The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1913-06-24

| s24l were uQdVdlld Die.
| Instead, he spoke
this forenoon at
| Santa Ana, this
| w afternoon and
| ltRASIQR. RuSSEIL)J evening here, Civ
ing Friday and
| Saturday to San Diego and Los An
geles Pastor Russell addressed thor
| oughly representative audience. His
afternoon topic was, Beyond the
Grave" His evening topic we report.
| His text was. God so loved the world
that He gave His Only Begotten Son,
| that whatsoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting
John 3:16
Forcefully the Pastor pointed out
that once Christian people, even Bible
students, misunderstood this text and
read into it a conflicting thought, dis
| hOnoring to God--read 1t as though 1t
said that God so loved the world as to
keep them from perishing, in order
that the few, the sanity Elect, might
attain to glory and look over the bat
| Elements of Heaven and see all the re-
mainder-Jews, heather and the mass
es of misunderstanding In tor
ment to all eternity-unable to perish
forced to live. IN order that they might
| by their sufferings. entertain the more
fortunate, who were guaranteed bliss
| to the full
What right did we ever have. said
| the Pastor, to thus put into the mouth
of our Savior. as our creeds have done,
words which He never uttered-words
which are very untrue-indeed, a bias
| phemy against our Makeri
Light Shines Through the Fog.
We are not faulting our forefathers
Had we been in their place. doubtless
| we would have been as confused as
were they. and we might have INDUCED
in hereto burning. etc. And had they
| lived in our wonderful day of great
| light, knowledge, privilege, opportuni
| ty, education. Bibles. ETC., doubtless
they would have had as noble ideas as
ourselves respecting the prophecies of
Christian conduct and Divine conduct
and Love and Justice. The Bible tells
us that Satan and his fallen angels are
responsible for those terrible doc
| trines of demons" which have given
| thinking people such horrible night
mares, and driven so many of them
away from God and the Bible into un-
| belief, agnosticism, and even atheism
Let us rejoice In the light of the bet
ter Day which has dawned Let us be
| come Bible students In the highest
sense of the term Never before has
there been such an opportunity for
knowing the real teaching Of Gods
| Book-what it does contain and what
| it does not contain. We have the BIZ
Bile, concordances and helps, and we
have the general education which per
mits US to study them. Our forefa-
theirs labored against lack of education,
time, lack of Bibles, and lack of good
artificial light.
What the Word Perish Means.
When we come to think of it, the
word perish contains not the remotest
| suggestion of fire or torture. In Our
| ignorance we read all that into the
| import; for instance, the statement
that God is not willing that any should
| perish, but would that all should come
unto Him and live; and the statement
of St Peter that the wilfully ignorant
shall perish like brute beasts, made to
be taken and destroyed; and the state
ment through the Psalmist, "All the
vrria will Gn1 IA
these simple words became before our
infamed and perverted imaginations.
How some of us rang the changes on
these Bible terms in vain attempt to
drive men toward God through fear
when God declares that He does not
want such to come and has no pleasure
whatever in their worship or servicei
Did not Jesus tell us that the Father
seeketh such to worship Him as wor-
ship Him in spirit and in truth? John
4:23J And our perversions of the
Divine Word and Plan only helped
men away from God to such misun
Outstanding of Him that they could
not worship Him in spirit and in truth
and, at most, could worship only in
form and ceremony.
The Pastor told of an experience he
had in India. Some of the higher
| caste Hindoos, wholly unapproachable
| by the missionaries, heard that he was
| preaching more reasonable message
They came. entreating him for further
meetings. declaring their respect for
the intelligence of Christians. but that
they could not believe the doctrines
usually preached. They could not be-
heye in God so unjust, so unmerci
| full, so wicked that He would torment
them and their forefathers through all
eternity because they did not believe
on Jesus. when they had not so much
as heard of Him. They said that their
gods were not so unjust: for they for
babe men to torture even dumb brutes
They preferred to hold ON to the rea
sonable gods Of their fathers rather
than to believe in the unjust one
preached by the missionaries.
Can we blame them? asked the Pas
tor. On the contrary. he admitted that
in the past himself and other Chris
tians had seriously misinterpreted the
Bible. He urged his hearers to study
the Bible itself and to ignore the I'M
reasonable teachings which are driving
which it presents.
Pastor Russell found that the heath
en- do not really worship the idols, but
through the idols seek to worship an
unseen deity. At first he wondered
/ that they could bow before such hide
GUS awkard, vicious-looking images.
Then the thought came to him, that
these poor heather had formulated
their gods of clay. stone. bronze, etc,
but that we Christians had formulated
ours differently-instead of using ma
terial substances we merely construct
ed ideals and described them, and that
from this viewpoint, the creedal pic
lures of the God of Love are farther
astray than the images of stone. wood
etc
! Import of the Text.
Look critically at our text. Exercise
the gray matter Of your brains. What
does 1t really say? 1t corroborates the
dccOuHl III OeueSlS 4, as eApidlneu by
st. Paul in Romans 5:12-1S By one
mans disobedience sin entered into
the world and death as the result of
sin, and death passed upon all men.
J because all men are sinners-by herdi-
ty. This death penalty has been car
rying down our race to the tomb for
six thousand years The present death
rate is about ninety thousand per day.
! The declaration Of the Bible is that