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COPYRIGHT DEPOSE

Jesse R. Kellems.

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

AND OTHER SERMONS

BY

JESSE R. KELLEMS, A. B. (Orefcon), B. O. (E. B. U.)

A Minister of the Churches of Christ

WITH INTRODUCTION BY

GEORGE L. LOBDELL, A. M.f D. D.

"When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of fclory died, My richest &ain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride."

CHRISTIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION ST. LOUIS, MO.

Copyright, 1914, by CHRISTIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION

SEP 13 1915

0CLA41O676 *4i

DEDICATION

'T'O my father, Professor David C. Kellems, of the Eugene Bible University, and my mother, Louisa Flint Kellems, whose loving sacrifices have made possible whatever accom- plishment may have been mine in the service of Christ, and to my wife, Vera Edwards Kellems, whose beautiful Christian character and faithful love have ever inspired me to the highest endeavor, this little volume, the author's first, is affectionately dedicated.

Preface

At the earnest and frequent solicitation of my many friends made in my pastoral and evangelistic work in Oregon, Washington and California, I have in the following pages published in permanent form the four sermons which have been most kindly received in the various fields in which I have labored. Each message represents several years of careful thought and research. My apology for whatever inaccuracies may be discovered in the technique of expression is the rightful demand made upon my time by continuous service in the evangelistic field. In the effort to give each sermon in as nearly as possible the same words used in its public delivery, the popular style has been followed throughout the book.

I desire here to acknowledge my debt to those who have aided in giving to the work its proper form. To Professor John Straub, A. M., L,itt. D., Dean of the College of Literature, Science and Arts of the Uni- versity of Oregon, and to Eugene C. Sanderson, D. D., LL.D., President of the Eugene Bible University. I am especially indebted for their many kind sugges- tions relative to the first two sermons. For other helpful assistance I also gladly mention C. W. Jop- son, A. B., B. S., minister of the Church of Christ at Concord, California; George W. Brewster, B. D., minister of the Church of Christ at San Jose, Cali-

PREFACE

fornia, and Victor M. Hovis, A. B., minister of the Church of Christ at Lodi, California. I must also ac- knowledge my obligation for his help in many ways to James H. McCallum, my very dear friend, who was associated with me in my first year of evangelistic service as soloist and personal worker.

In the hope that this simple little volume may prove to be a blessing to those who read its pages, the author joyfully sends it forth.

Jesse R. Keixems. Nov. 30, 1914.

Contents

Page

Introduction 9

I. Glorying in the Cross 13

II. Heu, 47

III. The Divine Name 75

IV. The Miraculous Christ 105

Introduction

In Paul's second letter to Timothy he exhorts him to continue in the things which he has learned, know- ing from whom he has learned them, and he reminds him that from a child he has known the Holy Scrip- tures which are able to make him wise unto salvation, "through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

I am sure that the author of this book of sermons is like Timothy, mindful of his earliest teaching by a noble woman of God, who, from his infancy, yea, and even before he was born, prayed earnestly day and night that her son should be used mightily of God in declaring the wonderful gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. To his mother he is indebted for his inborn desire to preach the Word. Neither will he forget to credit his father with the splendid train- ing he received from early childhood in the art of presenting in the most attractive and forceful form, the great themes of the gospel, that he might be a suc- cessful winner of souls.

Responding readily to these efficient and godly teachers, he began preaching at the early age of fifteen years, and today, while still a boy in his twenties, he can rejoice with the thousands who have listened to his fervent proclamation of the gospel message and be- come obedient followers of King Jesus.

Realizing the value of great faith in the cardinal doctrines of the early church, he has labored faithfully

INTRODUCTION

to bring to his auditors the well established truths con- cerning the sonship of Jesus, and hence His power to fulfill His promises to dying men. His sermon, "Glory- ing in the Cross," is intended to stimulate faith in the essential fact of the atonement, without which our faith would be in vain. His sermon on "Hell" is a wonderful grouping of facts and logical arguments by Blackstone and other great men, showing the infallible proofs of future punishment, which punishment is as inevitable for the transgressor of God's laws as that night will follow day. Being early taught with the writer of Acts that, "there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," he has labored diligently to bring to the minds and hearts of men the wonderful name of Jesus Christ as the potent factor in the accomplishment of every divine purpose. Following this is the climactic sermon, "The Miraculous Christ," which exalts Christ among His brethren and reveals Him as God manifest in the flesh.

I have known this young author and evangelist from his early childhood and have watched his de- velopment until today, after a happy experience with him in one of the greatest meetings ever conducted in the history of the Stockton Church of Christ, I find joy in writing the introduction to his first book of sermons, and am praying that it shall go forth on its mission of exalting the Christ and stimulating faith in the hearts of all who read its live message.

G. L. Lobdeix, A. M., D. D.

Stockton, California, Nov. 9, 1914.

I

GLORYING IN THE CROSS

I

Glorying in tKe Cross

"But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Gal 6:14.

Those to whom this statement was addressed were a fickle, changeable people. With the hot, impetuous Gallic blood bounding through their veins, they were apt to be a people of moods; now enthusiastic, now plunged into the depths of despondency. Caesar re- lates that the Galatians, relatives by blood to the Galls, ancestors of the modern French, were an extremely credulous people; believing everything that was told them, no matter how absurd the story might be. Traveling men were ofttimes detained and requested to tell the experience of their journeyings. Becoming acquainted at last with the credulity of the Galatians, these traveling men enlarged and magnified their nar- ratives until at last they were telling marvelous tales, some of them utterly beyond the pale of possibility. Their listeners, open-mouthed, swallowed down every- thing that was said and believed it until another story was told them. With such a people, then, is Paul dealing in our text. Some Judaizing zealots had come from Jerusalem and had, by their smooth words, per-

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suaded the Galatian Christians that Paul was a false apostle and the gospel which he had with so much labor taught them, was an incomplete gospel because it refused to recognize the Christian religion as simply at sect of Judaism. Bitter was the anguish of Paul when he heard of their apostasy. In righteous indig- nation he writes unto them the letter from which our text is taken. The customary pleasant introduction with which he prefaces the major portion of his other letters is here omitted. He plunges at once into a ma- jestic vindication of his divinely received apostleship, and scathingly anathematizes anyone and everyone, even to an angel from heaven, who shall dare preach any gospel other than that which he has preached unto them. After his lucid exposition of the relation of the Law and Grace, in the concluding chapter of this, the most fiery of all his letters, he utters the splendidly loyal sentiment of our text, "Be it far from me to glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." The foolish Galatians may wander as they wish after strange doctrines, or chase, in their blind folly, delu- sive phantoms ; but as for Paul, for the cross he must stand and in the cross must he ever glory. Like a rock encircled by foam-crested seas he remains, while the stormy winds of doubtful doctrines lash to apostasy and ruin his children in that noble faith, "once for all delivered to the saints/'

One of the most universally recognizable elements of man's nature is his inherent desire to worship something. Every nation has its God. Individuals there have been, but never a nation of infidels. Every

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man worships something, whether he be willing to ac- knowledge that worship or not. If man receives no revelation of God, he will make for himself a god. If the true God is unknown to him, he deifies the in- animate objects around him. He is always striving to realize the character of God more fully. In im- patient desire to see God from closer viewpoint, the Israelites became apostate to their faith and "bowed the knee to Baal," or made for themselves an idol of gold. In his attempt to know God, and as showing his desire for worship, the Athenian filled Athens with thirty thousand deities, and then in fear lest any should have been overlooked, he erected an altar, "to the Un- known God." The African aborigine still fingers his fetish and mutters his prayer to the god within its hideous form. The turbaned son of India, and his brother of China, still philosophize, as did for cen- turies their fathers before them, concerning the axioms of Buddha or Confucius. On the dreary wastes of Arabia, as the blazing sun stands for a moment sta- tionary at the zenith, the Moslem, with face turned toward Mecca, murmurs his monotonous prayer to Allah, the supremely wise and good. The American Indian has sung of his Great Spirit and the happy hunting grounds, while his heliolatrous brother to the south has chanted his weird incantations and performed his strange rites before his god, the sun. The Greek has had his Zeus and Hera; the Roman his Jupiter and Juno. The sacred bulls of Assyria, the river gods of the Egyptians, the hideously carved totems of the Alaskan Indians are but still other ex-

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pressions of a tangible nature of the divinely im- planted desire in man to know God, to worship him, "to seek after him if haply they might feel after him and find him."

Today men worship various, and sometimes even to themselves unrecognized, gods. I have met men in my own experience who though they blatantly denied the very existence of the Christian's Jehovah, and though they claimed that they had no gods, were nevertheless the most slavish worshipers of deities of their own creation.

In a popular magazine one time appeared a cartoon which exactly illustrated the relation of men today to the strange gods which exercise such iron rule over the hearts of so many of them. A long line of pedestals stretched away into the distance. On the top of each stood an image. Over the heads in their order were written the names, Gold, Fame, Fashion, Family History, Nationality, Intellect and so on, un- til the names were imperceptible in the distance. Be- fore these gods kneeled hordes of adoring worshipers with outstretched hands and eager, bright faces. Oh, how mad is the worship of strange gods and how al- luring !

In this address it is our purpose to consider in de- tail some of these false objects of glory and to inquire into Paul's reasons for glorying in the cross.

I. False Objects of Glory.

1. Glorying in Men. — Hero-worship has been a sin of all the ages. Popular heroes arise and an ad-

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miring populace accords to them rapturous praise and burdens them with laurel wreaths. It was hero- worship that made Caesar a dictator; it was hero- worship that would have crowned Jesus a temporal king. As a beloved hero, Peter became the legendary first pope at Rome. It was hero-worship that shouted hosannas over Apollos and Cephas, Barnabas and Paul. It was the same blind admiration that generated the first seeds of division and discord in the Corin- thian church, where loving more his apostles and ministers than they did the Christ, they were heard to say, "I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas." (1 Cor. 1:12.) Hero-worship made Napoleon coun- cillor-dictator, then Emperor of France. Hero-wor- ship paved a path of glory for him across the sum- mits of the hoary Alps, crowned him with honor and victory beneath the frowning gaze of sphinx and pyra- mids, shielded and protected him from Russia's frozen plains, and received him with demonstrations of boundless affection in every hamlet of the Empire. No sacrifice on the part of even the smallest drummer boy in the ranks was too great for the "Little Cor- poral." Defeated, crushed, beaten back from the lines of red, like broken waves from the foot of granite cliffs, the white-coated squadrons of the old guard, though they could not surrender, could die and with the joyful shout on every lip, "Vive 1' empereur." For the love of one man France sacrificed her man- hood, prostituted her virtue and glutted herself to satiety with the blood of Europe, Africa and Asia. Upon the altar of an insatiate, wicked and impos-

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sible ambition she gladly offered her wealth, her honor and her blood.

