The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1905-01-06

turtles. lie who discredits all religious ira.
dltlon ignores the past and begins anew.
This makes the difference between the
( man of faith and the skeptic. The man
! of faith receives what has been proven and
builds thereon. The skeptie only exam
ines the foundations, sometimes without
even laying new ones.
But there must be personal experience
also. When Morse asked Congress for an
! appropriation of 0O00 for his telegraph
! venture the committeeman having the do.
Gliding vote was undecided Mr.. Morse
took him to his hotel showed him some
miles of wire. He bade him 90 into a dis
tant room and there experiment with the
instrument according to the code He re.
turned and voted for the appropriation.
saying, Il have seen-I have handled the
instrument, and it will do what is clailneo
for it." And any man may experiment
with the realities of our religion and test
it's claims to comfort wisdom, peace, rest,
hope love, prayer. etc. And only when
we thus know will we be effective wit
nesses of truth. Jesus said. eve speak
that we do know and testify that we have
seen" With such knowledge the known
becomes the kew of the unknown and leads
lis into deeper knowledge.
The purpose of learning to know God is
to obtain the life eternal. When Kepler,
the astronomer. after many failures, finally
discovered the laws of planetary motion he
fell upon his knees aud cried 81 thank
Thee, o God, that 7 am thinking Thy
thoughts over after Thee" This knowl-
edge made him partner with the thought
of the eternal God, So every truth eXper-
mentally discerned puts us into mariner
ship with God. We learn to think His
thoughts; to will HIS will; to lore with
His love; to live His life. And His is life
eternal. Therefore Jesus saws. "To know
Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom Thou hast sent this is life eternal"
The range of thipqs thus movable il
very wide Only few of them may be
suggested We may know the forgiveness
of our sins. We are made conscious OF
our snfuness through the exercise of our
conscience and our inability to overtake
what we know to be the ideal. But when
we accept the overtures of divine grace and
yield to the incoming and invoking of
Gods Holy Spirit we experience a peace
and power which are the subjective evil
dences of our being loosed from our sins.
This is the first thing in Christian knowl-
edge.
Next eve know that we have passed
from death unto life" Such transition
is made on all planes of life. A new eli
mate helps some men to pass from death
to life in body Education enables men to
pass from death to life mentally Society
sometimes causes men to pass from death
to life morally. The development of latent
genius makes men pass from death unto
life. SO the touch of Gods spirit awakens
new ideals. affections and possibilities, and
the love of a spiritual society evidences a
passage from death unto life.
owe know that all things work together
for good to them that love Cod" This is
not self-evident. as we take narrow view
of mortal life. But when we see the wider
ranges we learn it is So There may be ex-
periences which darken the scene and
plunge the judgment into panic. Joseph
while being led a slave to Fgypt could not
understand this. Nor could Moses. Dan
iel and the prophets in the day of trial.
But afterward they saw it to be so. The
glory which Moses saw was not some lus-
trous form, but rather that all the past
history was TRANSPORTED with Gods pres
ence and favor. 1t is the backward look
that gives us this assurance. owe know
that if our earthly house of this body be
dissolved we have a building of God y
eternal in the heavens" That is, we know
nal life. Subiectively we know that every
appetite has its satisfaction. Hunger sug-
gests food and thirst argues for water. If
God creates fin on the fish He makes an
element for it to swim in. If He fashions
wing He supplies the air for it to fly in.
Surely these lower appetites are not graft
fed only that the deeper and nobler may
he disappointed And effectively Christ
hath hronqht life ard Immortality to light
through the gospel" His resurrection sat-
isles our desires and becomes prophetic of
our DESTINY. Let us study earnestly the
truth Of God with a view to doing His
will, and we shall know in part now and
more perfectly by and by.