The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-11-21
REV. DR., SCUDDER INSTALLED
PASTOR OF CENTRAL UNION

L uIlILS no" 10 SAclACLiANAAL 0A AG~4 ~
il is only fair to preface that the scien-
tific bent Of mind trained by the study
Of medicine has been of the greatest
moment in determining my approach
TO all questions of theology and has
enabled me 10 keep step with the
progress of Biblical investigation with
ont the soul-wrenching experience or
the catastrophe TO faith that many
Christians who have had TO fight their
way from the old to the new have been
compelled 10 endure. Henry Drum
nonds epoch making work, Natural
Law in the Spiritual World fell into
nv hands while studying medicine side
by side with theology. 1t was a, rev.
eJation whose spell was strong upon
me and since the time of its perusaf
II has been impossible for me to recog-
niZe anv conflict whatsoever between
religion and science.
Fundamental in all my thinking and
experience stands the one Absolute,
Eternal Personal God-Personal be-
cause He is almighty VIII, inscrutaole
Wisdom and transcendent Love, VINO
has revealed Himself 70 me as the one
sure fact without and within myself,
to match the equally sure fact of N.Y.
self. Some Christians speak Of faith
as though it were the conviction or
things that cannot be known Inc
writer of Hebrews called it a testing
or an experience and hence conVlc-
ton of things not seen, that is or
spiritual things. Under this latter
category l class my faith. I believe in
God because 1 have experienced Him,
because I have, let it be said reverent-
w. tested Him in the laboratory of tn
inner life-the only reliable experiment
station a man can have access to.
To me God is no distant Being but
everywhere in His world, of which He
is the animating spirit. Nature is His
vestment, revealing His thoughts. Inc
universe is His house, ever in process
of building Human history is one OF
His ways of creating sons. what we
call laws of nature are His orderly
methods of working. The great forces
of gravity, light, heat, electric energy
chemism, are His will in action. He
is behind every phenomenon, over all,
through all, and in all, closer to every
son of man than the thoughts that
chase one another through his mind or
the emotions that play upon the stage
of his consciousness.
The richness of a Personality who re-
yeaIs Himself in such lavish fashion
in the universe about and in man can
never be known. And human terms
must always be relative and inadequate
as applied to One who is and must al
vavs be, both uncomprehendable to
finite beings and yet apprehendabie by
those formed in His image. But the
most intimate revelation which God
makes to me is that which Jesus ex-
pressed by the term Father. Like as
father pitieth his children" The infinite
compassion which realizes the weak
ness. the ignorance, the inevitableness
of falls and bruises, the perfect Wis
dom which is Love, and perfect Love
which is Wisdom, that cares and pro-
vides. forgives and restores, chastlses
and trusts US children, suffers with US
and far more than we can In our ms
takes and miseries, for all of which we
have no word but Father, forms a
deepening experience that ties the soul
To God with inexpressible power anu
pathos and sweetness. Gods Father
hood is the holy of holies in life.
Tt passes imperceptibly into His
Friendhood. Gods comradeship in the
everyday of thinking and doing, shar-
ing as only a mans double can share,
in low and pain until He comes to be
the Great Companion, has formed a
steadily growing conviction. Theolo-
saans would call this disclosure the
second Person in the Trinity. If NOM
70 WhV
not let him cherish it?
Perhaps maturity does nothing great
erfor a masculine Christian than devel-
on a consciousness of Gods tenderness.
of His yearning over His child as a
mother does, of a love that never VIII
give up the erring son though he pc
followed down to the uttermost pit or
degradation and sin. The Bible is full
of this revelation of Motherhood in
God to which it gives the name of the
Holy Spirit. I find this disclosure of
Gods Spirit, deepening with sacreder
fulness as the years of larger expe-
rience come and go.
Coming now to Jesus of
Nazareth, it is increasingly inn
possible for me adequately to
classify this man, of all men the most
human, we'll called by himself the Son
of Man, in any category that includes
the rest of the human family. His
influence upon me has been so tram
scendant. His place in the world is so
unique. His friendship is so transform
ing with all kinds of men / have
known. who, when without it, We're ut
terly without hope, and His character
as it is disclosed in the simple Gospel
records is so unspeakably beyond the
reach of all human achievement and so
UNNECESSARILY outclasses the ideal pic
lures painted by the literary geniuses
of all time. that it carries its anthem
tication upon it's face and justifies the
old time reading of Paufs epistle,
God manifest in the flesh
Jesus consciousness of His pre-
existence. the reality of the signs
which he wrought, the genuineness of
His resurrection, all appear to me to
be as worthy of credence as any his
toric events. They are consistent with
his personality. With absolute respect
for those who cannot take this view,
sympathizing with them in their con-
ception of Jesus. and also holding the
conviction that all, who are sincere in
AT