The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-01-14
Great Revelation of God.

Then there came the great revelation
 of God as the God not only of life, but
 of law, and the majestic form of Moses
 moves across the stage of human history. | Human life is gathered into society. and | law must not only be law, but 1t must | be divine law for men to fulfill perfectly | the obligation they sustain to one an-
 other. But law is not enough. Men may
 obey a law because they are forced to do
 so for fear of suffering So God speaks
 to men whom we call prophets and they
 make men see that the law of God is the
 law of righteousness, the law of life, and
 that they are to obey 1t not from fear of
 punishment if they do not, but because it
 is the natural law under which men must
 live with their fellow men,.
 And so this progressive revelation
 moves until at last it reaches it's per
 lection In the word-made flesh. Here God
 reveals Himself as the God of love, and shows man to himself not merely as the
 creature, the handiwork of God, but as
 the child of a Divine Father To this child
 the Father is ever speaking, ever striving
 to make this child understand His speech,
 and live as the child of God should live. | coos MesSage to US.
 l The important question for us is: What I is the message of God to us today? It
 seems to me that 1t is this: The call to | recognize our personal responsibility. Never before in the history of the world
 did the individual mean either so much | or so little. Looked at in one light, and | he Is swallowed up in the mass, simply
 figure in the vast aggregation of figures | that go to make up the sum of humanity. , Locked at again and the individual is
 collosal. having a power greater than any l single man has ever welded before. A
 mere handful of men can today literally
 wreck the nation if they should choose to | do so. To these men, as well as to others, comes Gods message that they abuse not the vast power lodged in their hands. But what can the ordinary unit do in all this mass, or do with this tremendous l fierce? Only this. recognize the power of a | pei sonality that Is full of Il divine idea | Evil is about us. It strikes upon us In | every form, comes to us from every di- | rection. With mans growth is ever the double growth, possibility of good, pos | sibility of evil. We have Titanic powers
 at work. man feels his littleness in
 the presence of 1t. and Is tempted to let
 it do as it pleases.
 | But we have no right to take any such position. Each man is responsible | for his part, even though he have but a | few lines in the great comedy-tragedy of the thing we call life. He must speak his lines clearly or faultily, but upon their | clearness and forcefullness depends his
 ultimately value to his fellows.
 This much at all events can be done
 each man can stop the progress of evil as far as he is concerned. None of us need transmit evil beyond our own gener- ation. And herein is genuine reform the reforming of the man himself by him
 self It Is not a difficult thing to stir righteous Indignation against some gen eral evil but day by day so to live that that particular evil shall find no ex- pression in our life is different matter.
 But this is what we are to do. We are to be the perfectors of that which others God; we must be more intimate with God than he. because we have a higher reve- lation of the divine nature than he had.
 This, then. is Gods message to us: Rec ognitlon and honoring of the fact that as Individuals We are responsible for carry ing forward the great tmths of life that God is speaking 10 us in this our day and generation.