The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-08-04

accept Christ as divine. You say you are a dest. You claim that there are immor- tality and eternal companionship with God. Now if God Is going to fit you for eternal companionship with him, what is more rational than to suppose that the Heavenly Father would give you divine example by which you can understand his love and follow after his teachings-in other words, that God would give you a divine love in human form and call that divine love Jesus Christ; as the Bible says, Leaving you an example by which you can understand. As a human parent you can readily understand this law.
 Here, for instance. one of my little chl-
 dren comes to me and says, Papa what do the words, United States government
 mean?" Now, I do not go to my library and take down James Bryces "The Amer ican Commonwealth" and say, Here, my boy, read that" Nor I do not go and find for him a constitution of the United
 States and say, Here, child, read that
 Why, l might as well hand my little boy
 a book printed in Hebrew and say Read
 that" The boys mind Is only the mind of child. What do I do? Why, I take that boy upon my lap and begin to talk to him on his mental level. In the language of a child l explain to him what the gov
 ernment of home means Then l lead
 him on in the language of the child and
  selves together in city government so that policemen will guard us, and letter
 carriers will bring our mall, and street inspectors will keep our streets clean and
 water will be brought to our homes. Then in the language of the child l show him
 how different cities unite in the same way
 and band themselves together as states,
 and then how states will band themselves together as a nation. When l talk to child l talk in the language of a child
 In the Language of Man.
 Now, as a rational being, tell me, how can God spiritually talk to a man except in the language of man? In the spiritual
 sense we are nothing but little children, so God says "I will show these little children how l love them I will reveal to them the love of the Heavenly Father. I will appeal to them in the love of the home. l will have my only begotten Son born in a manager and grow up in Naza-
 reth. Then I will prove his divinity by his miracles and by his beautiful lie. Then I will let that Son die upon the cross to atone for their sins. Tell me, is not that Interpretation of Jesus Christ ratlonal7 If you grant your deism and your immortality of the soul, does not the personality of Christ nationally grow out of these two premises? Why will you deny that Jesus Is your Saviour? Was ne not ncarnated in order to show the Dl- vine Fathers love for us, his children Well" you say, "I do believe in Christ but I do not believe in the verbal inspira- ton of Scripture. How do we Enow whether the Bible Is our rule of faith ana
 practice?" How do we know? Why, my brother, If you once grant Goa ana Chrlsts divine birth and resurrection
 do not see how you can deny the lnspira-
 ton of the Bible.
 We might expect that God would give
 the world a record of his will That is
 what the Bible ls God, In order to put
 the stamp of his divinity upon this DOOR, caused the old prophets to tell what Was going to happen 1000 years after 'helr uaN. Then God has his writers Of the Ne"
 Testament show how all these old propne- cies are fulfilled. Then, just as lVoo d'f
 ferent workmen working under Christo- pher Wren cut the stones and lay them all together and piled them up into one great St. Paul's cathedral, so God mas lll these different workmen or the Biple u' their separate parts, working m harmlonN with one another Thus he fits the differ
 ent books together, and Genesis ana Rev
 elation are component parts or one oooN.
 The Psalms and the gospels are parts or the same The story of Ruth ana the
 cradle of Christ are all parts or one
 whole. These different books fit into each other as exactly as the stones or mosaic Hoor Tt lnto eaeh o'HN'' ,,. e grant God and grant the immortallty or
 the soul and grant the divinity or Jesus
 Christ, I cannot understand why you should deny the divine authority or 'He
 Bible God the Heavenly Father has
 written to us a letter. just as our earthly parents write to us when we are Tar away from the old homestead.
 Now comes the great practical ques- tion-believing in the Divine Father s love-
 believing in immortality ana the atone
 ment of Christ and in the divine author ity of Scripture. are we ready with this divine guidance to fit ourselves for celes-
 tial companionship with God forever and
 evere Are we willing to live the higher life and live not for our own iarne, put
 for the heavenly glory? When we peglh
 to study the life of Christ and see what God wants us to do. 1t Is amazing how snnst of us are prostituting our ideals 10