The New York herald., 1922-06-18

tides come. bringing freshness of
mystery of death religion is always
found. AS soon as men began to think,
the fact of death has made them con-
scious of the mystery of God.
II do not know If there is anything
that keeps alive in the human breast
sense of God like DEATH Thousands
upon thousands who never darken the
doors of a church are held close TO the
central mystery by the ever present
consciousness of the brevity of life.
Conscience finds its sphere of
greatest activity in connection with
that central mystery. There is moth
conscience ask it's deep questions con-
cerning right and wrong. 1t is one
of those great, far sighted mysteries
that. keeps the world tolerably clean.
1t is greater than ecclesiastical sys-
TENS, greater than all dogmas and
definitions OF men. When men look at
death through merely ecclesiastical
eyes they strangely distort the vision
at times. Life beyond is spoken of in
terms of terror; they make death,
which is one of Gods mercies, to seem
Gods most terrible punishment. And
then they offer to men as some pallia-
ton for its terror a promise of Sc
curity that is founded upon rites and
ceremonies or upon definitions of
dogmas.
These three things-birth. mar
riage and death-are deeper than the
church, are of infinitely greater in
fluence than the church; keep men
close to the divine, keep men human
and sober. more than any ecclesiasti-
cal system can hope to do.
THE kind of church the world
wants and in a sense is waiting and
searching for is the church that
grows out of life. We are weary of
The interpretations of life which are
compressed and sometimes distorted
to fit the dogmas and institutions of
the church.
Let men live, let them first de-
eide what their view of life is what
their thought of God is and let their
church relationships grow out of that
That / think, is the objective towards
which we are feeling our way in these
strange days of ours. There are SO
many things bound up with our &C.
clesiastical life that do not seem to
ring true with our ordinary expert
ence. They seem to have been su-
perimposed upon life rather than to
have grown-out of it. I do not want
to mention those special things. / do
not wish to hurt anybody's senti-
ments. but l want to suggest for the
thought of your readers that so many
of those things about which we quar-
rel concerning the church are not the
things that are imbedded ir life. but
have been superimposed upon life.
when the Redeemer was here He
seemed to give no thought at all to
organizations, but just lived the full
est, grandest, most human, most di
vine life that ever was lived. He made
others to feel the reality Of life and
the lovableness of God. There is a
mystery about His very birth which
has touched childhood into a glory
that is unique. We can claim after all
that Christianity has thrown a halo
round children. He touched love to
the highest issues. He did not suffer
II to be bound up with the merely
sexual instincts. He broadened it out
and made it as wide as humanity. He
did say that God is love, but He also
said that all law is summed up in love.
He made the world beyond to be the
worlds greatest hope. He did not de-
fine it, He did not describe 1T, He in
sisted upon its moral character, He
made men feel that sin separated the
human from the divine in this world
and in the world to come.
"By that great mystery which sur
rounds His own triumph over death,
He taught the world as it had never
learned before that there would be a
final victory of right over wrong and
light over darkness. He made His
own death of shame to be symbol of
hope, He made His own rugged cross
to be more glorious than a throne.
He taught men that though the good
cause may be beaten down to the dust
it will win in the end. He created in
the human mind conception OF God
as the final arbiter between right and