The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1913-05-18

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down and yet not totally go out?"
The other question strikes higher
note; 1t is aspiring and ambitious;
1t is full of force and hope: It opens
the future, and 1t asks, How much
does my Christian faith give mo a right
to believe and know concerning God ?"
We run the risk of forgetting that
little is the privilege and glory of a
full grown man. Let us guard our
selves against this tendency TO be sat
isfied with less than the best. Seek
faith. as full and rich n faith as YOU
can find. Try to know all YOU can
about God and your own soul count
every new conviction. which is really
wop. pleasure and enrichment of
your life. Let us trace in brief outline
the growth of faith and see how branch
adds itself to branch until there is at
last the glory of the perfect tree.
First, man believes in his own soul;
he knows that he is spiritual; he has
the firm conviction that his life is not
all of sense and flesh. Then he be-
is but an echo of the central and
eternal spirit which is over nil. And
the faith in his own soul gives him the
faith in the Father soul. This faith
goes before all Bibles and precedes all
prophecies. SO when God speaks in
revelation we do not merely know
what He wills; we know with a new
lki In nf
Then man believes that God rules
the world; all history becomes His
work, and one especial history stands
forth-the history of a sacred people
in which Gods hand is most peculiarly
manifested For the history OF the
Jews gets it's perpetual interest from
the fact that. being the most conscien-
tious and spiritual OF all people. the
Jews had deeper things to do with
God than other races. and so God
showed them things concerning Himself
that He did not and, could not show
when He was dealing with the Romans
or the Greeks.
Then he believes that God has spoken
to mankind; the voices of the prophets
bring messages from Him. 1t is not
simply what the prophets say. 1t is
not the glimpses OF unborn history that
they give. 1t is that in them God has
spoken and spoken with such n voice
man can hear.
IL this were all it would be very
much indeed, but there is something
else. In the chapter of Saint Matthew
from which we take our text, Some
One is telling story that begins just
at this point. He recounts how the
Master sent His servants. the Hebrew
prophets, to His vineyard. THE hus-
bandmen took His servants and beat
one and killed another and stoned an
other. Again. He sent other servants,
more than the first. and they did unto
them likewise" And then the speaker
goes on and declares another new act
in the Masters vineyard. Last of all
He sent unto them His Son."
Fix your mind clearly and simply on
these words. Can they mean anything
else than this, that thcrc was a dis
tinctly new kind of communication,
distinctively new kind Of revelation.
when Jesus Christ. the Son of God.
came. which had not been in the COM
ing of Isaiah or OF Moses? They were
servants. This is the Son. They brought
Gods messages; He brought Gods self
They revealed Gods plans; He opened
Gods heart. They told men what God
wanted; He showed men what God was.
1t was this inner soul of selfhood
which none can manifest but he whose
| it is-nay. none save he who is it
that was what Jesus came to show
men concerning God, and it was his
power and prerosative to show that
while they were the servants. He was
the Son Of God. Read your New Tesla
ment, and study It, not for proof texts
and single words of Christ. but by the
broad surveys Of his whole mission as
He Himself conceived of 1t, and then