While we shudder at the wholesale slaughters of Napoleon, while we, in our Anglo-Saxon superiority of blood, condemn the impulsive Frenchman for a blind hero-worship which would allow a Napoleon to lead him headlong into the sunken road of Ohain at Waterloo, are we, after all, free from this sin our- selves? Have we not exalted our military heroes and lauded them with praise many times closely akin to worship ?

If we are not glorying in our political heroes we glory in our preacher or our leader in religious work. Some people's faith is pinned to their preacher's coat- tail. Instances are numerous where upon the removal of a minister from one place to another, some church members who had been very devout and attentive upon every church service at once lost their fervor. The trouble with such people is that they are wor- shiping the preacher rather than Christ; they are glorying in men.

In writing to the Corinthian congregation, that church so addicted to the sin of worshiping the preach- er, Paul exhorts, "Wherefore let no one glory in men. For all things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things pres- ent, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." (1 Cor. 3:21-23.) In the first part of the same chapter in which he makes this statement he asks, "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as

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the L,ord gave to every man?" (1 Cor. 3:5.) In the first chapter of his first Epistle Peter tells us why we should not glory in men when he writes, "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower fadeth." (1 Pet. 1 :24.) Man is like the grass; he grows, flour- ishes for a little time, then the shades of death's night enfold him and he is gone. James asks, "What is your life? For ye are a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away." (James 4:12.) How soon is one man forgotten ! And compared with the whole race of man how insignificant is the life of one individual ! Hero-worship is a false object of glory because it prevents men from a full and com- plete reception of Christ, their only hope.

2. While some are glorying in men others are boasting in party or faction.

Paul might have done this, for he belonged to the mightiest sect among the Jews. He might have with- drawn himself in haughty grandeur from others and walked with the Pharisees alone. To be a Pharisee was in the eyes of his time, no mean distinction; and he might, with proper pride, have boasted of his af- filiation, but not one word of the kind does he utter.

Men today glory in their sects, their parties or their factions. There are instances where this spirit has even entered the Church of God. Ofttimes we find congregations divided up into different cliques formed along lines of family or social position. When- ever the clique spirit enters at the front door of a church the Christ Spirit departs through the back

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door. The two can never dwell together in harmony. The party or faction spirit is invariably provocative of heartache, strife and dissension. Paul says, "For whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal and do ye not walk as men?" (1 Cor. 3:4.) No faction church can live, for as the body without the soul is dead and useless, becoming a stench in the nostrils of men, so that church without the Christ spirit of harmony and brotherhood has be- come a dead carcass, an offense in the sight of God. The sooner such a church dies and is buried the bet- ter it will be for the cause of the Redeemer.

3. Another false object of glory is a sinful pride in family or nationality.

We love to boast of our connection with "the first families of Virginia" or of the fact that we are "sons and daughters of the American Revolution," or that we are "native sons and daughters of the Golden West." With profound satisfaction we talk of our "blue blood." To belong to an aristocratic family is with many the most glorious of all desires and ambi- tions. For titles and so-called noble blood we sell our girls to dukes, lords, counts and no-accounts of Europe's decrepit ari-stuck-up-racy.

To be a member of a noble Christian family, one honored and revered because of sterling character, is indeed a distinction not to be lightly esteemed. There should always be a just feeling of pride accompanying such honor. One so fortunate should ever put forth the most strenuous endeavors to exalt his family name by pure words and noble deeds. When, however, a

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family pride degenerates into a Pharisaical, aristo- cratic boastfulness ; when it builds itself into a bar- rier of caste ; when it becomes destructive of the demo- cratic brotherly spirit, then it is black sin. Aris- tocracies there are of blood, of fame, of wealth, of education, but the noblest of all is the aristocracy of character, and that one who can remember that his ancestors have been honest men, clean men, God- fearing men can delight himself with the conscious- ness that he belongs to the loftiest and noblest of all earth's great. Paul was descended from one of the most famous families of his race, yet he never men- tioned his family position, as an object of glory.

One other god that many worship is that one who bears the name nationality or race. By accident of birth, a matter over which they had absolutely no con- trol, they are members of an honorable race or citi- zens of a powerful nation. Paul might have gloried in his nationality and citizenship, for he was by birth a Jew, but by citizenship a Roman; a citizen of Tarsus, and Tarsus was "no mean city." Roman citizenship, with all that it implied, the protection of the mighty fleets and unconquerable legions of Caesar, the free- dom, the distinction, the honor, all were Paul's. But do we ever find Paul using his good fortune as an object of glory or boasting above his fellows? Never! In Jerusalem we do find him crying out before the Centurion as that officer is preparing to inflict upon him the terrible lash, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned ?" (Acts 22 : 23.) But this use of his citizenship was merely as a

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matter of self-preservation, and not an attempt to glory in it. Before Felix we find him saying, "I am standing before Caesar's judgment-seat, where I ought to be judged; to the Jews I have done no wrong, as thou well knowest. If then I am a wrong-doer and have done anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die; but if none of these things is true whereof they accuse me no man can deliver me up unto them. 'Caesarem appello', I appeal unto Caesar." This use of his right of appeal to the throne was not, however, for purposes of glorying in this most precious of all Roman privileges, but rather that he might be per- mitted to proclaim the glorious Christ message in the glittering palace of the emperor himself.

There can be no sin in a man having a proper pride in his nationality. One ought to be proud of his blood. Why, in my own case, if I were not Irish I would be ashamed of myself all the rest of my nat- ural life. And I have but little respect for anybody who is not proud of his race. What Englishman is there who does not feel a patriotic thrill at the ma- jestic strains of, "God Save the King," or what Irishman who cannot see the lovely scenes of the beautiful little green isle as the wailing, weird notes of "Come Back to Erin" are borne to him? Or what Frenchman is there whose blood does not run a little faster and his cheek burn as the martial music of "The Marseillaise" rings out, recalling deeds of glory and valor? What German is there who cannot see the crag-banked river of the Fatherland when his de- lighted soul expands to the crashing notes of "Die

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Wacht am Rhine?" or feel the hot war blood bound- ing through his every vein as he hears the ambitious music of, "Deutschland iiber alles?" Patriotism, love for the homeland, is innate in every human heart. The very sight of the national emblem or the music of the nation's hymn will inspire the grandest emotions of rapture and delight in the heart of the truly patri- otic, and will prompt him with the poet to say:

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself has said, This is my own, my native land?"

Certainly one of the sublimest of emotions is that patriotism which means a love of country and a fer- vent desire to make one's homeland better and nobler. When, however, that patriotism blinds us to the virtues of other nations and makes us unable to recognize their services to civilization, then it becomes narrow and bigoted and loses all of its beauty and power for good.

As Americans we have long cherished a feeling of racial superiority, an idea that we were rather the best people upon the earth, the acme of civilization, the highest attainment of all the ages of human ex- perience. In relation to ourselves we arrange other nationalities upon a perpendicular scale, with the Englishman next to us, then the German and the Frenchman, and at the bottom, underneath all of the rest, we place the poor Chinaman. Every American boy who has ever gone swimming well remembers that the first boy in the water was always an American,

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the next an Englishman and so on until the last, and he always wore a pigtail.

We should remember that others have done things as well as we. England has a larger navy than we and a greater Empire. Germany's Universities are more famous than ours and she leads the world in many phases of manufacture. France still dictates the fashions to our women, while Italy leads all in art and music. Even poor old China had lived a long life as an Empire and had evolved a high state of civilization long before we were even thought of as a nation.

The anthropologist, in his comparison of the vari- ous races, does not arrange them on a perpendicular scale, but rather on a horizontal ; for to him one race is just about the equal of another in native ability and in the services rendered to civilization.

I have often thought that it would be a splendid lesson for us if we could only see ourselves as others see us. If we could but get the other fellow's view- point sometimes we would not be so egotistical about our racial superiority. The following extracts from letters written by visiting foreigners will serve to show us their view of us.

A very cultured gentleman from India, a graduate of the University of Calcutta, once made a visit to San Francisco. As he walked the streets he experi- enced varied and strange sensations. His brilliant turban and generally peculiar attire provoked great amusement among the army of small boys which had quickly gathered about him. Without the least show

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of politeness they pelted him with stones and made sarcastic remarks about his attire. This hilarious and unexpected reception prompted the following statement in a letter to a friend in India :

"America is a strange country and the Americans are a strange people. Their treatment of the stranger is very harsh and inconsiderate. The little boys throw stones at you as you walk along the street and annoy you with impolite remarks about your clothing. Let us not, however, judge them too severely, for America is but a new country. When the American nation be- comes as old as India then we will expect that she will be at least partially civilized." — The view of the American as expressed by the gentleman from India.

A refined gentleman from Pekin, after an extended visit to the United States, sent the following descrip- tion of American customs to his people :

"The Americans are the funniest people in the world. They tear their food with pronged instru- ments like the wild beasts. They never use chop sticks in the cultivated fashion in vogue among us. In America the order of nature is changed and woman is exalted to a position of equality with man. Why, in America I have actually seen women dragged about the room in the arms of men and to the accompani- ment of very hellish music." — The view of the Amer- ican as given by the gentleman from Pekin.

A petty patriotism which causes us to regard other races and nations as our inferiors is in direct opposition to the very spirit of the religion of Jesus Christ. The King's command is, "Go ye therefore and

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teach (or make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world." (Matt. 28:19, 20.) In his interpretation of the Par- able of the Sower he says : "The field is the world." Just before his ascension we hear him saying as re- corded by Luke, "Thus it is written, and thus it be- hooved Christ to suffer, and that repentance and re- mission of sins should be preached in his name unto all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke 24: 46, 47.) Or again, the same message as given in Acts, "And ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my wit- nesses both in Jerusalem and all Judea, in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth." (Acts 1 :8.) In obedience to these words it is recorded of the dis- ciples after the persecution and scattering which arose over the stoning of Stephen, that, "those that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word." (Acts 8:4.) The invitation which they gave to lost and inquiring sinners by the authority of their Master was the one which he himself extended when he said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28.) Or "Whosoever will, let him come." The spirit of Christ was the glorious world-wide spirit of the story of the cross for all men. How grandly cosmopolitan are the words used in declaring this spirit. "All nations! Every creature! Judea, Sa-

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maria, the uttermost part of the earth ! All ye that labor and are heavy laden ! Whosoever !" Such ma- jestic words as these recognize no petty racial bar- riers ; no social walls erected by selfish party or caste. Most gloriously does Paul describe the whole con- gregation of those redeemed by the blood of Christ when he writes to the Galatians : "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is no male or female, for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:28.) In Christ all men are to be brothers, no matter what the color of their skin, the language which they speak or the social position which is theirs. It is the spirit which "Bobby" Burns so beautifully portrays when he exclaims :

"Then let us pray that come it may. As come it will for a' that — That sense and worth o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree and a' that. For a' that, and a' that, It's comin' yet for a' that, That man to man the warld o'er, Shall brothers be, for a' that."

