The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1917-08-10
THE UNKNOWN GOD

Oou. w HOul therefore yG lgnOrauIly
worship. him | declare unto you"
| The Acts XVII, %.
st. Paul was at Athens, a city. even
then, renowned for its poets and phil
osophers. These philosophers taught,
and the people believed a religious
creed involving the doctrine of the
Immortality of the soul and the ex-
istence somewhere in the universe of
| a supreme creative being who ruled
the destiny of men and nations while
living on the earth, and fixed the
status for veal or woe of the soul
throughout all eternity when mortal
existence terminated To secure an
! immortal existence of peace and hap
| piness they believed it essential that
they should worship this omnipotent
! though unknown God. and faithfully
conform to all of the principles and
doctrines as taught by the religious
| philosophers, and among other things
! they erected affairs in public places
and made images to represent their
unknown god. Gathered in great
numbers around these affairs and Of
fered sacrifices. and engaged in many
ceremonial rites in order TO placate
and find favor at the hands of their
god; and SO it was, as Paul passed
by Mars Hill, where one of these al
tars had been erected. a multitude of
people were assembled there engaged
in their public devotions 1t was then
that he gave utterance to the Ian
guage of the text. and then, standing
in the midst of Mars Hill" he de
livered a splendid sermon in which
he revealed unto them who and what
the unknown God whom they wor-
shipped really was. and how he was
to be worshipped in spirit and in
truth through Jesus Christ. He open
ed up to them clear vision of what
had been a clouded and obscure view
of the Omnipotent God, whom they
in their ignorance had wOrshipped as
unknown. In that sermon Paul preach |
ed the fatherhood of God. the broth |
erhoOd of man, the offer Of salvation |
to all men and the resurrection from |
the dead. The first three propositions !
the Athenians seem to have assinl- !
Hated or at least to have accepted, as |
they did not appear to conflict great |
ly from the teachings of their philos- |
Ophers, but rather to enlarge, and en- |
abled them to see more clearly what |
had been before this seen as through |
a glass darkly" But when Paul |
spoke of the resurrection of the dead |
that wasasOmething their philosophers |
and poets had never conceived Of |
They taught immortal life. but it was |
not immortality of the soul as it left |
the body. They had never heard any
thing before that even awakened a |
line of thought touching upon the res |
of the body, SO that when !
Paul spoke of that some Knocked him.
while others said. I'VE will hear thee |
again of this matter" while certain
others 'clave unto him and believed"
The parable of the sower of the seed
was being verified-some fell by the
wayside, some on stony ground and
some on good ground. But we see
that before Paul's sermon at Mars
Hill, the Athenians felt in their heart
that there was an Omnipotent Being
who had created all things, and upon
whom man was dependable for all
that he enjoyed in this life, and that
beyond this life there was an immor-
tai life. and that in this eternal life
the soul of man was rewarded or pun
ished by this Great Creator for the
deeds done in the body. Their con-
ceptions of what and where this Gre
atOr was were vague and indefinite.
and so they worshipped him as the
unknown God, but they felt sure of
his existence, so they were moved to
seek after him. that happily they
might feel after him and find him
AS far back as the dawn Of history
we find that wherever men are found
they believed in and practiced some
system of religion and engaged in
some ceremonial rites which included
acriices-blood offered to
some supreme being to appease his
anger and obtain his good offices.
This being was and is believed to be
the author Of all things, and able to
create, control and destroy all things
in this life, and to reward or punish
the spirit in the eternal life after
death, for coupled with this belief in
a supreme being is also the belief in
the immortality of the soul. No mat
ter how ignorant, how savage, how
degraded, how low down in the scale