Los Angeles herald., 1907-05-06
TELLS OF GREAT
Love OF UNSEEN
REV. ROBERT ]. BURDETTE is
ELOQUENT
Stirs Hearers Deeply with Words as
He Reviews Experience of
the Worlds Most
Faithful

Loving the Invisible Christ was
the topic Of Rev. Robert j. Burdette
at Temple Baptist church yesterday
morning, who took for his text Whom
not having seen, we love-" DR.. Bur-
dette said in part:
Whom not having seen, we love-
If there was not Bible left in the
world; if the story of Jesus of Naz-
areth had been told merely as the
story of teacher, in the histories and
traditions of his day; If all that we
knew about him were the statements
of his enemies would know, as well
as know anything in this world, that
Jesus Christ was and is the son of
God. And all that / would need to
teach me this truth, to burn it into
my soul and brain, is the fact that to-
day, millions of men and women and
little children, who never saw him,
now, 1000 years after his loving death
and glorious resurrection, love him
love him-love him. Love him so 10y
ally that at the cost of any sacrifice
they want to obey his words, spoken
twenty centuries ago, to people in a far
distant land. Love him so that they
would long to see him-to be with him.
Love him so that they study his words
day by day, the better to know his will
that they may the more faithfully per-
form it. Love him so dearly that they
believe his promises even in the very
face Of doubt, evident contradiction,
human disproof, and the questionings
of doubt, as a faithful wife be-
lieves her husband in the face
of adverse evidence. Love him
make this love the ideal type Of
the highest love possible in this world
and the perfect world; that they make
Christ the bridegroom and the church
his bride-the summit of possible love
known to the human heart. Love him
so that today, were such witnesses
called for, thousands-millions-
go down to torture and death for his
dear sake-only for their love for him
-as they did in the days Of the
Caesars-as they do today in the sac
rifices that meet men on the way to
the distant mission stations.
Never Such Love
For there is not man, living or
dead; there is no man that ever lived,
who is so loved. Englishmen do not
so love King Arthur; Americans do not
SO love George Washington; Germans
do not so love Frederick the Great.
Men do not love Columbus. nor
Luther, nor the Wesleys, nor Calico,
nor Florence Nightingale, nor Isaac
Newton, nor Peter, nor Paul, nor
James, nor John, the apostle of love.
These are great names. Names that
are blessed in the great world-our
world of philanthropy, discovery
scholarship, faith-these people have
all blessed the world beyond our pow
er to measure. We esteem, venerate,
respect, admire their characters and
their lives. We even love their mem
ories. But we do not love them with
a personal love-an individual soul
passion. But men do love-love Jesus
Christ, better and more dearly than
they love any living creature on this
earth-him whom they have never
seen, never heard, and whose beauty
and grace and perfection are revealed
to every loving soul in its own passion
of tenderness and devotion. For you
never saw a picture of Jesus Christ
that satisfied your conception of him.
You look upon the highest ideals Of
painter and sculptor, you stand before
all the conventional portraits of Christ;
your mind and soul are moved to
adoring contemplation, but as you
turn away you say, HE did not look
like that" And he did not. What was
the graciousness Of figure and feature
we will never know, no man knows,
and we will never know until that glad
blessed day of days when he shall
appear and we shall see him face to
face and see him as he is, and oh,
children of the living God, fullness of
joy unspeakable, we shall be like him.
for he will change your vile body that
1t may be fashioned like unto his own
glorious body, and your souls will echo
the holy content of the psalmist: AS
for me, I will behold thy face in right
eousness 1 shall be satisfied when I
awake in thy likeness.
Image Ever in the Soul
"Our love for Christ the unseen; his
image is ever in the loving soul. I |
was sitting one day in a college boys
room and my eye wandered around
the medley Of pictures of everybody
and everything, all sorts and condi- |
tions of men and women and things
that make the college room COM
bination of panorama, vision and night
mare, and by and by they rested on a |
picture of woman over the desk-the |
one that would be closest to the boy |
when he read or wrote, and it had a |
little space all around 1.-THE only |
clear. space on the walls. smiled, |
and he caught my eyes and the direc- |
tion of my look. Yes he said, that's |
the little mother You have given |