Some men there are who glory not in those false objects which we have considered, but their god is the god of gold. They boast in their material pos- sessions. To such money is the only thing in the world at all worth while, so they prostitute even the nobler gifts of the soul, they bend every energy to the acquiring of gold and silver. As they continue in their worship so absolute becomes their bondage that many forget all else in their insatiate mania for the acquisition of the glittering coins.

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In France, years ago, an old miser was accustomed each night to shade the windows of his lonely moun- tain dwelling and with the light turned low gleefully count and recount the growing heap of golden coins which he had acquired by years and years of toil. As the days went by and the hoard grew, although he was far from the homes of men, still his suspicious heart was filled with the constant fear of discovery; so he descended into his cellar and there in the gloomy light of a tiny candle he would come every night for an hour of worship before his beautiful coins. But day by day the haunting fear grew upon him ; so he digged a subterranean vault under his cellar and secured it with a huge iron door. When the evening shades began to settle down upon the mountains, stealthily down into the dark vault would he go. The flickering rays of the candle wavered upon the great pile of yellow 'metal before him and a golden gleam flashed back, sending thrills of delight through his tense nerves. His eyes became hard and bright as he bathed his bird-like claws in the glowing mass. As the jingling circles slipped through his trembling fingers and rolled over his withered arms he hoarsely croaked, "Aha, my beauties ! My beauties !" Clang ! Like a thunder bolt hurled from the very courts of heaven the great iron door crashed upon him. Like to the rich fool of Jesus' day the voice of God seemed to thunder into his frantic soul, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee !" A few years ago beneath the ruins and rubbish of the old mountain castle the rusty iron door was found. When

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it was lifted from its decaying hinges, a terrible sight greeted the gaze of the horrified discoverers as they bent forward and with their lights entered the direful pit. One hand of the skeleton still clutched the glit- tering coins, the other held the remnant of a burned- out candle. From the heap of bones that topped the golden pile there flashed a baleful yellow gleam. It was the old, old picture of the ruin of one who had sacrificed his life and soul upon the altar of the heartless god of gold. Nothing but bones ! Nothing but bones !

Oh, man, insane with the love of money, crazed with the race for it, stay for a moment your mad rush and hearken to the words of him, who, though the heir to marvelous riches of all earth and heaven, could say, "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." Or, again hear him as he asks, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his life?"

As the hundreds lounged or danced upon the spacious decks of the proud Titanic, or as they drank or smoked in her luxurious barrooms, or chatted and laughed in her stately saloons, few of them were bothering themselves about the eternal things of God. While the great vessel sped swiftly over the calm, cold sea, they laughed and sang or talked and drank without even one thought of approaching danger. When the sickening crash came and with incredible rapidity it was reported from man to man, "We have struck an iceberg," they laughed and said, "What care we? We ride in an unsinkable ship. We are rich, and

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all that could be done to make us comfortable has been done ; all that luxury could demand is here. Let us return to our pleasures, for we are safe." It was not until the monster throbbing engines had been forever stilled by the inrushing hungry sea; it was not until the mammoth prow had begun to settle to- ward its last, long resting place, and the icy waves had begun to wash the broad decks that the band of that huge coffin of fifteen hundred lives played, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." In those last awful minutes they remembered God. Oh, how sadly their trust was misplaced! How disappointing, soul- damning is the blind worship of "the things which man possesseth."

There are some men who glory in intellect. They boast of their so-called learning, of their theories and philosophies. Paul might have done this, for he was one of the brightest scholars of his time. He had been educated in Jerusalem at the feet of the learned Gamaliel. But we do not find him glorying in this good fortune. Although thoroughly acquainted with the philosophies and so-called sciences of his time we find him writing to the Corinthians, "And I, brethren, when I came unto you came not with the excellency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I am determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified." (1 Cor. 2:1-2.) And he was ever firm in his decision not to glory in his worldly wisdom.

I have met men of the sophomoric age, otherwise known as the doubting age, who have said to me,

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"Mr. Kellems, there is no room for faith. With me everything must be judged at the bar of reason. If a proposition cannot be satisfactorily demonstrated to my intellect it will be impossible for me to credit it as fact. I never accept anything on faith alone." Time was when such a statement was supposed to be indicative of brilliancy on the part of the one making it. We are, however, in this age changing our opinion of the one who speaks in such terms. Every proposition which a man credits without him- self having seen it demonstrated is accepted on faith. Only those things can wTe know which we have seen; all others must be credited by faith. We believe that there was a revolutionary war because the evidence to support that belief is so conclusive, so unanswer- able that we must accept it. But it is because of our faith in the historical accuracy of the man who col- lected the material and compiled a history of that war which causes us to believe the accounts given. Some of us believe in the nebular hypothesis because we have faith in those who claim that they have demon- strated the truth of the theory to their own satisfac- tion. Illustrations of this type might be multiplied indefinitely, but these are sufficient to convince us that the vast majority of things that we unquestion- ably regard as facts are accepted because of faith. Having faith in some man who we think is more ac- curately acquainted with a certain branch of knowl- edge than ourselves, we accept his conclusions con- cerning those things which we have never investi-

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gated. Practically all of science, history, philosophy, etc., is accepted on faith.

And is there not a reason why we cannot demon- strate to our own minds all of these things? What ordinary man has time or opportunity for such demon- stration? We are so busy in this work-a-day world earning the bread we eat and the clothes we wear that we could not do it even if we would. As Emerson has so aptly described our life, "Things are in the saddle and do ride mankind." Because of the dominance of things we are forced to accept these things on faith if we accept them at all. The ma- jority of us have neither time nor opportunity to demonstrate them to our own minds.

Another makes the objection, "Mr. Kellems, the religion of Christ is so divided and sectarian that it is almost impossible for anyone to believe in it. What is he to accept as good and reject as bad from the conglomerate mass of creeds and beliefs calling themselves Christian?" In a word, a divided Christen- dom leaves no room for faith. But even though we acknowledge and deplore the sad condition of the church of God, yet Christ's redeemed are not so di- vided as the illustrious readers of science, and we still retain our beliefs in science. Division among scientists does not destroy our faith in science. A few instances illustrating these disagreements might here be in place.

In discussing the problem of the origin of life Sir William Thomson, before the British Associa- tion, said, "Life came from a meteor." His theory

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lived a year. Concerning the same problem Huxley- says, "L,ife originated from a sheet of gelatinous liv- ing matter covering the bottom of the ocean." His theory lived only a few months.

A few years ago the historians were unanimously agreed that Troy was a myth. Professor Schlieman's discoveries have blown up the myth theory and have established beyond a reasonable doubt that Troy was really a city and that the reported deeds of valor enacted there were at least partially true.

The temperature of the interior of the earth is estimated by some to be 1,530 degrees, by others equally authoritative 350,000 degrees. Herschel claims that the mountains on the moon are a half a mile high, while Ferguson says that they are fifteen miles high. Some authorities tell us that the height of the aurora borealis is two and a half miles, while others, equally famous in their field, claim that it is one hundred and sixty miles high.

Lyell says that the delta at the mouth of the Mis- sissippi was 100,000 years in forming, while General Humphrey, of the United States geological survey, estimated the age of its formation at 4,000 years.

If there is room for faith in science, even among the disagreements of men of science, is there not room for faith also in Christian teachings, even though sometimes Christian scholars should disagree, especially when that disagreement is in regard to mere trifles and not over those beliefs that are truly fundamental ?

But how foolish is this attitude which says, "I

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will accept nothing unless it is demonstrated in a satis- factory manner to my reason !" How little we really know and how little of the knowable can we com- prehend ! How inadequate is reason in the battle with some of the great problems of the universe ! We cannot comprehend the infinitely great, neither can we comprehend the infinitely small, When we at- tempt to explain some of these innumerable problems we stand confused and stunned.

Consider, for instance, Alpha Centauri, the star nearest to our earth. The astronomer tells us that it is twenty billions of miles away. Can one demon- strate twenty billions of miles? Can he close his eyes and think out or see that distance? We ex- perience difficulty, if we try to think out or demon- strate one hundred miles and when we say twenty billions we are simply uttering meaningless words. A man's intellect simply goes smash as does an tgg against a stone wall, when he trys to think of twenty billions of miles. What does this enormous number mean? Light traveling at the rate of 186,300 miles per second, which would mean that it would traverse the distance around the earth 7^4 times in a second, took 4y2 years in making the journey from Centauri to us. If some gigantic cataclysm should occur by which Centauri would be destroyed, we would not be conscious of its destruction until more than the life-time of a presidential administration had passed. If you wished to take a little journey to the star, and if you traveled at the rather rapid rate of sixty miles per hour, it would take you just 38,051 years to

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reach your destination. Can one reason these things out? Can one by his intellect master the magnitude of the distance?

The most distant star which our astronomers have yet discovered is estimated by them to be 5,000 light years away. A light year is equal to that number of miles which a ray of light would travel in a year. If you will multiply 186,300 by the proper figures you will find a light year to equal five trillions, eight hun- dred and seventy-five billions, one hundred and fifty- six millions, eight hundred thousand miles (5,875,156,- 800,000) ; multiply this number by 5,000 light years, the distance to the remotest star, and you will have twenty-nine quadrillions, three hundred and seventy- five trillions, six hundred and eighty-four billions of miles, or a number containing seventeen figures (29,375,684,000,000,000). If you wished to take a little trip to this star and you travel at the excit- ing rate of 100 miles per hour, in a little over thirty billions two hundred and two millions of years you would be there. Are we able by the puny power of intellect to grasp this distance?

The physicist tells us that a ray of light vibrates with quite a marked degree of speed. The exact number of vibrations per second has not been de- termined as yet, but it is somewhere between four hundred million millions and eight hundred million millions per second. There are a good many stars, planets and other heavenly bodies in the universe, as you will readily agree if you have ever tried to count them. Herschel claims that he counted 116,000

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stars as they passed before his telescope in a quarter of an hour. I knew two boys who got into a fight once and one of them in the mix-up saw 306,842,300 stars in one second !

The earth is quite old. Some geologists estimate its age at ten millions of years; others think that it is a thousand million. The most probable age is 35,000,000. A man 65 years of age isn't even an in- fant compared with the age of the earth.

We might go on and on, ad infinitum, multiplying a thousand illustrations of the great problems of the universe and then scarce exhaust the supply. Can a man understand them? Can he see them? When he tries his intellect becomes stunned and dumb. The expressions of these great problems are to the ma- jority of us mere meaningless phrases.

