The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-01-26

creed; and for our belief in God; for
now we see it, not as the arbitrary
/ dictum of a council of ecclesiastics in
a barbarous age, but as the culmina-
/ tion of Gods revelation to man
throughout all the ages of mans up
ward struggle. We see our belief In
/ the Triune God as that precious jewel
that the world has striven for ages to
find. We see how the first dim gropings
| of man We're rewarded by a clearer
/ light. We see how every time and every
nation has made its contribution to
the content of our faith. We see the
creed then, and the God whom 1t pro-
claims, as the answer that a million
years of religious history have given
to the search for God. All of the Cod
ward striving of the race; all of the
prayers of the saints: all of the blood
of the martyrs; all of these have been
freely given that you and l might be
able to say with confidence, Il believe
| in God" This great truth is the un-
answerable argument against what is
sometimes called free thought mis-
called free thought for thought can
not be free, but must proceed in ac-
cordance with the laws of thought and
logic which are definitely establshed)
This is the great unanswerab1e argu-
ment against the so-called free thought
that would make a God for itself or
else deny God altogether that 1T sets
the judgment of a single individual up
against the unanimous verdict of every
page of the worlds history. We have a
faith delivered to us that comes as the
elimination of the search of all Cody
men of all time. 1t is a faith by which
millions have lived and in which mill
lions have died. 1t represents to us the
accumulated knowledge of man in the
realms of the spiritual and the divine.
and the man who sets his private judg-
men up against such testimony as
this may be sincere. but it is the sin
cerity of the hopelessly blinded egotist.
Such man is like the young soldier
who glanced down his regimental line
as they marched, and drew himself up
proudly, when he saw that every man
was out of step except himself
So far we have seen that belief in
God must precede any knowledge of
God, and that the belief that we have
come to us authenticated by the eX-
perience of countless men. throughout
unnumbered years. We have seen that
belief began centuries ago in real
ization by man of his need for God,
and how the persistence of that belief
in all ages has clearly shown the per-
sistence of the need. But what shall we
say when we meet men who no longer
feel the need? who show us how science
has taken the place of the God whom
men deemed necessary in more helpless
ages than this? And we do meet such
men every day of our lives. They tell
us that smokeless powder and modern
dreadnoughts guard us from our foes;
that agriculture and live stock raising
have displaced the Deity whom we in
voked for food and raiment They tell
us that they have raised lightning rods
instead of prayers to fend off the fury
of the tempest they say that man is
the master of his own fate and the
captain of his own soul. What shall
we say to men like this?
Still Savages at Heart
1t is a hard saying, and yet we must
speak it; such men are still savages
at heart No matter how gentle their
voices may be; no matter how con-
Ventiona1 their home life: no matter
how conventional the outward form of
their religion; If they find no need in
this twentieth century life for Chris
tian faith in God then inwardly and
spiritually they have not advanced, and
stand just where skin clad, cave man
ancestor stood; conscious only of the
need that makes us akin to the brute. |
If to such a man God has given an in
tellect; If to him God has given the
power to see the life of the world as
it actually is, then we can only say
that such man is steadfastly refusing
to use the intellect with which God
has endowed him, for no man with Il
working mind can look at the life of
the world, without an unanswered
question in his heart. Our social and in
dustrial problems all cry aloud for
belief in God.
Is the man more than savage who
can go through some of our factories
unmoved? Has a man civilized heart
who can see little children deprived of
their childhood, as they labor by the
thousand over flying looms, breathing
., 4 1, Ii,,t a
dust of death? Can thinking man be
unconscious of the worlds need, when
he wanders by night through the sluns
of a city and sees the living hells
that mans greed has made, and sees
the bloated men and sad-eyed women.
judged and damned even before death
has come to claim them? Can men see
so-called respectable men growing
rich by the eXhorbitant rent of ten
ement and brothel, where neither
health nor virtue can live, without feel
ing the crying need of a God to set
things right? Can men see innocence
betrayed and crucihed; purity nailed
to the cross of the passions of the
world. without feeling the need of some
power by whom justice will be donep
Can you see men and women of God
given powers wasting their lives in the
pursuit of power and pleasure, when
all the time poverty and human need
lie al tllelT very uOoIS anu are SpuIntu
from their path as they press feverishly
onward? Can men see the mad struggle
of life, with its joys and it's sorrows;
its loves and its hates; it's defeats and
its revenges without wondering what 1t
Is all for, and whittier it is leading?
Take savage from darkest Africa
and stand him in the midst of our So
called civilization, and the only needs
he would be conscious of would be the
physical needs He would ask for gaudy
clothes, and jeweled trinl<ets; he would
ask for brass bands and moving pic
lures; he would ask for food and drink,
and remain happy, only so long as he
remained savage These physical needs
supplied, he would know no need un-
til within him his spiritual nature was
awakened. And the Anglo-Saxon who
stands here, and calls himself happy
because he has food and raiment and
pleasure, may have a whittier skin than
he, but his inward nature is dark with
the shadows of spiritual death
Oh, the world needs God The world
needs God, as it never did before. 1t
breaks the heart of those who know
Him to see the world dying for lack
of Him, when He stands so near. The
church breaches God. because the
church knows that in Him is to be
found the answer to all these prob
lens with which the heart and soul of
men are so cruelty beset. The persist
ence of faith in Him has been due en-