yielded to- it has had to it's discredit many riot of evil and to it's credit never a triumph of good
 Let Us be Just.
 If any among us, anger or in sorrow has passed judgment of condemnation up- on the eminent preacher and teacher, Dr. Lyman Abbott, for his alleged infidelity, let us, if we may, reconsider and reverse that judgment. Let us not carelessly run the risk of conforming as infideity in another what may turn out to be a far vaster power for the worlds good than what we are cherishing as fidelity in our selves.
 I think that man Is not an infidel whose heart rejoices to say with the poet who sang the best faith of century:
 For so the whole round world is every way
 Bound by gold chains about the feet
 of God"
 And delights to join utterance with an- other poet in the saying:
 God may have other words for other worlds,
 But for this world. the word of God
 Is Christ"
 I believe that such a man is the Rev. Dr. Abbott.