But consider some of the problems presented by some of the smaller objects of this earth. Once I entered a laboratory and under the lens of a microscope I placed a single drop of water. As I looked a thrill of delight shot through me, for there before me glistened a great pearl, more beautiful beyond com- parison than anything I had ever seen before. I changed the slide, placing it this time under another and more powerful microscope, and as I gazed I fell back in astonishment, for there before me lay a com- plete world. A thousand living forms sported in the limpid depths; perfect organisms they were in a realm all their own. As awe-struck I looked, I won- dered, "Are they perplexed about questions of law and government, capital and labor, church and state,

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as are we ?" Suddenly from behind a great rock there emerged an animal larger than his companions, and with his great tusks be began to kill and devour the terrified inhabitants around him. Beholding the battle I smiled and said to myself, "The old, old law ob- tains here, I see, the law of the survival of the fittest." I wonder if all the drops of the millions of cubic miles of water upon this earth were added to my drop un- der the microscope how many animals or insects or bugs or microbes would we find living, eating, fight- ing, dying as their so-called big brothers, men ! How many do you suppose you swallowed this morning, and with relish, when you partook of that dainty breakfast which the wife prepared with so much care? Oh, we might continue forever telling of the problems, but can we understand them ? No ! No ! A man can spend a life studying leaves or rocks and then only dip into the sea of those things which might be known about them.

Why should a man glory in his intellect? What does he really know? What is mind? What is mat- ter? Why, we do not know even the substance of things ! John Stuart Mill tries to define mind as, "The permanent possibility of sensation." A very fine and lucid definition. "The permanent possibility of sensation!" It reminds one of Mark Twain's defi- nition of a Kansas cyclone. He said that a Kansas cyclone was "an acute disturbance of aerial molecules which is injurious to animal life." Goethe despairs of defining mind or matter singly but slays, "Matter can never exist and be operative without spirit, nor spirit

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without matter." With Goethe agrees Schleicher, "There is neither matter nor spirit in the customary sense but only one thing, which is at the same time both." The late Professor Clifford ludicrously at- tempts a definition of matter in the terms, "Mind- stuff," and Alexander Fairbairn, in his "Philosophy of the Christian Religion," well describes the attempt as, "despairing, but descriptive." The noted Profes- sor Bain, agreeing with Goethe and Schleicher, says that matter and mind constitute "one substance with two sets of properties ; two sides'', the physical and the mental, a double unity." One learned doctor says that matter is a combination of molecules which bump together. But what is a molecule? Oh, a molecule is "the smallest quantity of an element or compound which can exist separately." But that does not define a molecule, and if we are unable to define a molecule we can't possibly define the substance of matter. Such a definition as this is the same as if one were to describe or define the word "mule" as "a long-eared quadruped with active heels and a re- sounding bray." What is a book made of? The chemist tells us that it possesses so many parts oxygen, so many of hydrogen, etc., but that does not tell us what it is. The substance of mind and matter we cannot explain. In our definitions we tell how mind acts or describe the appearance of matter, but we fail and are at sea when we try to define the sub- stance of either. About the be9t definition I have ever heard was the one given by Professor Edmund S. Conklin, Ph. D., of the department of philosophy at

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the University of Oregon. He said, "Mind and mat- ter are simply terms applied by us to phenomena the substance of which we cannot comprehend."

And yet knowing so little of things as men do, will they boast and glory in the power of intellect. Let him possess a sheepskin tied about with a yel- low ribbon, and a man is a being of the most profound learning. Why should we boast of what we know when what we do not know is of such magnitude that merely to think of it is enough to stun the intellect? How finite we are, and how fallible is the mind ! How absurd is the learning and pride of man when com- pared to the knowledge of God! Paul wonderingly writes to the Corinthians, "The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (1 Cor. 1:25.)

II. Why Paul Gloried in the Cross.

Why did Paul glory in the cross, that blood- stained instrument of execution and agony ; that which was to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks fool- ishness ? Paul was a forward-looking man. He could see beyond the pride, the egotism, the terrible im- morality of his day and behold the eternal things of God. Spurning worldly ambition, pride of intellect, the so-called learning of men; he boasts he places his glory in that horrible object of suffering and death which crowned Calvary's mountain. "God for- bid," or "far be it from me to glory save in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ." And why, oh, battle- scarred veteran of the King?

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1. Because, in the first place, the cross is the manifestation of divine character. It is only in the light of a blood-dripping cross that we can begin to understand in a measure the statement of Jesus, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not per- ish, but have eternal life/' "God is love," but never had man known truly what love meant until he was willing to make heaven lonely to redeem a world groaning in awful bondage to sin. The picture of the dying Lamb in those moments when the Father, un- able to witness the agony of his son, turns his face away, leaving the heart-breaking scene in darkness, is a declaration to all the world and for all time that our God is a Father of love.

2. Then also Paul gloried in the cross because it is the measure of Christ's love. Jesus said, "Great- er love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:15.) But he gave his life not only for his friends, but for his enemies as well; those who cursed him and rejected him. I love to see my Saviour as he weeps at the grave of Lazarus or as he sits on the hill overlooking Jeru- salem and cries out over the sin of his beloved city. I love to see him as he restores the leper or raises to life the widow's son at Nain. The sight of him bless- ing the little children is another evidence of his beauti- ful tenderness. But of all scenes of earth, that tragedy on the summit of a quaking hill, when the Master of this world, the Prince of Heaven, hung in shame between two thieves, with a prayer of for-

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giveness for his enemies upon his dying lips, is the sublimest, the most magnificent of all. A Saviour of love, a Redeemer of infinite compassion was he.

Again, Paul gloried in the cross because of its power. No more powerful story has ever been told than the story of the cross. To touch hearts, to change lives, to ever be the instrument of the putting away of sin, has been its God-designed purpose. To lift up the drunkard, the adulterer, the man of sin wherever found, has been the accomplishment of the story of Calvary's Cross. The Master truly said, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself." (John 12 :3.) For wherever that story is told of the Saviour lifted up from the earth on a Roman cross, men weep in sympathy, turn in disgust from their sins and joy- fully follow Him. What a glorious symbol of power is the blood-spattered cross !

3. Lastly, Paul gloried in the cross because of its eternal character. With farsighted, God-given vision, he could look down through the tumultuous, changing ages and see the triumphant cross an eternal verity amid the chaos and ruins of man. Far out in the gleam of its flashing rays his eyes pierced through the fogs and gloom of ignorance and superstition, sin and sorrow, and saw the joy and peace everywhere abounding because of the story of the cross. And has it not been the one abiding, unchanging fact of the ages? Where are the proud Athenians, those sneering philosophers, whose mocking smiles greeted the words of Paul; those to whom the preaching of the cross was but foolishness ? Gone ! Into the eter-

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nity of God they have passed and their philosophies and astrologies, so boasted and dominant as world wis- dom, remain but a memory in the minds of a verv few. Verily spoke the Apostle more correctly than he knew when he said, "God chose the foolish things of this world that he might put to shame them that are wise, and God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame things that are strong; and the base things of the world and the things that are despised did God choose, yea, and the things that are not, that he might bring to naught the things that are, that no flesh should glory before God." (1 Cor. 1:27-30.)

Eternal is the cross ! Where are the glittering despotism of Assyria and Babylon which flourished amid pomp and splendor beyond the purple hills of Palestine? Where are the proud empires of Alex- ander or the Ptolemies? Where are the mighty le- gions of the Caesars, at the thunders of whose tramp- ling a world trembled and was dumb? Where are 1be avalanches of Napoleon? Wrecks and ruins, heaps of dead stones and countless graves tell the age-old story of the end of the pomp and pride of man. But above the wrecks of empires and philoso- phies, above the shifting chaotic sea of history, shin- ing, gleaming, beckoning on, like the star of hope and life, stands the glorified, eternal cross of our victorious Christ.

As the weary centuries roll on, as the stars of a thousand civilizations rise and wane, until that day when over the eastern hills shall gloriously dawn the

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morning of eternity, the cross shall lead on, and shine on, and plead on the marvelous, undying symbol of divine mercy, love and hope.

Amid the raging seas of life when storm-crested seas shall dash my bark of Faith toward the jagged rocks of doubt or on the scorching plains of tempta- tion, when my grip on right is slackening, or when the black waters of that deep ever-flowing river roll over my tired head and sweep me toward that glisten- ing shore, whence have preceded me innumerable millions, blood-washed in the fountain of Calvary's Cross, when mine eyes shall for the last time close upon loved forms and faces, as my soul shall upward wing its triumphant flight to the battlements of God, help me then, my Lord, to sing —

"In the Cross of Christ I glory

Towering o'er the wrecks of time. All the light of sacred story,

Gathers round its head sublime. When the sun of bliss is beaming,

Light and love upon my way, From the Cross new radiance streaming,

Adds new luster to the day.

"When the woes of life o'ertake me Hopes deceive and fears annoy, Never shall the Cross forsake me, Lo, it glows with peace and joy."

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HELL

II

Hell

Text: "Law is a rule of action. In the fourth or vindicatory part of Law consists the main strength or force. Where there is no law there can be no wrong or violation; where there is no penalty the Law is null and void. The principles of right and justice are fixed and Law is merely an expression and definition of these rules and the naming of the penalty for their violation." — Blackstone.

The age in which we live is one characterized by an effort on the part of many to ignore the great eschatological teachings of the Word. With some, this spirit has become so marked that they deny even the very existence of Heaven and Hell. Those who by nature look upon the beautiful things of life, those whose lives are environed by luxuries or by the pro- tecting care of loved ones, will, as a rule, consider the subject of hell with a certain degree of abhorrence. But if such a place or condition exists, whatever the term used in designating it may be, it certainly be- hooves us as intelligent men and women to face the facts just as they are and give them in our preaching and in our thinking that emphasis which is by right their due.

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Now if hell should exist, let us console ourselves here in the beginning of this sermon with the knowl- edge that there is no necessity for any man or woman, to whom has been granted even the most ordinary degree of intellectuality, going to that place. God in his unfathomable love and mercy has prepared the way of escape. In his son Jesus Christ and because he has so loved the world, he has granted full and free pardon for all who will receive it and that par- don is the only sure hope of man avoiding hell. Even* sinner that goes to hell walks over the body of Jesus Christ, tramples "the blood of the covenant" under his feet and passes unconcerned by the cross which, as a flaming beacon, stands squarely in the way of even' Perdition-bent individual. If you go to hell, my sinner friend, don't blame God or his son. Everything that divine love and human suffering could do for you has been done, and if you are lost you can blame yourself and yourself alone. Not only has God fortified hell against you by placing the cross of Christ in your way. but he has made the conditions upon which you may obtain his pardon so plain and so easy that there is left to you no excuse for refus- ing to accept them. Thus not only would a man's going to hell be against all love and mercy, but it would be against all reason, for the way of salva- tion is so plain and easy that "the wayfarer, even though a simpleton, cannot err therein."

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HELL

ARGUMENT.

