The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1916-06-10
!: Pleasant Fields
!: of Holy Writ
COPYRIGHT, DAVID w. CLARK.

save Tor my daily range
Among the pleasant fields of holy writ.
! might despair. -Tennyson.
| Motto for this week: The Bible is the
Word of God with all of the peculiarties of
man and all the authority of God. Profess
sor Murphy.
Second Quarter. Lesson XII. Galatians vi.
Ito. June IL, 1916.
Sowing And Reaping.
In the third century B. c. horde
of Gauls from what is now upper
ly settled down and gave their name
to the district afterwards known as
Gallatia. In this main stock were
various elements, the original Phryg-
ian and the later Roman and Greek
and small colonies of trafficking
Jews. But the restless Gallo tenn
permanent dominated. When st.
Paul entered the region with his COS
pei it was accepted with proverbal
Celtic speed and fervor. But soon at
ter his departure the apostle learned
with sorrow that these mercurial
converts had turned to another COS
pei. They had fallen easy prey to
the hyphenated Christian fac
ton which taught that Gentiles must
| first become Jews before they could
be Christians. The object of this
epistle is to counterfeit this error,
break the witchery that the ceremo-
NAL law was having over his con-
verts who had never heard of it be-
fore, and bring them to a pure faith
again. The purpose of the apostle is
to restore them to the liberty which
they had when they first accepted his
message. The epistle is fairly Celtic
in it's vivacity, fervor and abrupt
transitions, and so is admirably adap-
ted to the temperament of the people
addressed. The apostle with it all
is careful to shrive himself from any
appearance of contempt for the law.
But he is equally careful to show
how subordinate all ceremony is to
faith as a means of salvation. He
reminded them of that Celtic enthu-
siasm which they had at first shown
toward himself, when coming to
them perhaps with his failing vision,
they were fairly ready to pluck out
their own eyes and give them to him.
Where now was that warm loyalty?
He must now even defend the validi
ty of his apostleship and describe
the course of his life to the present.
Then he cuts at once the Gordian
knot of the Jewish contention for the
perpetual and universal binding force
of the ceremonial law. He shows how
the patriarch Abraham was account
ed righteous by faith alone, as at his
time the law had not yet been given.
He proceeds to show the law as sub
ordinate and preparatory, and ex-
emplified in the allegory of Hagar
and Ishmael, and finally fulfilled in
Christ. He then sounds the alarm
of danger in reverting to the law.
The epistle closes in no mist of vague
theoriZing, but in clear cut exhorta-
lions based upon immovable argu-
ment which had preceded. Exempt
from the law, which was never de-
signed for them, why go back and
assume its obligations? Why not
stand fast in their exemption? Only
a caution must be given to these
warm-blooded CALI who had lived SO
long under the license of their i'm
pure ethnic religion. There must be
no indulgence of 1.-The flesh" That is
absolutely incompatible with life in
the Spirit. In closing the apostle
drops to particular advices calculat-
ed to preserve the harmony and pu-
rity of the Callahan church. Per-
sonal ambition and self-conscious-
ness are to be merged into the gen.
eral welfare. No one is to desire a
brother as one inferior to himself
Such a spirit must not even be in
dulged in by secretly envying anoth-
er. Out of the subjective realm of
the passions of the heart the apostle
now carries his injunctions to the OBJ
jective realm of actual deeds. Even
if man should be detected in an ov-
ert act, a manifest sin, the effort of
the church should be to cure not to
crush such an one. The liability of
the prosecutor to a similar offense
should beget humility. In place of
the old ceremonial law now effecte,
stands the new law of Christ, which
is efficient. The essence of this law
is love which makes itself efficient in
service. Brothers of Christ are to be
brothers of each other and fulfill the
fraternal obligation implied But the
individual does not lose his identity
in the mass of believers. Each is to
test himself to subject his motives
and deeds to the hot assay of self
examination. In that case he will
be glad not because some one ap-
proved him in insincere and ground
less flattery.
The Teachers Lantern.
The apostle does not hesitate to in
Ject in these personal advices the
practical duty of ministerial support,
saying in effect, eff a man has given
you the bread and water of life,
should you hesitate in the matter of
supplying him with bodily and tenn
poral food" But this is as if in par
enthesis and the apostle rushes on
with solemn injunctions with refer
ence to the spiritual life. Lord of all
harvests cannot be deceived or mock
ed. A man gets what he sows, that
and that only. Flesh, corruption.
Spirit, everlasting life. Great are
the encouragements to perseverance
in the cultivation of the field of the
spirit, and chiefest of them all is
the certainty of success. The apos-
tie flies back again to the collective
life of believers and esjoins the DUTY
while time and opportunity remain
of doing good universally, and par
ticularly to the common home of
faith. There is scarcely a more
striking example of the viscious di-
vision OF chapters in the Bible than
this. The force of the apostles ap-
peal is sadly marred and the trend of
his thought arrested by the artificial
division of the fifth and sixth chap
tiers. In the close of chapter fifth a
danger signal is flashed against pro-
voking and envying, essentially sins
against brotherhood of believers. It
is as if the apostle should say, 81
have warned you against too great
severity in disciplin of cases which
admit OF doubt" Now one must
pass over the artificial break in the
chapters to trace the connection of
the apostles thought. 1t is as if he
should say Il now go step further
in this matter OF church. discipline
and say that even if a man should be
detected in what is clearly an overt
act. even i'm Such casoc vo,,re q, -