Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1911-05-16

are glad TO have authority to make prof
its without regard to laws human or di-
vine. DR.. Henry Van Dyke has said with
great force that 'fatalism broods over
modern fiction and the modern drama
like huge, shapeless spectre; and its
influence is felt in all the judgements
and conceptions and unspoxen but clearly
revealed sentiments of a society which
finds its chief intellectual pabulum in
novels and plays. In exemplifcation of
what he affirms he cites the case of
Zola: Here is the famous French real
list, lola, of whose books it is said that
enough have been sold to build pile
as high as the Eiffel tower. He writes
novel called LA Bette HUMANE,
in which he attempts to show how I'M
swervingly the lines of evil run through
the plan of life. He describes seven inev-
liable murders, occurring within eighteen
months in. close connection with a certain
fated house, and closes his book
with the description of rail-
way train, crowded with soldiers
dragged by an engine whose driver has
been killed. dashing at headlong speed
into the midnight. The train is the
world; we are the freight; fate is the
track; death is the darkness; God is the
engineer,-who is dead"
Now. God is in effect dead to all men
who believe that they can set aside His
laws at will whenever necessity arises
for SO doing, and that it belongs ex-
clusively with them to decide when such
|lawless necessity has arisen in the course
of their lives: for, at last, the worst
atheism is not that which formally de-
mics that there is God, but that which
without taking the pains to deny the di-
vine existence proceeds to live as If there
were no Cod or that the existing God
was so imbecile that he made and pro-
claimed law for men which is imprac-
ticable in the world where he requires
them to conform to 1t. To live by plan
of life which assumes that God is i'm
potent or imbecile is in effect to de-
throne the God of Abraham. Isaac and
Jacob. and to enthrone in his room del
fed incompetency and idiocy. Some OF the
primitive Christians were accused false
ly by their scornful prosecutors of wor-
shiping an ass; but does not the charge
lie most truly against man who acts
as if his God had decreed law which Is
not feasible in human life?
1t is time we refused to heed longer
this subtle fatalism which teaches us 70
despair Of goodness and to set necessity
above Qaw. 1t is time to proclaim the
sublime faith of the martyrs that law
knows no necessity"
We need men like Daniel, who believe
even when holding high political offlce.
that it is better to dare the dangers OF
the den of lions than to disobey God
One such man were worth thousand
of such as a late Senator from Kansas
who said that Gin politics the Ten Com
mandments and the Sermon on the
Mount are iridescent dreams" II we
had more Daniels, we should have fewer
I ,orimers. The men who furnished the
Ibribes by which that disgraceful and
disgraced man secured seat in the SEN
ate of the United States acted doubtless
on the principle that necessity knows
no law" They felt that his presence
in the Senate was necessary" to, their
Interests.
In truth any man who consents to act
on the principle that necessity knows
no law" is a bribed man; for he for
sakes the right he knows in order to
escape the consequences which he fears
will follow the doing Of the right. Is
not such a course selling the right for
a price? Wherein does it differ from
the case of Esau who sold his birthright
for a mess of potage in order to ap-
|pease an impatient and imperious hun
ger? That Infamous son of Isaac ele-
waited the claims of his stomach above
the claims of both his mind and his
soul; but he did no worse than the men
of today who in commerce or politics
sell their COnNlCllOuS LOA NhCH
sary stores, Esau is censured for be-
ing so shortAsighted but such is always
the case with men who take counsel OF
their appel-tes and desires rather than
of their consciences. The eyes of appe-
title are cut like the eyes of swine, so
that they ever look downward and can
not see further ahead than where their
noses are roofing for acor4s; only the
ewes of conscience look upward to Gods
heaven and set the courses of men by
the stars that shine above u.s.
Men VINO accept the dogma tnat me
cessity knows no law will deride the
principle that law knows no necessity"
as a piece of folly leading to fanaticism.
They account the martyrs as frenzied
fanatics but it would be we'll for them
to consider what the martyrs would
think, of them and their calculating ex-
pediency, were the martyrs living to-
day. These worldly-wise men affirm
that Christ's teaching is not practicable
in this world; but they would do better
to inquire if their own principles will
be found practicable when they stand
before the judgement seat of Christ