The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-02-17

The first proposition is In the be-
ginning God" From all eternity God
exists, uncreated, seIf-living, regnant,
single. Zoroaster had risen to the com
ception of dual divinities, one evil, one
good. forever fighting. limitations
pointing dimly toward monotheism
are found in the story of many races.
But the Hebrew alone mastered and
made vital in his nations life the ideal
of One eternal. supreme God. an intel
ngent, moral, personal Being. He never
claimed to nave originated this ideal.
but held with a pertinacity that 5000
years of history have not been able to
shake that this Being mad disclosed
Himself in his soul. Here is a reye-
lation. II not only bears witness. TO
Christ, but Christ without it would
have been impossible The wisdom of
this world had been busy for CEN
turtles building vast civilizations that
astonjsh even us who live in an age
when miracles are daily food but it
was powerless to originate God. He
revealed Himself to a wretched folk,
whose chief prerogative as race has
been to be hated. condemned, bulhed
and beaten since first they emerged in
history For their vision and its clear
forthtellng this race is humanity's
chief creditor today. I'm the beginning
God'-the sublimest conception that
ever was born in the human soul.
One of the most fascinating books of
the 18th century is Herbert Spencer's
First Principles. You recall the gist of
it. 1st There must be a First cause.
Ind Finite man can not know this
infinite First cause Bird. This mate
rial universe of stellar worlds keeps up
a ceaseless dance, now swinging from
gaseous nebula to solid globe, then
breaking down through vast catas-
trophe into state of gas to begin a
second condensation and so unto eter-
nifty Not a little that this vohminous
philosopher wrote is of value, but our
day is inscribing over all that he left
the caution that when a scientist or
scientific philosopher, who has made
no honest experiment in religion, at
tempts to deal with religious ques-
tions, refusing to accept the conclu-
sions of men of religion, he is apt to
make as big a mistake as the religious
man does. who throwing overheard the
conclusions of scientists endeayors to
construct a science Of his own. Over
against Herbert Speneer's sneer at
1.-The carpenter theory of the universe
the writer of the first chapter of Gene
sis places the revelation God created
the heavens and the earth" He GER
tainly did not find that idea in Baby
lonia.
when above, the heavens were not
named:
Below. the dry land did not bear a
name.
Apsu, the primeval. their progenitor.
Mummu and Tiamat. the mother of
them all. a
.Ther vafersswerH pffigled together.
No field was marked of, no marsh was
to be seen.
When none of the gods had yet been
produced"
So runs the account that the writer OF
this chapter of Genes4s had before him
Apsu. Mummu and Tiamat symbolic
the chaotic, watery waste out of which
the heavens and earth and gods them-
selves issued. Before the gods tenuous
matter, the mother of them ALL said
Babylonia. In the beginning GOD
created the heavens and the earth, !"
wrote the Hebrew. Our own twentieth
century, after the 10000 cycles that di-
vide it from savagery, is, through its
Investigations of Nature, no nearer the
solution of the question how did this
vast system come into being?' then
paIeoithic man. The microscope with
all its disclosure of the little, the tele-
scope notwithstanding its many-chap-
tered story of the great, the spectro-
scope polariscope and refined re-
sources of chemist and physicist give
rot ore hint Of reply. One. scholar may
say, Master is force; another may
evclaim Matter is snirit. Whose
force, whose spirit? Physical science
can not tell Hist. the whisper of God
in the human SOUL 4 am Jehovah,
that maketh' all things; that stretcheth
forth the heavens alone: that spread
eth abroad the earth (who is with
Me?) I form the light. and create
darkness: 1. even My hands have
stretched out the heavens; and all
their host have 1 commanded" When
that word entered the soul not of
but of the supplemented Hebrew who
loved religion it carried conviction
a conviction which. told to the world.
has compelled the assent of the ages.
Systems of knowledge may change
among men. but that revelation God
created the heavens and the earth"
wilt stand till time shall be no more.
This ancient priest engraved a third
truth upon this first chapter-@And the
Spirit of God was brooding upon
the face of the waters. No picture
this of an absentee Deity, His uni
verse a wound-up clock, but God in
His world, watching over every detail,
interested in every movement, con-
stantly putting forth His energy to
make it fit His own ideal. The Hebrew
contradicts the bitter cry of the hui
man heart amid pain. sorrow. death
God careth not" Have you never
HE is far away. He heed
eth not my woe? II is the universal
experience of mankind. And the study
of nature with its endless warfare. its
myriad determinations. it's cruel sur
vivals of the fittest is midnight an
swering to the gloom of human sorrow.
If ever man is to know He careth