The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-02-18
Speculation US. Testimony
 An Answer to Dr. Percy s. Grant

Fly EoMoNDs BENNETT. D. D. Rector St. Johns Episcopal Church,
 Ensley.
 ~'fYe shall be witnesses unto Me- Acts is.
 The Christian religion is not a dis covery, nor is it system worked out by mems understanding and de- vice. It is founded in the unique per sonality of the one superman of his tory. called Jesus the Christ. A per sonality that definition cannot limit and so cannot adequately express. A personality so all comprehending in its excellence and competent in power wherever choosing to apply it that if Jesus, be not what those who adore him believe, and believing ascribe to Him in terms of deity, Pilates tor tured question Who art thou" re- mains not answered.
 A personality composite of all the clemens of perfection in every rela- tion. X perfection so godlike in it's completeness, that to worship in abandoned surrender is felt to be tribute to all that we know of God, and not derrogation from the prerog- ative of the supreme.
 So vindicated his T and my Father are One" that to mistake Him. If mistake it were, is itself tribute to the Father who begat and made him so like as to render any lesser ascrip- tion too little.
 That to me is Jesus Christ, Son of woman and of God.
 Dr. Grant is the victim of material istic and meaphysical confusion. The man who would destroy Jesus Christ must be competent to invent him first.
 What is the bedrock on which the ''witnes ss" stands?
 First-There i Is the conviction radi- ating from the personality itself be- cause of what is inherent in it.
 Second-Testimony
 Of that testimony, John George Romanes, contemporary and collab- orator with Charles Darwin. a lead ing scientific light of his period, says in one Q; his books: Tried by every canon of cirticiam, the testimony on which rests the historicity of the res UT recton of Jesus Christ is so well established that any man questioning tremendous issues involved"
 Too good to be true.
 o o o
 Modern Testimony
 w. ?. Gladstone and Arthur Earl Balfour. both of this generation,- and dominating politicians through long lives; subtle and analytical to an un- common degree, men ot easily im- posed upon or deiuded, wrote each a book, "The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture" and "Fhe Foundations of Belief" Just two of many. Intel- feet and belief are normal alliance. incredulity is not perspicacity.
 Testimony-Let us look at it, for .e 1. { lr ward in all record.
 "Ye shall be witnesses to me everywhere"
 This is how othey began and fin- ished:
 We men knew Jesus Christ. Three years we were in close companion ship with him. We heard what he said. we saw what He did and He was our instructor early and late.
 We saw him die. Our hopes were so shattered that in despair. we scat tered. We never expected to see Him again, although he had told us ex- plicitly that He would return within three days of His death. But He did come back, and we not only saw. spoke, walked, eat and drank with him. but companied with him 40 days. during which time He taught us Then We saw Him go up from our very midst as He was talking with us. Do you believe us?"
 Three thousand became disciples of the belief under the first ser mon, although they knew the man who preached 1t had denied Him be- fore His alleged resurrection.
 Vhe test of their own belief re- poses in the fact that not one of the witnesses ever went back on his tes- timopy or ceased to be busy with it until he died. Soon there joined their ranks the most eminent Jew of his time, perhaps of all times, Saul of Tarsus. A colossal man. Speaking of the Masters return from death, he testfies of contemporary witness, Afterwards He was seen of 800 at once. of whom the greater part are living now."
 That testimony has never been broken down nor the integrity moral or intellectual of the narrator suc- cessfully impugned. The apostles claimed to have originated nothing, they said We are witnesses of these things" And how well they bore witness is common Knowledge, and also that there was something about the occupation that refined them more and more. making the best kind of a man of each one of them. They were instructed to go unhaltingly into the known world. and they went ambassadorlikc. The gospel was not