I. The Existence oe Hell.

Man has universally been conscious of sin. The black monster has coiled his foul length around every heart. The three thousand of Pentecost cried out in agony of soul, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" The Philippian jailer, trembling with fear, prostrated himself before Paul and Silas and asked. "What must I do to be saved?" Paul, in the throes of the world- old battle against the, by human strength alone, un- conquerable adversary, exclaims, as its horrible stench tills his nostrils. "Oh. who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Sin is here, around us, among us, and in us. Some there are who would make effeminate the meaning of sin by calling it merely a disease, thus doing away with any respon- sibility of man to God for his transgressions. With such, no longer is the one who purloins your property, a thief, but a kleptomaniac, who, by a surgical opera- tion, may be healed. Xo more is the one who be- comes a besotted beast through the long use of in- toxicants, a drunkard and one "who shall not inherit the Kingdom of God;" but with them he is now an in- valid who may be cured by cutting out his desire for drink. But the Word knows not sin in this new dress. Sin is sin and "the soul that sinneth it shall die." Neither has the universal human consciousness accepted this weak view, but it has decreed, after centuries of experience, that sin is transgression of

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law, and as such is hateful to God, and soul-damning to man.

There is no use for anyone to try to deny the ex- istence of sin. It is here in all its myriad polluting forms. The marble shaft of the cemetery as it points toward the sky is a mute witness to the existence of sin. The pages of history, written with the blood of a thousand nations, no longer existent in the mem- ory of man, testify that sin is here. The roar of the cannon, the whiz of the bullet, the horrible crash of shell, the shrieks of the wounded and dying, are only the expressions of sin in man. Why, if we intro- spect our own hearts, we will find the blights and scars of the monster there ! The greatest and most easily recognizable fact of our life, here and now, is the fact of sin. Labor and capital, army and navy, tenderloin districts, slums, child labor, penitentiaries, electric chairs, saloons, jails and mad houses, what are these, and a hundred other kindred terms, but the names of problems, conditions and institutions made possible only by sin.

But the consciousness of sin presupposes some- thing antecedent to sin, namely, law. "Where there is no law there can be no wrong or violation," the state- ment of Blackstone in our text might be conversely stated and still be equally true, "Where there is no wrong or violation there can be no law" for the very existence of sin presupposes the existence of law. John defines sin as the transgression, or the stepping over, of the law ; thus if there is no law to step over, there is no sin. For instance, if there be in the uni-

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verse of God no law against murder, lying, stealing or committing adultery, it is no sin to murder, lie, steal or to commit adultery. The existence of sin always means that there is a law to sin against. Therefore co-existent with the fact of sin, the fact of law must be recognized.

For the purposes of this discussion, let us divide law roughly into two divisions, (1) Civil law, or that of the nation, state or municipality, and (2) moral law, or that which even though it may be em- bodied in the civil law is nevertheless differentiated from it by its subject matter. To these divisions for purposes of illustration, might be added a third, the limits of which are not always easily defined, namely, natural law or that by which God governs and con- trols the universe. The spheres of these divisions en- croach upon one another to such an extent that they may appear to be somewhat arbitrary, but for the purposes for which they are here employed they will be found to be adequate.

Thus far we have taken two steps in our argument, (1) The existence of sin was established and (2) coexistent with the existence of sin the fact of law was acknowledged. Inseparably connected with these two ideas is a third, and one which must ever be thought of when either of the others come to mind. This next idea or step is, Penalty. Our text reminds us "that where there is no penalty the law is null and void." For illustration, if there is no penalty attached to the law forbidding murder, then that law, by virtue of the very fact that no man is

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ever punished for breaking it, becomes "null and void," or worthless. If the state has a law against stealing, yet when a man steals it says to him, "Go thy way in peace; we will do nothing to thee," that law be- comes "null and void," or, in short, ceases to exist. A law without penalty attached for its violation is in- conceivable, for the absence of penalty will kill the law, or cause it simply to become non-existent.

Xow, if we examine some of the so-called "laws of nature," we find our statement on the insepa- rability of Law and Penalty strikingly confirmed. God's natural laws always have penalty attached for their violation, they always reward the obedient and sternly and unsparingly punish the transgressor. For illustration, let us suppose that a man jumps from the roof of a ten-story building. He will not fly off into the air, as do the birds, but will be dashed to frag- ments upon the pavement below, a victim of the penalty attached to the law of gravitation. If it were not for this penalty the law of gravity would be non- existent. It is the very fact that a man is killed when he disobeys it that makes it a law to him. It makes no difference what a man may think about it, whether he may like it or not, the law is absolutely impartial in its working. Man may obey or transgress, just as he desires. If he obeys, he will be rewarded; if he transgresses he will incur the inevitable punishment.

The law of native element also illustrates the harsh but indisputable fact of penalty. Suppose a man, tir- ing of the humdrum life of this work-a-day world, decides to become an amphibian. But let him try

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as he may he cannot become a fish. Water is not his native element and he discovers if he attempts a life therein, that he will meet a fool's death, for death is the penalty attached for the violation of the law of native element.

In our partition of law into its three large divi- sions, we mentioned one as, Moral Law, which, even though it might be included within the body of the Civil Law, was nevertheless differentiated from it by the subjects with which it deals and the circumstances of its origin. This law began with God. Some legislative body may have said, "Thou shalt not kill, or thou shalt not steal," but that did riot make it wrong to kill or steal. These things were wrong long before legislatures or parliaments, courts or sys- tems of government were in existence. Man has al- ways felt that the doing of these things was sin. Con- sciousness of these great moral laws as not emanating from himself, but as God-wrought and God-given, has ever been one of the most precious heritages of the race. Precious indeed, for only in their uncom- promising light can man correctly regulate his con- duct toward his fellows ; yea, he would not even know how to deport himself at all were it not for their projection into his consciousness, and that by some external power. We might even go farther than the affirmation of the existence of this consciousness and say that all of our conceptions of the finer things in life; of honesty, virtue, marriage, fraternity, are founded firmly upon our conception of these very moral laws of God. Upon our attitude toward these

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finer things is based our civil law, regulating mar- riage, protecting virtue and defining man's duties to- ward man. Thus in reality our civil law itself centers around, or is based upon, the clearness with which we comprehend the great moral law. Long before the law had been forged into commands amid the mutterings of Sinai, even in that time when the first family inhabited the vales of Eden, this consciousness of right and wrong was present. When Cain, in that hellish fit of jealousy, with foul hands had slain his trusting brother, in horror at his deed, as the realiza- tion that it was sin in God's sight came over him, he brazenly inquires, "Am I my brother's keeper?" To deny the presence of these laws in the world would be to destroy the foundations of our institutions; it would be to divorce man from those splendid qualities which so clearly lift him above and beyond the realm of the brute.

In our discussion thus far we have noted that disobedience to civil law always brings its reward in the form of penalty, but if there be no penalty at- tached the law is always null and void. Also in the case of God's natural law we found that law apart from penalty was an idea, inconceivable. Now if it be true in every case that can be found that, "Where there is no penalty the law is null and void," then these great moral and spiritual laws formulated and commanded by the Father, must, if they retain their character as laws, have penalties attached for their violation, or they are null and void. If they have no penalty, then it is no sin to murder; neither is it

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morally wrong to lie, steal, or commit adultery. It is not a sin to cheat or maltreat one's neighbor, for if there be no penalty, then there is no law ; it has be- come null and void. If there is no law, then there can be no wrong, for, "where there is no law there can be no wrong or violation." That penalty attached to the moral and spiritual laws of God; that retribu- tion which comes as the inevitable reward of sin; that pay day, to which every transgressor must come; that is hell.

Therefore, as a conclusion of the point concerning the existence of hell, three powerful and utterly in- disputable facts must be readily recognized by even the most indolent intellect, (1) if there is no hell or penalty, then there is no law, for, "law without penalty is null and void." (2) If there is no law, then there is no sin, for, "Where there is no law, there can be no wrong, or violation." (3) If there is no sin, then there is no moral or spiritual responsibility; there is no need for moral or spiritual reformation, and our manifold institutions which exist for the avowed end of making men better, our churches, our schools, our Y. M. and Y. W. C. A.'s, our asylums, our missions, our W. C. T. U/s ; these, and a hundred others, kindred in character and purpose, have be- come utterly foolish and worse than useless.

In a sentence, then, to deny the existence of hell is to deny both the existence of sin and of law.

"But," says one, "even though I accept the facts as you have produced them, I cannot see how God can be just and condemn a man to hell." The trouble

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with many people is that they do not comprehend the meaning of the term, justice. An illustration will make it clear. Suppose a law in this state against horse-stealing, with a maximum penalty of two years in state's prison for the first offense. A man thor- oughly acquainted with the law, and knowing well the penalty, having carefully planned the theft, de- liberately steals a dozen horses. He is captured, brought to trial and convicted of the crime. Now, justice demands that he be imprisoned for two years in the penitentiary. He knew the law; he knew of the certainty of the punishment if he were captured. To suffer the penalty attached to the law prohibiting horse-stealing, which he has deliberately violated, would be plain, simple justice. Is it in any way un- just that he should suffer the two years in prison? Who is responsible for the punishment which is in- flicted upon him, the law or the law breaker? You answer, "The lawbreaker." Then, if he is re- sponsible, he is also accountable, and simple justice demands that he suffer the penalty. To receive justice is simply for a man to get what is rightfully coming to him.

But, now let us suppose that the governor of the state comes to the man and says to him, "Because of the helpless condition of your good, old Christian mother, and because you, as a son, owe her your support, I am going to give you a pardon. Take it, and you are free." The pardon in this case would not represent the justice of the state, but the mercy. Let us suppose, however, that the man under penalty, or

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HULL

justice, calmly folds his arms, and after looking at the governor for a moment says, "I don't want your pardon, and I won't have it." Such an astonishing and uncalled for action as this would simply mean that he has spurned the mercy of the state as vested in, and offered by, its chief executive. Its mercy having been rejected, what could the state do? There would positively be nothing that it could do, for it could not be merciful to the one who refused to be a recipient of its mercy. There would be nothing left to the law-breaker save to suffer the penalty of his crime. The state did all it could for him in offering him mercy when he deserved justice.

