Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1910-05-03

tie for the love Of God. We deride creeds
and demand deeds. We do not care for
justification by faith indeed, many seem
! to think that faith is hardly justifiable
If it is connected with any very definite
convictions and beliefs. Hence we talk
much Of righteousness and hold cheap
| the righteousness which is by faith.
This sort of thing is always one OF
the characteristics of an era of doubt.
| such as that which has been prevalent
for a decade or more, and from which
we are only just now beginning to react.
When men begin to feel that their inward
| life is running low they set about all
sorts Of energetic efforts of an outward
| nature in order to persuade themselves
| that they have suffered no moral loss.
They are conscious that they have really
lost something, but they do not wish to
acknowledge it, AS their moral capital
| wastes they endeavor to disguise, IL
they may not avert, moral bankruptcy
| by turning over what is left as often as
/ possible and in as SNOWY a manner as
| they can, like a country merchant of
small means strings out tin-ware on his
| shelves in order to conceal the poverty
| of his stock in trade. But in the end all
| their moral strenuousness ends in paraly-
sis and failure. Great living outward
must proceed from great life inward the
/ vi
| never failing springs of noble motives,
or it will soon run dry. Neither high
| morality nor great benevolence can exist
long. in the absence of great faith The
\ great doctrines of Christianity may to
some seem cold and remote as the SHOWS
on distant mountains; but down from
them flow the waters that make the val
| legs of life below fragrant and fruitful.
| Truth in the intellect is but another
| name for righteousness in the Will; the
two can no more be separated than can
| thought and choice. Men can not have
| trimming benevolence without Astounding
faith. Unless life has a hill-country Of
belief 1t can not have plentiful springs
Of righteousness and goodness on its
| common levels
When christianity appeared among
| men ii came preaching the most tran
scendent doctrines, and by consequence
| IL gave rise at once to new and world
/ wide philanthropy. Proclaiming Christ
as the Saviour of all men, it broke down
the middle wall of partition between the
Jews and Gentiles and made them sit to-
gether in heavenly places through faith
in their common Lord. Indeed, the dis
cples were first called Christians at An
tioch when men came to see that they
held to a faith which was utterly at var
lance with the narrowness of Judaism
and practiced a benevolence which set
aside all racial lines and national linn
itations. This transforming power OF
| the new faith is conspicuously exempn-
fed in the case of Saul of Tarsus, who
became Paul, the great apostle to the
Gentiles. He appears first in Christian
history as a Pharisee of the Pharisees,
Iperseeuting to strange cities the early
| Church, breathing out threatenings and
| slaughter against the disciples, and
| sparing neither men nor women. In
| few brief years we find him writing to
the Romans II am debtor both to the
Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to
/ the wise and the unwise.' The distance
| between such a noble sentiment and the
spirit of J Phariseeism is hemisphere.
| Saul of Tarsus could not have made
such a tremendous transition by the fee
| BILE force of a shallow impulse of kind
ness: to carry him so utterly out of and
| beyond his old self, a tremendous revo-
luton in all his beliefs was necessary.
That revolution was wrought on the
| Damascus road when in the light of the
| heavenly vision which met him in the
| way he found that Jesus, whom he was
| prosecuting was none other than the
| omniscient Lord of heaven and earth
whose glory outshone the Syrian sun
In it's noon-tide splendor. His own ac-
to the wondrous career which followed
after his conversion was given to the
Corinthians ia these words For the
love of Christ constraineth us, because
We thus Judge, that if one died for ALL
then were all dead and that he died
for all, that they which live should not
henceforth live unto themselves, but un-
to him which died for them, and rose
again" TO the Galatians he wrote,
Ia &c Ifsh
now live in the flesh l live by the
faith of the Son of God who loves me
and gave himself for me-" Paurs great
life can be explained only by Paul's
great faith.
So it was with Luther and the Reform
ers. They were great believers, and none
OF their mighty deeds would have been
wrought except they had been men Of
mighty faith. They endured as seeing
| Him who is invisible.
Likewise the great leaders of the re-
| vival of religion i'm England in the
eighteenth century by which all subse-
ouent times have been so profoundly af-
fected were heroes of faith. Neither
their lives nor their achievements would
have been possible apart from their be-
liefs They were doctrinal to the last
degree. They had great controversies.
which some now are disposed to helittle
and condemn: but even their contrOver-
sizes are really to their credit. Men who
do not contend earnestly for the truth as
they see it, never are forces which make
for righteousness Vagueness of thought
never issues in vigor of character. Wes-
ley and his contemporaries were not
men of pulpy piety or nerveless convic-
tions. There were in their day men of
that sort but they had no part in the
great revival and the world has forgot
ten them. II we are able to repeat in our
day any of the triumphs of former times,
we too must be men of alike previous
faith. And 1t seems that measured by
our opportunities we ought to achieve far
more than did any former generation.
We have more resources at our disposal,
or, we have at least more resources of
material sort. All the nations of the
earth are closer together than ever be-
fore; there are no foreign nations. Thus
vast resources and unreasonable needs
are made to touch each other. IT is an
era for philanthropy on the grandest
scale, or the most heartless inhumanity,
| We can not have the great living for
| which our great times call unless we
have great believing Hence the supreme
problem of our day is this matter of
! faith Shrunken and palsied faith can
not supply an adequate motive power TO
4 run we'll the titanic machinery of the