Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-04-03
, T requires only a meager and restrict

T requires only a meager and restrict
ed imagination to prophesy a reign
of goodness beyond the grave. Peo-
pie of very feeble intellect and of
low spiritual development have done
that in almost all ages. But there are
other Jordans than that of death which
hem us in; there are other Pisgahs than
those which rise on the borderland OF
earth and heaven, where we ascend and
see the lands of promise that we cannot
possess. 1t is there that real prophetic
genius is required-a faith which can
remove mountains: faith which is the
substance of things hoped for; the evil
dence not only of things unseen. but of
things seen and missed; a faith which
endures as seeing the invisible. Not only
Moses. but all the faithful had their Ne
bos AS for the rest of mankind. they
trod their wilderness pathway with more
or less of courage, but with little OF
vision, for the way was shut in on the
one side by the steep walls of the impos-
sible, and it rose on the other nand in
barren, level mesa OF the commonplace
And SO, while not all of them lived in
vain, death overlook them in the valley.
But here and there a radiant soul mas
used his failing strength in climbing 10
heights of the impossible, and he mas
died in faith, not having received the
promises. but having seen them afar on,
and was persuaded of them and embraced
them and knew the joy of possession.
Christianity has not been wont to take
the long look, much as 1t has been
charged with looking too much toward
heaven. In matters requiring real faith
and prophetic vision the church has been
afflicted with myopia. In all the ages
pa st it has been expecting, not that truth
would triumph in the earth, but that
soon, very soon, within a generation or
the flesh. 1t has expected that the effort
to save the world by love and sacrifice
by printing Bibles and making hymn
books, by sending missionaries and by
earnest living would be given up by both
God and man confessed failure.
So long as the church held to that view.
no far look was possible. The church
could sing its De Contemptu Mundfs,
but it could not inspire men to faith
that could remove mountains. 1t could
and pull for the Shore" but it could not
contemplate the saving of the wreck, nor
the word of the apostle that these must
abide in the ship, nor the prayer of Jesus
that the disciples be not taken out OF the
world. Its faith was faith Of the wilder
ness and not Of the mountain top.
A great many good people still hold es-
sentially the view described. They still
believe that soon, perhaps, while they
live. Jesus will come in the flesh, and the
attempt to save the world be given up;
but that millennium will be ushered In
with glory for the relatively few who at
tain unto salvation. According to this
view, the means which God has used
hitherto and still employs are effective
only for the saving of a few men and
women out of the world; and the saving
of the world itself is to be effected by an
act of holy violence.
That view is still held by noble men
and women. But it is not the view on
which the great future enterprises of
Christian heroism are undertaken. The