In the Word of God, and by our own consciences, we are taught that we are sinners before God ; that for our innumerable transgressions we have fallen under the penalty of God's laws. There is universal recognition of this terrible fact, for all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. But, and oh, how glorious is the thought, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- soever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." The Father found us lost, condemned and in ruins. We were without light, without hope. Penalty hovered loweringly over us. Had we suf- fered that penalty it would have been just, for it would have been well deserved. But the Father, because he so loved us, granted unto us his mercy, his pardon, in his Son Jesus Christ. The sweat and blood of Calvary represent the penalty being suffered for us that we might receive the pardon. It was not

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because it was just that Jesus died, but because of love, that we might have mercy. Now, suppose a sin- ner, one under penalty, calmly rejects the pardon of the Father, saying, "I will have nothing to do with the Christ.,, He thereby spurns the mercy of God. Then how can the Father be merciful to the one who will not accept his mercy? If a man will not take the pardon there is nothing left but for him to suffer the justice. God cannot be merciful, but can only be just to the one who refuses his mercy. The writer of the Hebrew letter recognizes this when he says, "A man that hath set at naught Moses' law dieth without compassion (mercy) on the word of two or three witnesses, of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy who hath trodden un- der foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an un- holy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of Grace." (Heb. 10:28-29.) The old law represented strict justice; the new law justice tempered with mercy. Heaven has done all for man that could be done, even to the offering of a pardon, when man in his guilty state was deserving of nothing but justice. To reject that pardon is nothing more or less than spiritual suicide.

II. The Proof that Hell Is Future.

We are not only interested in the question as to whether or not hell exists, but after demonstrating this to our satisfaction we want to know when it will

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HULL

be, or the time of its existence. Is hell to be here or hereafter? is the question. Now, if we can dis- pose of all theories, which in any way claim that hell is here and now, we shall have established our point that it is future by eliminating all other possibilities. Thus a careful survey and searching analysis of three theories are indispensable before any direct argu- ments can be adduced for the futurity of hell.

1. The first theory maintains that the pangs of a guilty conscience constitute all the hell there is. Says one, "When I do right my conscience is clear, and in that I possess such a conscience I am re- warded for my goodness. When I do wrong my conscience hurts me, and I am punished with re- morse and sorrow because of my wrong-doing. Thus my conscience becomes a hell to me when I sin."

It is a well-known fact to all that the oftener one does a thing the easier it becomes to do that thing. The first efforts are always accompanied with more or less difficulty. The first movements of the pupil trying to learn to play the piano are usually awk- ward and labored. Consciousness interposes itself every time a finger touches a key and says, "Do this" or "Do that." As time goes on, however, through constant and faithful practice, useless movements are inhibited, consciousness ceases to direct as to de- tails, and the keys seem almost to play themselves. Analagous to this familiar illustration is the play o: conscience in the moral life of the individual. When a sin is first committed difficulty invariably attends. Conscience intrudes and whispers, "Don't do this or

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that," but as the sin is frequently and regularly com- mitted these whisperings grow fainter and fainter, until conscience is inhibited and the sin, attended at first with such difficulty of soul, finally becomes habitual. To state it briefly, the more a man sins the less conscience he has about sin. This being true, then the worse a man is the less hell he gets, if one accepts the theory that conscience is all the hell there is.

Now there are some people whose consciences, through constant training, have become so acute that even the most trivial sin will cause them to experi- ence the most severe anguish of soul. To the first man the blackest sin in the whole category will not bring one pang because his conscience has become seared as with a hot iron; while in the case of the second the slightest wrong-doing will cause multifold miseries. Therefore, according to the conscience- hell theory, the more spiritual, moral and righteous a man becomes, the more hell he gets, and the more debased and depraved he becomes the- less hell he gets.

It should also be noted that if conscience is a man's hell it must also be his heaven, for heaven and hell both stand on the same authority in the Bible and in the light of reason. As a rule, however, those who believe in this theory do not make it apply to heaven. The theory is thus one-sided.

2. A second theory claims that we get our hell here upon this earth. Every time we sin we will be punished for it here. As far as the Scriptures are

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concerned, if this idea be correct, then we will get our heaven here also. But one thing is as a rule noticeable, and that is the fact that those who believe that all the hell the sinner gets he gets here, usually firmly believe that heaven is hereafter. As we have before remarked, heaven and hell stand upon the same authority, both in the Scriptures and in the light of reason; so if we get one here we will get the other also.

As we study the multiform conditions of life we are constantly struck by the fact that absolute justice here is unknown ; also that in this life it is practically impossible. The innocent are so many times pun- ished while the guilty go free; the wicked and dis- solute enjoy the good things of life while the right- eous are persecuted and receive the hard end of all things. Nero on the throne, the Christian a prey to the half-starved beasts of the arena ; labor crushed by capital, courts brided by tainted money — these are but grains of sand on the seashore of illustrations of the absence of absolute justice. But if there be a counterfeit justice there must somewhere be the true justice, for there cannot be the shadow without there be that from which the shadow takes its form; there cannot be the counterfeit without the genuine, after the pattern of which it is counterfeited. If there be no absolute justice here, then it must be after here or hereafter. Thus hell must be hereafter also, for only where absolute justice is dispensed can there be just rewards and punishments.

Another thing noticeable about our existence is

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that our lives interact upon one another. Paul ex- pressed the idea when he said that no man lives or dies unto himself. If a man dies in our vicinity we are influenced to some extent by the death, the in- tensity of the influence depending, of course, upon the nearness or remoteness of the influencing action. If it happens a thousand miles from us we read the account in the newspaper and an involuntary shud- der passes over us; if it happens in the home across the street our interest is more intense, but if it takes place in our own home it breaks our hearts. The actions of the guilty punish the innocent, yea, the very existence of the sinner and his sin must of necessity be a punishment to the righteous. Murders, thefts, etc., occur, yet it is the man innocent of crime who by the sweat of his face must build the peni- tentiaries, erect the gallows, establish and maintain the madhouse and the home for the feeble-minded, or the habitation for the aged and infirm. Sin punishes the innocent as well as the guilty.

An illustration : a good Christian mother possesses a son who, in his young manhood, because of morally unhealthy associates, becomes corrupt in his per- sonal life ; his habits become bad and he seems to care not at all for things of a religious nature. The mother, who has slaved that he might have a chance in the world, and who now, in her old age is deserv- ing of all the heaven that life has in store, is punished by every sinful action of her ungrateful son. Shame and sorrow are heaped upon her by the one who should be her support and stay. Whether his ac-

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tions be intended to hurt or not, the punishment which they inflict is none the less terrible to bear. Ah, if the story of lives could be written, how many times over would this illustration be repeated? Ac- cording, then, to the idea that we get our hell here on earth, the good Christian mother who, because of her pure life, deserves heaven, is the recipient of hell because of the thoughtless follies of her wicked son.

The theory is manifestly an impossible one be- cause our lives are too closely interwoven for one to be suffering the horrors of hell while his brother, with whom he dwells, is enjoying the delights of heaven, without there being an interaction of one life upon the other. Or, in a word, heaven, to be heaven, and hell, to be hell, must be separated, and separated so far that there can be no influence of one upon the other. Or, to state it again, heaven to be reward, and hell, to be justice, must not be in the same place; for the punishment of the guilty would likewise become a punishment to the innocent. Even the very existence of the guilty in the same place with the righteous would be a punishment to the latter.

Concluding, then, if hell is not the pangs of a guilty conscience ; if it cannot, in order to retain its very character as hell, be here, then it must be after here, or hereafter, sometime in the future.

But we can determine the time of its existence even more accurately than to say that it is in the future. Hell cannot be until this life is over and time shall be no more, and until there shall be a great

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and final judgment. It would be impossible to judge a man fairly at his death. True, the immediate acts of his life might be judged; but what about his in- fluence ? A man does not die at death. His body may lie mouldering in the tomb, but his influence goes marching on. Is Ingersoll dead? No, his influence still blights and ruins. Does Jonathan Edwards still live? Yes, his splendid influence goes triumphantly on blessing and uplifting. The after-death influence of these men accomplishes more for good or ill than the immediate result of their few years upon the earth. Truly an impossible task is it to adequately judge the lives of these men and of all others until influence itself shall cease, and that can only be when time shall have been ended by the Father's hand. Thus the final judgment must be at the end of time. Hell cannot, in the nature of things, be awarded to those meriting it until after judgment, and if judgment be after time has ceased, then hell must also be after time has become no more. Therefore hell is in the future, after all time and after the last great judgment.

III. The Character of Hell.

The next question which naturally arises in the progress of the discussion is one as to the nature or character of hell. What kind of a place is it going to be? Not many decades ago the common idea of the character of hell was the one very clearly ex- pressed in the old phrase much used by spellbinding

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evangelists, as in the fervor of religious excitement they would describe the unrepentant as, "hair-hung and breeze-shaken over the flaming pit." Visions of an immense sea of fire and brimstone from which day and night ascended the smoke of the eternally tor- mented were painted in words of terrible descriptive power, while terrified audiences sat trembling, with open eyes and mouths.

But, if one will think for a moment, this concep- tion taxes the credulity of even the most credulous. Fire and brimstone can have terror but for the ma- terial body alone. Paul tells us that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." (1 Cor. 15:50), but that the body will be a new body and spiritual. Fire and brimstone can have no terrors for the spiritual form of man when he enters the beyond.

But how can the numerous scriptural descriptions of hell be explained, for assuredly they abound in references to fire and brimstone? True, but one law which can invariably be found to explain these bibli- cal descriptions is, that wherever Jesus, his apostles, or any of the inspired writers describe hell, the terms employed are always figurative. This law may be illustrated by an explanation of the sense in which the words Gehenna (Greek) or Hinnom (Hebrew) was used.

The valley of Hinnom, or Gehenna, bounds Jeru- salem on the south below Mount Zion, and is the place which is so often mentioned as the setting of the awful idolatrous rites practiced by the apostate kings before the great idol Moloch. When King

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Josiah at last succeeded in overthrowing this idolatry, he denied the valley by casting into it the bones of the dead, the greatest of all pollutions among the Jews. From this time on all the refuse of Jerusalem was cast into it and the combustible parts of it de- stroyed by fire which was kept forever burning. In the time of Christ the festering bodies of criminals, dispatched according to the barbarous fashions of execution then prevalent, were cast into this terrible valley, and the smoke of the ever-burning fires carried their horrid stench mingled with that arising from the rotting bodies of dead swine, which were to the Jew the most detested of all animals, to all the val- ley's immediate environs. It is not to be wondered at, then, that to the Jews this place was the most horrible upon the earth. The very mention of the name Gehenna would provoke within him the most profound sensations of horror and disgust. Thus it is that Jesus, in the attempt to make clear to those unlettered fishermen, who had so often demonstrated their inability to receive a spiritual lesson, the ab- horrent character of Hell, uses the familiar and de- tested term Gehenna as descriptive of that place "which eternal justice hath prepared for those rebel- lious." Hell was not to be the valley of Gehenna, but in that it was to be a place of horror and gloom — it was to be like Gehenna. Hence the terms employed are figurative, simply attempts to portray to mortal man the terrors of spiritual punishment.

But if hell is not a burning pit, a lake of fire and

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brimstone; what kind of a place is it anyway? Is it a beautiful place or the abode of perpetual gloom?

