The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1914-08-22
DEMAND FOR ALL
No Mighty Result Achieved With
out the Crowning Sacrifice
of the Blood.

Is true even upon the lowest plane
hat without shedding of blood there
is nothing, no mighty result, no
achievement, no triumph. Every
worthy deed costs something; no
high thing can be done easily. No
great thing can be accomplished with
out the shedding OF blood. Life is just
u chance of making this great and
strange discovery. Many of us never
make it. We begin by trifing, by
working with a fraction of our
strength. We soon see that nothing
comes of hat At last, II we are
wise, we see that all the strength is
needed. What have we beside this?
We must disrobe ourselves. We do
it; yet our object remains ~ungained.
What more have we to give? We
have our blood. So at last the blood
is shed, the life is parted with, INT
the goal is reached. We are happy
il we know that everything noble and
enduring in this world is accomplish
ed by the shedding of blood, not mere
ly the concentration of the heart and
toul and mind on one object, but the
pruning and even the manning of life.
Young men are being taught this les
son now. and unless all signs are false
they will be taught it more sternly in
the future.
Without shedding of blood there is
70 remission. There has been from
the beginning a profound and solemn
witness in the human heart to this.
Many of the primitive religious ideas
are Gods deep preparation of the mind
and heart of man for the grand gos-
pei of Christianity, the substitution of
the Lord Jesus Christ for guilty sin
ners. This witness is embedded in
our language. What is meant by the
word "bless?" 1t is derived from the
Anglo-Saxon word for blood. We may
legitimately translate this by saying
that before we can truly bless another
human being we must shed our blood
for him. You can Tighten a brothers
a by cups of cold water, by small
gifts, by smiles, by friendly words,
and these things are great in the eyes
of Christ. But to bless in the SUI
p~erlative degree we must part with
life.
Doctrine of Atonement.
So the Eternal Son shed as it were
great drops of blood in G~ethsemane,
and offered himself immaculate to God
on the cross. We can never render
the doctrine of the atonement in terms
of human self-sacrifice and self-sur-
render. But the human analogies help
US, and, indeed, the doctrine Of the
atonement without them would be a
mere blank for our minds. So | seem
to see how it is that the simple re-
ceive and understand the plainest
preaching of the glorious truth of
Precipitation, and leap to it, while those
whose minds are oyerlaid with specu-
lation and what's called culture find
it difficult. Alas! we often see theo-
logians, even evangelical t~heologians,
using infinite evasions and subtleties
to d~isencumber themselves of the one
weapon without which the evangelist
can do nothing at all. But we know
that Christ's appearing would have
had no purpose and conducted to no
end, if he had not stayed long enough
with us to shed his blood in Geth-
semane and Calvary. To know what
our redemption cost him we must,
with the author Of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, look at Gethsemane as well
as Calvary, and even hen we do not
know.
Most Intense of Prayers.
But we do know something. We see
him in his extremity when he began
fully to understand the bitterness of
his cup. We hear him r his prayer
with strong crying and tears, IF it be
possible to let this cup pass from me-
That transeat calixi There is no
prayer like that, no prayer ever utter
ed with such intensity. The prayer
that is lifted when it seems just pos
sible that the cup may pass, and that
the pleading may decide it, Is in itself
a shedding of blood. We realize the
dim witness who heard afar the
broken meaning, the long sobs, who
witnessed the hard-won victory which
seemed a defeat, who could not watch
with him one hour. We know what
the strain must have been when there
came to his succor the Applying but
undimmed angel. If it had not been
that God made his minister a flame
of fire in hat darkness, could Christ
have conquered? The cup was not
taken away, but the prayer was an
swered, for his lips were made brave
to drink it. Perhaps they are right
who say that Gethsemane was the
GROWING point of our R~edeemer's suf-
ferings, though 1t was on Calvary that
he finished his work. / do not know.
He quivered for a moment on Calvary,
too.-Rev. w. Robertson Nicoll.