The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-09-10

all as rector of this church? Only to this
extent; have tried to preach the gospel.
have tried, as circumstances allowed.
to live it, l trust I may acquit myself
without undue self-nattery Of the desire
to preach or live anything else. The gos-
pei of Jesus Christ has seemed to me
that one supreme reality without which
there were nothing at all In heaven or
earth worthy to command the affection
and the reverence of human soul: with
out which there were nothing else really
real to the human spirit
Gospel of Christ.
But by the gospel of Jesus Christ have
understood, not something that can be
demonstrated on blackboard Ike a
proposition in geometry not something
that was once endowed with infalibtity
by the ballots of perfectly fallible men,
not something called a dogmatlc system,
compounded of some remarkable man 5
metaphysics and some other remarkable
mans science, battered to pieces long ago
by the blows of profounder metaphysics
and a better-informed science not the
peculiar customs and ceremonies and
special claims to sanctity, authority, and
wisdom of this or that particular church.
bearing name which doesn't indicate
whether it is Christian, Mohammedan or
Buddhist, not anything or things of the
sort
The gospel of Jesus Christ that I have
tried to preach has meant to me prl-
marily Jesus Christ Himsef-wthout
whom there would be no God that l could
love or worship-without whom, God were
simply a speculative hypothesis. | try
to worship and love an invisible Divine
Being l call God because l believe that
Jesus Christ was and is divine. If what
He was was something else than divine,
| have not the faintest conception of
what dlvineness is as a moral and spir-
itual reality!
And, secondly, the gospel has meant to
me thology-a thinking about God In
His relations to men, theology older than
any of the popular accepted systems
sometimes called new because 1t has been
overlaid so long by those peculiar sys-
TENS that 1t necessarily seems new when
1t is resurrected from underneath them
new and strange and startling: n theology,
every word of which Is written or concep-
ton found In the Ten Commandments and
the Lords Prayer; in the parallels of the
Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the
Lost Coin; In this saying of the master
to some bedragged sinner, or that to
some empurpled hypocrite; In His great
word to the woman at the we'll in His
yet greater if possible, to the scribe who
questioned Him concerning the chief COM
mandment of the law. The theology that
have taught in this pulpit q must have
taught it, because l don't know any otn-
err, is just as old and Just as new as those
old parallels and those old sayings that
were uttered nineteen hundred years ago.
Fundamental Theology.
have felt very sure that the funda-
mental theology of Jesus Christ discov-
cred in His great words and deeds, was
quite good enough for men and women
who call themselves His dlsciples-not
needing to be supplemented by what this
Pope taught or that council decreed In
Rome, Geneva or elsewhere Fundamen-
tai Christianity has seemed to me some
thing quite distinguishabe from the
teachings of the Popes and DEGREES of the
councils; quite distngushable from CAL
vnish. of Methodism, of Baptlstism. or
Romanism, or Protestant Episcopalianism,
or any other ism that men have manufac-
turned in the process of showing how far
from easy IL is to love God with all their
as themselves. SO 1t has seemed to me-
and so | have tried to declare 1t. If the
religious need of the world today is that
sectarianisms should be brought TO the
front and the theology of Jesus Christ
kept i'm the background, | must confess
myself too blind and ignorant, too much
a stranger to religious need TO utter one
helpful word In any pulpit. ! must sup
pose that / have never spoken one sylla-
Bile here that would not have been as
helpful unspoken For | have not these
years been conscious of any religious need
that could be fulfilled by any sort of sect
ism, and / have been, therefore. utterly
incapable of ministering to fulflment Of
such a need on your part.
Perhaps 1t is needless to add that have
not been blind and ignorant enough to
suppose that the kind of theology ] have
taught In this pulpit is popular. If my
aim had been to teach what was popular.
should have tried very hard to forget
the parallels and the great sayings; I
should have tried very hard TO overlook
or overgoss the fundamental eternal
truths that made Jesus Christ from tile
popular religious standpoint the most UNI
popular person OF His day The theology
Of the parallels and the sayings was not
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