When one thinks of heaven, whether that one be- lieves in hell or not, he tries to imagine a place beau- tiful beyond the power of human genius, inexperi- enced in its celestial delights, to paint in feeble words. The word heaven is to man the symbol of the highest conception which has ever been his of truth, beauty and eternal soul-delight. By the law of opposites which tells us "that if there exists the good there must also be the bad; if there be white there must be its opposite black," man has always been made to be- lieve that hell, the exact opposite in character of heaven and as far removed as "from the center thrice to utmost pole," must then be by nature the most doleful and horrible place in the Universe of God. And such we are convinced, both by reason and Scripture, it must be.

Because hell does not consist of a lake of fire and brimstone let no one deceive himself into considering it a place of pleasure or a sort of summer resort. The terrors of hell are not at all minimized by the de- struction of the ancient and utterly false conception by which, on pain of excruciating physical suffering, men were frightened into repentance, but rather do they become a thousand times more terrible when the true character of hell is revealed.

In proving the futurity of hell the fact was estab- lished that hell, to be hell, and reward to be reward, the two conditions must be separated so far that there could be no influence of one upon the other,

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for a reciprocal influence would destroy the char- acter of both. Now all acknowledge it to be scrip- tural teaching that heaven is the abiding place of God; that all the beauties and glories of that won- derful home are emanations from his loving presence. If, then, heaven and hell are so far separated that inter-influence is impossible, then hell will be in char- acter whatever it must mean to be separated from God. A very slight idea of what this would be is given to us as we behold the lives of those about us here, and now who are separated from God. The drunkard, with his bleared eyes, his seamed and fur- rowed face, his look of hopeless despair, as he realizes how utter is his servitude to rum; is he not an aw- ful picture of the barrenness and bleakness of a life separated from God? Or look into the cold, hard eyes of the prostitute ; see the artificial red on lip and cheek ; behold the complete absence of that which lends to womanhood its most gracious charm, a gentle, womanly reserve, and then exclaim in pity- ing words, "how terrible is the life of that soul that knows not God !"

And if separation be terrible here, what must it be hereafter, when to those terrors incident to the life of sin and without God must be added the consciousness that through an eternity no hope of change can come. Lost opportunities, golden moments wasted in sin, oh, how clearly will they be remembered then, when no more opportunities or golden moments come ! To be separated for an interminable eternity from the pres- ence of God, from hope, from light, into outer dark-

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ness, "where there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth." "Such place eternal justice hath prepared for those rebellious."

And think you that this hell will not be a place of horror? All happiness and every true delight of this present world is made possible by the existence of God or his people. The home with all its joys, political freedom, fraternity; our hospitals, our schools — are1 not all these, and more, resultants of our knowledge of the Father? To be separated from him and from his people, truly this would be a hell terrible enough for even the most hardened unregenerate !

Another conclusion concerning the awful char- acter of hell, which, from the nature of the argument forces itself upon us, is that one which is derived from the character of hell's occupants. If hell is to be the abode of liars, thieves, murderers, cut-throats, adulterers, whoremongers, gossipers, slanderers, the devil and his angels it will indeed be a terrible place. The wrangling, the back-biting, the wailings of despair, the groanings and gnashings of teeth, and that through an endless eternity, such a hell as this should be enough to make the sinner's blood run cold. In such a hell all the wicked of all the ages will be gathered to- gether and there will be no forgiveness nor any hope of reformation; but brooding over all there will be an eternal darkness caused by the absence of God. Such will be the terrible penalty reserved for those who re- fuse God's mercy.

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GLORYING IN THE CROSS IV. The Duration of Heu,.

During our argument on future punishment we have been tacitly assuming that hell was to be of eternal duration. Is this assumption a reasonable one? How long will hell last? is therefore the next question which logically confronts us.

There are those who believe that hell will be a place where some soul, less guilty than others, will be boiled, fried or tormented in half a dozen fiendish ways for a few thousand years ; then when he has been purged of all his meanness, he will be permitted to enter the realms of glory. Hell is not a reform school; hell is penalty attached to law. Hell is not a place to get ready for heaven. In this life man is to prepare for the life beyond. The only purgatory that the Bible teaches is Christ. If we reject him as God's pardon there is no other opportunity for change. Punishment will last just as long as man is guilty, un- der law. If there is no pardon after death, and if there is, man, as yet, has never received the revela- tion of it, and if man, at death, is guilty under law, then punishment must last as long as guilt lasts. If there is no pardon after death, then guilt would be eternal. If guilt is eternal, then punishment or penalty must be eternal, everlasting, never-ending. Punish- ment never makes a man any better when in that pun- ishment he is separated from all means of reformation. In our last division we found that hell was banish- ment from the presence of God into outer darkness,

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HELL

away from light, from joy, from all contact with righteousness.

"A dungeon horrible on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames no

light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades where peace and rest

can never dwell, hope never comes."

If this is hell, then what chance has man for reformation? He is far removed from all opportu- nity of change. No missionary can come to him with the life-giving message. No prayers of a God-fear- ing mother can allure him upward. His day of op- portunity is over. The company in which he finds himself is not the kind which will work for his bet- terment. In the life which we live today, even that one who desires fervently to live the life of purity will find it impossible to do so if he be continually envi- roned by sin. In hell, where there is no environment save that which is low and vile, how can one even hope for change for the better? Hell in duration is eternal, a place of doom and despair.

CONCLUSION.

Sad and horrible though the fact of hell may be — its existence, its futurity, its terrible and eternal char- acter— yet how human hearts should thrill with joy because a loving Father has mercifully prepared a way of escape. When man falls, and by his fall condemns himself to eternal penalty, the Father, because he so

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loved the world, was willing to bankrupt heaven itself that the pardon might be given. Reject not, then, this day, that pardon so mercifully offered to us who are worthy only of justice. Mercy is yours, freedom, light and hope. Oh, accept it while you may !

— Seventy-two

Ill

THE DIVINE NAME

Ill

The Divine Name

Texts: But, if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name." (1 Pet. 4:16.)

"Do not they blaspheme the honorable name by which ye are called." (James 2:7.)

In this sermon on the divine name there is no in- tention on the part of the author to make an attack on any individual or communion ; and, although in this discussion the names of some religious bodies may be used to a certain extent, the spirit in which they are employed is meant to be at all times courteous and charitable. One must, however, be lucid in every statement in order that the truth may be clearly set forth before all.

Now, as the Church of Christ is a divine institu- tion, founded by the Son of God and upon the granite truth of the deity of that Son, we would expect to find that the name by which it is to be differentiated from all other institutions would be a divine name. We would also expect that the individual members who constitute the church would be called by a name, divine, different and infinitely transcending all earthly names in that it would be bestowed by the Father himself. In our text James refers to "that worthy name

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by which ye are called," and it is our purpose here to find out just what that name was, for if the same conditions which were binding upon the people to whom James writes are binding today upon us, then we also should be called by the same name which was worn by them.

ARGUMENT.

I. Some Objections to Human Names, as Now Worn by Followers of Christ.

The almost innumerable human names which are worn by those who profess to be God's people are open to many serious objections, some of which we want to consider briefly before we proceed to the dis- cussion of "that worthy name."

1. In the first place, human names are wrong and directly antagonistic to the very spirit of the teach- ing of Christ, because they are divisive in character. Christ prayed that his people might remain one people. (John 17.) Paul teaches that if we are divided we are "carnal and walk as men." (1 Cor. 1 :10-24.) Anything which erects itself as "a wall of partition," no matter how revered or deeply imbedded in the memory of a people it may be, is diametrically opposed to the desire of the Master and his apostles, that God's people should ever be one. And human names do divide. The Methodist refuses to be called a Baptist, or the Presbyterian a Congregationalist. Each wears his own denominational name and clings to it with a tenacity born of a prejudice built up by

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THE DIVINE NAME

years of denominational wrangling. Let all party- names be forgotten, and one of the greatest barriers to the consummation of a glorious union of God's chil- dren will be broken down.

2. Again, human names are objectionable because they honor the wrong person, ordinance, or institu- tion. To call God's people Campbellites means that the honor for founding a church is conferred on Mr. Campbell, even though he firmly denied that he pos- sessed any authority to organize a church or that he had ever even thought of founding one. Such names as Wesleyan and Lutheran are other illustrations of the attempt to crown with honor men to whose hum- ble Christian piety such honor was little less than re- pugnant, because they so clearly recognized that they were not in any way worthy of it, and because they knew well to whom that honor belonged. Why honor them thus? Were they founders of the Church of God? Who said, "Upon this rock I will build my church?" (Matt. 16:18.) Who was it who said, "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, there ye may be also," or "Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do." Did Luther, Wesley or Campbell die for our sins? Is it through them that we are promised a home eternal? If Christ is the founder, the head, the Saviour, should we not honor him by wearing his name ? Let us give honor to whom honor is due. When we wear, as a church name, the name of one of the great religious leaders we are honoring the wrong person as the chief one in the church.

If we exalt an ordinance, such as the ordinance

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of Christian baptism, into the prominent position of a church name, we are again guilty of wrongfully be- stowing honor. It is not baptism nor our belief in baptism which we should exalt, neither our belief in the spiritual oversight of the elders, nor of con- gregational government, but the founder, the builder, the head of the church, our Lord Jesus Christ.

3. A third objection to the interminable maze of human names is that it acts as a stumbling block to the sinner. Each name represents a distinct people, or church, and as the sinful man, desirous of being as near right as possible, wanders from place to place, his hope of finding the right path becomes deep despair and he cries aloud, "Oh, what shall I do? Where shall I go? What name shall I wear?" Many a sin- sick one has been lost simply because he could not find the path of God in the maze of humanisms con- structed through centuries by man.

II. What Name Did Christ's Disciples Wear

After the Establishment of the Church

on the Day of Pentecost?

1. The first place in which we find the divine name used is in the cosmopolitan city of Antioch. In Acts 11:26, Luke says that "the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." But at once the question is asked, "Who gave them the name? Is it not a fact that the name was given to them in de- rision or as a title of reproach? Was it not a term employed by the pagan enemies of Christianity to ex-

— Seventy-eight

THE DIVINE NAME

press their contempt of the followers of Christ ?" Many of our modern denominations have received their names in precisely this manner. In derision or as a nickname the term Methodist was used first by Oxford students concerning the Holy Club of the University, formed for purposes of prayer and re- ligious meditation by John and Charles Wesley. From this Methodical club the Methodist societies were named, and afterwards the great Methodist Episcopal Church. Now, did not the disciples receive their name Christian in much the same manner as a nickname, or title of ridicule?

