The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1906-06-04

IeSe only TO come out more loyal THAN
lever to the good tidings and to the work
of Jesus Christi" And sometimes it is
defiant and raucus. What truth have
you to bring us?" it cries, you whose
prophets are Hosea and Paul and Lu-
Their? Do you know ours, Voltaire and
Marx and Bakunin? We are familiar
with the thought of the world from
Plato and Aristotle to Darwin and
Spencer. We have no time to listen to
rabbinical proof texts that would dis
credit the science and philosophy OF our
age. Your infallible book your infalll-
BILE church, your infallihle doctrines, are
gone, and gone forever. what faith
have you to give us who are not the
guardians of yesterday, but the icono-
clasts of to-day?"
The pathos of Micah's challenge and
the trustfulness of that of the children
touch us deeply. AS for those of the
wording and the revolutionist, we
listen to them patiently, look into the
face of Christ Jesus and are not afraid.
Afraid-We who believe that God is
truth, that no man can do anything
permanently against the truth that the
Christ has promised us that Holy Spirit
which shall lead us into all truth?
Never The jeweler might as well
tremble before the man who threatens
to scratch his diamonds with pin.
If they are paste, let him look out for
them. But if they are genuine, let the
spoiler attempt to cut and to scratch
them as he will. For the gospel is a
Koh-i-nur when taken in its power and
its simplicity If il had not been. it
would have been ground to powder be-
tween the millstones of thought long
ago. How shall you set riders upon
the faiths of these men? Go back of
the Westminster Confession, the Augs-
burg Confession and the Thirty-nine
articles, In which truth is clothed in the
medieval and scholastic garments, to
the Magma charta of Christianity. Turn
from Luther and Augustine and Athan-
asius to the teaching of Jesus himself.
What do we find? Esoteric doctrines
and metaphysical minuttae? Not for
moment! Hypostases and essences?
No. Treatises on 1.-THE City of God"
and tracts against the Pelagians? No.
The Ninety-five Theses? No. These
are all splendid documents, which have
wrought incalculable good for human
lily, useful as formulate in organic chem
istry are useful But for the life, we
must go to Him who was and is the life
Himself. What was the substance of
that life? Just the spirit awakened by
a divine Fathers seeking in love an
erring son, and the sons coming to
himself and returning to his fathers
house by the pathway of the prodigal.
Just brotherhood potential being grad
ually transformed into brotherhood ac-
tual by the progressive incarnation of
!. righteousness, truth and love as they
are revealed in Jesus Christ Is there
any challenger of Christianity who does
not need that message, no matter how
! deep he may have delved into the lore
: of science and philosophy? Certain it
is that there are but few of us who,
once having visioned it clearly, do not
acknowledge it's power and its beauty
in their heart of hearts Let man
, rise philosophically from simple awe in
the presence of the universe to Arnold's
thought of power not ourselves which
makes for righteousness, and it is sell
dom that the hour does not come when,
: like Browning, he leaps, through Christ,
. consciously or unconsciousy, into the
arms of his Father God. Let him
learn from science the solidarity Of the
, race and the ties which bind man to
his fellow, and he can hardly escape
the conclusion that the path which
leads to society's paradise is clearly
outlined in the sermon on the mount.
? Bring this to the wording, and it will
be, not the dream of Christian mysties,
but the response to his soufs deepest
T hunger Give this to the troubled Mi
! cab, and he finds that beautiful and
abiding faith which science and criti-
cism did not give and which science
? and criticism cannot take away. Give
! this to the children, and they have
g nothing to unlearn, nothing which can
= not bear the testings of the clearest
$ and fullest knowledge. Give this to the
: revolutionist, and gradually, as the Bit
| terness and the sense Of smarting in
, justice and the madness bred by ages
+ of oppression, slowly vanish, he will be-
, gin to turn toward a diviner and more
: commanding figure than that Of his for
ner prophets and say humply and low
3 Iingly, Lord, I believe; help thou mine
/ unbehef.
S Take this soul of the gospel, then,
g the very heart and life of Christ, and
e 20 forth to meet your challengers.
S Preach it with a breadth Of sympathy
g which shall leave room for John and
A a Thomas, a Browning and an Arnold,
S an Amiel of religious ecstacy and a
e Huxley of the reign of law. Preach it
a with depth of passion and intensity
4 which shall never expose you to the
e charge which an actor once brought
!, against clergyman. II act" he said
= cas- if my play We're a realty; you
e preach as if your reality were play"
= Make it clear to your opposers that you
h mean not only to give, but to exercise,
h the Pauline privilege of proving all
:. things, holding fast only that which is
e good; and that the man who can sing
Y with Browning, "Sun-treader, believe
n in God and truth and love-" is the
S friend, and not the enemy, of Jesus
J, Christ. Be sure that you have heard
g the Christ saying not only of old to His
= disciples, but to His followers in the
present, II have yet many things to
a say unto you, but We cannot bear them
!, now" In brief, preach His simple truth
in HE loving sntrit and yOlIr challeng-