The Mena weekly star. (Mena, Ark.) 1904-1977, 1911-05-11
A SUNDAY SERMON
The Christian Religion Not an I'M
personal Principle, but Lie.
BY the Rev. NJ. X. Irvin, Pastor
of the NJ. +. Church, South.

II will not talk much WIN
YOU but as the Father gave me
commandment even so do. r.
John, xiv, 30-3l.
Man is naturally a religious AMI
NAL. He must and will have a re-
ligion. In this matter OF religion,
as in all other matters OF human
Volifion, man has suffered many
sore disappointments and defeats
but. nevertheless, he still stubborn
ly pursues his religion. This IS
inevitable so long as his religious
or moral nature is defective, ana
consciously unsatisfactory.
In the very nature of the case
there could be but one true rellg-
ion. and this one true religion can
be none other than a religion that
takes hold of, corrects, perfects,
and renders satisfactory mans
hitherto unsatisfactory religious
experience. Universal human con-
seriousness has ever felt the need OF
such a religion, and has likewise
despairingly admitted the impossi-
bility of its realization without Dl-
vine Intervention. Such a religion
must be divine, must be personal.
Such a religion Jesus came to
give. Not to discuss specially, but
| to actualize in human experience.
Thus the Christian religion IS read
Iily observed to be a religion of life,
in contradistinction to thought re-
igion. 1t penetrates and goes deep
er than the faculty of thought, and
finds its center of gravity in the
moral sensiblities, imparting life
and strength to the whole feeling
mass of human consciousness, and
becomes a resident tenent in the
soul: henceforth intuitively recog-
nized, and identified as One-one
who knows and loves and does,
Hence, religious experience,
which religious experience is but a
simple consciousness of the divine
| fact wrought in the soul, and, as
above stated, henceforth known as
Jesus, the Christ.
The Christian religion is, there
fore, Christ. Has ever been, will
ever be. Saul of Tarsus met the
Christian religion on the way to
Damascus and demanded to know
what it was. The immediate re-
Spouse was: II am Jesus During
| his long and strenuous life of va
ried religious activities, he con-
stantly testified: 81 am cruelfied
with Christ, nevertheless | live
Yet not | but Christ liveth in me.
10 the Colossians He writes Your
life is hid with Christ in God" and
when Christ, who is our life, shall
appear then shall we also appear
with him in Glory"
Yes, Christianity is Christ II am
come" said he, that you might
have life" II am the life" "Ye
will not come to me that ye
might have life There is no such
thing as a religious experience only
with Jesus as its author.
AS sweet as life is to us poor NOR
tails, yet it seems to be the most
difficult thing in all the world for
us to lay hold Of Why should we
hesitate to go to our Elder Brother
and ask, and receive, and ever after
experience the original element OF
life, together with the comforting
Fellowship of its author? For the
reason that it is too simple. We
want to think ourselves into the
Kingdom, and into possession OF
spiritual life. We want the argu-
mentative faculty alone to handle
this proposition in divinity. Hence
the Christ of large per cent of the
Christian worshippers is but a men
tai concept. We are so familiar
with the character of the Divine
man, and his precepts that the i'm
agination readily furnishes a
thought image of Him. which we
body forth in language and invest
with personality. After we have
thus thought out and fastened in
symbolic language our Divine inn
age, invested il with personality,
and developed a more or less con-
sistent theory Of His life and pur-
pose, we very naturally experience
a mental joy as we behold the prod
uct Of our rational effort, and this
we name christianity and christian
experience.
Thus we formulate and throw up