Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-08-15
WITHOUT GOD
AND WITHOUT HOPE

the church can possibly be. For exam
pie, If a church proposes to amuse the
people, it cannot by any means compete
successfully with the dance hall and the
theater. When it goes into business of
that sort the wOrllld can Guido it, AMI
furnish far more attractive entertain
ments.
If the church undertakes to offer to
the people such music as that of the
opera, it enters a field where its worldly
competitors are far superior to it. When
men want the diversion furnished by the
opera they are far too sensible to- go to
the church for 1t. They know where
they can get the thing they want, AMI
they will not take second-rate stuff Of
fered in a church that is professedly set
apart for higher and nobler things.
In the realm of the spiritual the
church is absolutely solitary and SUI
preme, and in that sphere it can have no
competitor and it cannot meet failure.
But outside of that sphere it merits de-
feat and always meets it.
What American Christianity most
needs now is to call men back to God
Multitudes as just as ST. Paul described
the Gentiles of the first century; they
are without God and with hope" in the
world. To be without Cd is to be with
out hope. All the forces of the earth
drive men to despair. By every law of
nature the man who is once a sinner
must remain always a. sinner; and his
course is inevitably one that leads into
deeper sinfulness, and ends in utter
moral hellplessness The incoming Of
some supernatural force by which he
may be renewed in righteousness and
true holiness is the only possible stay to
hold him back from despair. Hence,
whenever men or nations have lost their
faith in God they have lost their hope in
life. Suicides multiply in proportion as
faith in God decreases. This is true
even when pagan faiths decay and
perish
When the Romans lost grip upon their
ancestral gods, suicides become shock
ingly prevalent, and the increase Of sui
cides in our own country points to a
loss of God in the souls of men. Nor
can culture arrest the despair which
ends in suicide. Culture only points to
the utter hollowness of earthly things,
and when the cultured intellect has lost
God and has discovered earth's hollow
ness, it reaches the conclusion that life
is no longer worth living and proceeds
to make an end of II.
Whatever we may say Of the Germans
we are bound to admit that in no other
nation has education been more general
and thorough, and yet 1t is a matter of
fact that in Germany there is prevalent
suicides among school children. How
pathetic is the case of a child who takes
his own life before the dews of youth
have dried upon his locks or the light
of childhood has died out of his eyes. 1t
is like the blighting of the flowers of
the springtime by an untimely frost. And
this sad phenomenon we see in Germany
Occasionally we see examples of it here
in our own country, and unless there
is a speedy and general revival of re-
ligion we shall see more of it. Neither
we nor the Germans nor any other people
can preserve hope in our hearts after the
knowledge of God has faded from our
souls.
Very profound is the meaning of st
Augustine's famous and pathetic excla-
nation. 20 God, Thou hast made us for
Thyself, and inquit are our souls with
out Thee! There is no rest for human
spirit without God. Neither rationalisrn,
nor ritualism, nor any other form CT
goddess religion can satisfy the DEATH
less yearnings of the heart. The Phari-
sees tried ritualism and the Sadducees
rationalism; but both Pharisees and
Sadducees fell down in fearful penitence
at the feet of John the Baptist when the
prophet of the wilderness called the
Hebrew nation to repentance by pro-
claiming anew the eternal verities of the
spiritual world. To the cry, THE King
dom of Heaven is at hand" men of all
classes came trembling to his baptism
of repentance. But when did a man or a
nation ever repent at the proclamation of
any of the kingdoms of this world?