The Falls City tribune., 1909-12-17

the center OF Creation. Behold Nat
ure with this master.ight. Say,
This Is none other than the house
of God. and this is the gate of heaA.
en- So shall earth be a sacred
place to your reyerent consciousness
and to your grateful heart. They Ell
ter into the Paradise of Nature WHO
can say The Lord is at hand"there-
in. The world means intensely and
means good. Brother. only look, and
you will find that Nature is the very
sacred shrine of Jesus.
In Human Nature the Lord
is At Hand"
There is a word in the Incompatible
prologue of Johns Incompatible gos-
pei that | sometimes think many OF
us are afraid of-"rhe T. light
which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world There is
something of the blessed Christ Child
whose birth We now celebrate, i'll
every man that is born into this
world. A ray of the light divine is
in each man constitutionally. Do
not we often say there is something
good In every man? That some
thing good is the something of Jes-
us in every a Man at birth Is
totally depraved,' say the theolo-
gians. But orthodox ~theologians
have never meant by that that man
is as bad as he could be, else man
would be a devil. Every part OF
mans nature is %deprayed, but there
is a preyenient grace at work there
III. THE true light lighteth every
man." II there were not something
of Christ in all men. all men would
not be savable. This by no means
does away with the necessity of con-
version, it makes Il mans CONVEX
sion possible. Naturally there is
but a CLEAN of the r light in man;
conversion broadens out the CLEAN
into a meridian s~plendor. God would
have nothing to work on If the Lord
were not at hand in human nature.
1t is worth while for all Christian
teachers and workers to recognize
the imminence of Jesus in men. We
may, and therefore ought, to take
hopeful views of those whom we seek
that we may save. Human nature
is the shrine of Jesus.
"The Lord is at Hand in Hu-
man History.
He is localized there. History oY-
erflows and is eloquent with the pres
ence OF Jesus. This is the profound
est philosophy of history. This is
the secret of all events. Read the
history of the English speaking peo-
pie, and in that history as truly as in
the history of Israel, the Lord is
at hand And what is true of such
history is quite as true of individual
history. Your biography rightly read
is a wondrous illustration of the
constant nearness of the presence OF
Jesus to you. What is the moral of
your life story? 1.-The Lord is at
hand" The very sorrows and mis-
takes and sins of our lives are made
contributory TO our b~lessedness. BY
the ministry of c%hequered experience
the ever present Lord works out His
gracious and benign purposes.
He causes them to ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour,
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower"
He consummates our character by
all we pass through. History is the
shrine of Jesus.
Where else is the Lord lat hand?'
Emphaticaliy in the Bible. That is
the most remarkable iocaiization OF
Jesus. Wondrous word of God,
There is a crowd of evidence of the
divinity of this book which is many
and yet is one. But | think the
supreme evidence Of its inspiration
is that here "the Lord is at hand
This is the browning proof. ! de
spise none of the arguments for the
divine authenticity and inspiration of
the Bible, but in increasing measure
this is TO me THE argument. In
every part of this book | find my
Lord ear In every separate book
of the Bible | find that ''the Lord
is at hand" The saints of all the
ages have always found the sacred
page of the precious volume yoicine
the tones of it's Master and giyer.
In even the books which unspiritual
critics dub uninspired or declare to
be void of divine revelation; in such
books as Esther and the Song of
Songs, when rightly read, "the Lord
is at hand May | submit modest
ly that this is the touchstone to
apply to the Bible as a whole and to