About the most accurate and perhaps the only cor- rect method of determining the answer to this very widely misunderstood question is to find out the ex- act meaning of the original Greek verb translated in our English versions "were called." The verb is XprjfMiTLiu), from the noun xPYlfmTiO'tX0''s> which means "an oracle." The verb, therefore, means "to speak as an oracle, to be divinely warned, to be called or named from a divine source." Always when the word is used it is in the sense of a divine call, warning or command. Whenever the words "to be warned" or "to be called" are used in a human sense alone the Greek verbs employed are either KaAew (Matt. 10:13, GaL 5:8, Luke 1:31, Matt. 10:25) or vTroseiKw/xt (Matt. 3 :7, Luke 3 :7, Luke 6 :47, Luke 12 :5, Acts 9 :16, Acts 20:35.) Never in the New Testament are these verbs used in the sense of a warning or a command or a calling in the form of the bestowal of a name except as emanating from human sources. When the divine

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is mentioned as the source of such warnings or com- mands the verb XPVUXXT^(1) is always used.

Nine times in the New Testament the verb Xprjfxarilo} is translated with this divine sense clearly indicated. And if Acts 1 1 :26 were correctly trans- lated it would be given there also. For purposes of comparison the places where xPVtMLT^Ui is used are here listed. The English version referred to is the American Standard Revised.

Matt. 2:12: — "And being warned of God in a

dream (xPrlfxaTLa'0*VT€$) that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way/'

Matt. 2 :22 : — "But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither; and being warned

of God in a dream (xP7lfxaT^€L^) he withdrew into the parts of Galilee."

Luke 2 :26 : — "And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit (Kex/^^aTwr/AcW) that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ."

Acts 10 :22 : — "And they said, Cornelius, a cen- turion, a righteous man, and one that feareth God, and well reported of by all the nation of the Jews, was warned of God by a holy angel (ixprju-aTLo-Oe) to send for thee into his house, and to hear words from thee."

Romans 7 :3 : — "So then if, while the husband liveth, she be joined to another man, she shall be called (xp^/acitiW) an adulteress : but if the hus- band die, she is freed from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be joined to another man."

— Eighty

THE DIVINE NAME

The sense here in which the woman should be called an adulteress is clearly the divine sense, in that the law concerning this case first originates with God.

Romans 11 :4 : — "But what sayeth the answer of God unto him? (X^/xaTwr/Aos) I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal." In this passage X/o^/xaTioyxo? is used in al- most identically the same sense as if it were an oracle speaking.

Heb. 8 :4-5 : — "Now if he were on earth he would not be a priest at all, seeing there are those who of- fer the gifts according to the law, who serve that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses is warned of God {KtKp-qfmria-ai) when he is about to make the tabernacle; for, see, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount."

Heb. 11:7: — "By faith Noah, being warned of God (XprjfULTio-deis) concerning things not seen as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark to the sav- ing of his house; through which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith."

Heb. 12 :25 : — "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not when they re- fused him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape who turned away from him that

warneth from heaven ( xpvfmT^0VTa) -

Acts 1 1 :26 : — "And it came to pass, that even for a whole year they were gathered together with the church, and taught much people ; and that the dis-

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ciples were called (xPVfJL0LT^(TaL) Christians first in An- tioch."

In all of these passages the indisputable meaning of the word Xprjfw.T^(o is, "divinely called, or called of God." In Acts 11 :26, however, the meaning is not made as clear in our English versions as it might be. If the sentence had been translated just exactly as it reads, there would have been no doubt about the mat- ter at all. The part of the verse " Xpry/xarto-ai re ^wto)?

iv 'Avrto^ciarovs fjLadrjras xpLO-Tuxvovs" would then have

been, "and the disciples were divinely called Chris- tians first at Antioch." Such a rendering as this would then have corresponded with the translations given the word xPrlfmT^0) m the other passages in which it is used. If this correct rendering had been given, all the questions and disputes as to whether or not the name was given in derision would obviously have been impossible.

Meyer's commentary on Acts, which as an author- ity in this realm has but few peers, concerning Acts 11:26 makes this statement: "There is nothing to support the view that the term (Christian) was first used as a title of ridicule." (p. 223.)

Doctor John Straub, Dean of the College of Literature, Science and Arts, and for thirty-six years head of the department of Greek at the University of Oregon, and easily one of the most eminent author- ities on Greek in the United States, a Presbyterian in belief, in referring to this verse says, "There is no good reason why any one should think that the dis- ciples were called Christians in derision. The very

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meaning of the noun XpTy/xaTtV/Aos from which the verb XpTy/xaTt^w is derived precludes any such idea."

There is therefore not one iota of doubt from the original meaning of the word and from the position occupied by the scholarship of the world that the disciples were "divinely called" Christians or "called of God" first at Antioch.

And why first at Antioch? Why should the Lord choose this place as the one where, for the first time, the gift of the new name should be bestowed upon his people? The religion of the Christ was to be a uni- versal religion, world-wide, cosmopolitan, a gospel preached "to every creature." All social and racial barriers were to be leveled and there was to be neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, but all were to be one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28.)

The Jerusalem church was not a cosmopolitan church because its membership was made up entirely of Jews. It was not, therefore, representative of the world-wide character of the new religion. Its mem- bers clung fiercely to many of the Jewish customs, not realizing that the gospel message was to be pro- claimed to the whole world. The new name could not, therefore, be properly given to them until they be- came world-wide in their conception of the divine message. No church could be truly Christian until all party spirit had been destroyed and until the eyes of its membership had been anointed with the glori- ous missionary visions. The Antiochian church was the first one under the new dispensation to number

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among its constituency both Jews and Gentiles. It could properly have been said of them that they were neither Jew nor Greek, but that they were all one in Christ Jesus. Racial distinctions were forgotten ; social walls, if not entirely destroyed, were far less frequently emphasized. This church was also the first one to realize the world-wide missionary obliga- tion, and from its doors were sent forth Barnabas and Saul, the first missionary ambassadors of the King from the first missionary church to take to the world, regardless of race or previous religious affiliations, the joyous evangel of the cross. Antioch was the first place where the meaning of Christ's statement, "Ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth," first became clearly apparent to his dis- ciples. How befitting, then, that at Antioch, a city itself the meeting place for all nations, the birthplace of the first church, truly representative of the new re- ligion in that in its worship for the first time Jew and Gentile disciples mingled on the common plane of brotherhood in Christ, the place from which were sent forth the first missionaries to all men, that here the wonderful new name should first be divinely given.

But suppose, for argument's sake, that it should be granted that the name Christian was given to Christ's disciples by pagan or heathen peoples as a term of reproach or ridicule, could a name more ex- pressive of the spirit of the new religion or of the redeemed's relation to the Redeemer be given, even by the Father himself? The whole system is Christ-

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filled. It is founded upon Christ; it is headed by- Christ. Men are to believe in and be obedient to Christ in order to be saved from sin. Christ is Alpha and Omega, beginning and end; he is Lord of all; Redeemer, Saviour, Sacrifice and Judge. The whole system is Christ. How glorious, then, that the saved, the redeemed, the obedient man should be named a Christ-i-an one ! How wonderfully expres- sive is the term "Christ-i-an" or "Christ One," of that marvelously beautiful relation existing between the saved and the Saviour ! Paul states this relationship when he says, "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ." (Gal. 3:27.) "Buried with him through baptism," we become a part of the world-wide soul-saving system which is Christ. We become "one of Christ" or a "Christ-One."

Thus, even were it possible to establish the posi- tion that the disciples were called Christians first in derision, yet we would be forced to conclude that in their choice of a derisive term those pagan or heathen peoples by whom it was first used in Antioch were guided by the Father himself.

2. The second use of the term Christian recorded in the New Testament is in Acts 26 :28. King Agrip- pa had been listening with intense interest and eyes wide with wonder to that masterpiece of pleas made by Paul in defense of his Lord and in the attempt to persuade the king to follow also the teachings of the Nazarene. All of Paul's great exhortations were with the view to persuasion, and on this occasion, which he recognized as one of life's opportunities, every

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natural endowment, emphasized by his pure spirit- filled soul, glowed in his every word and gesture as he threw his best self into the effort to bring the love of Christ into the heart of the dissolute Agrippa. And the King, touched, wavering on the very verge of decision, tensely whispers, "Paul, with but little persuasion thou wouldst fain make me a Christian." (Acts 26:28.) Then Paul, completely disclosing the purpose of his masterful plea, as he holds up his hands bound with the great prisoner's chain, speaks the generous answer of a noble soul, "I would to God that whether with little or with much, not thou only, but also all that hear me this day, were such as I am except these bonds." (Acts 26:29.)

3. The third and last time that the name Chris- tian is used in the New Testament is found in Peter's first epistle, 4:16, "Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glori- fy God ( ev raj ovo/oum rovTio) in this name." Peter was here writing by the inspiration of the Spirit. If he was inspired by the Spirit then he must be giving the message of the Spirit. If this is the message of the Spirit, then the words, "Let him glorify God in this name" must of a truth be the very words of the Spirit. If, then, even were it true that the disciples were called Christians in derision, the Holy Spirit sanctions the term, and not only sanctions it, but tells us to "glorify God in this name."

But some one objects, saying, "I am a Christian and I do wear the name, but I am a Baptist, Method- ist or Presbyterian Christian. If I am a Christian,

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even though I am wearing another name, am I not glorifying God?" Acknowledging, my brother, that your intention is good, still to the thinking man even though you be a Christian, the very fact that before the world you wear, for instance, the name Methodist, shows that you are glorifying a nickname rather than God through the name which is itself a glorification of his Son. Or if before men you wear the name Baptist you are glorifying the ordinance of baptism rather than the one who commanded baptism. If you wear the name Congregationalist you glorify or ex- alt a form of church polity rather than the One who was the author of that form. The one who wears the name Presbyterian is glorifying the form of church government by the Presbytery or elders rather than the Father through the divinely appointed name. We are commanded to glorify, to exalt and to magnify the Father in the name Christian. We are to be known before the world as Christians, and in any and every way that we can advance the Kingdom of God we are to do so, wearing this wonderful name. Oh, glorious name ! Oh, wonderful name ; so proudly worn by Paul and Barnabas, Peter and John, given by the Father as a name of honor, sanctioned by the Holy Spirit as a name of glory and power!

But now what shall we do with the name "dis- ciple." Are we not disciples of Christ, and, if so, why not wear that name? Today we read in many of our papers about the "Disciples of Christ" and in- variably the word disciples is capitalized. The name disciple, when so capitalized, is as denominational, and

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therefore as divisive in character as any of those de- nominational or sectarian names which some of these very brethren who use the term so ardently oppose. Let us be consistent. Let us shun sectarianism as though it were a plague. Let us not condemn others for doing that of which we may be guilty ourselves. We are disciples, but we are more. We are obedient disciples. We are redeemed disciples. A disciple is a fjLadrp-rjs, a learner. A man may be a /xaOrjT^ or learner of Christ, and never be a Christian at all. A Christian is not only a disciple, or learner, but he is an obedient disciple; he puts into practice what he learns. Nicodemus was a disciple, or learner, but as far as we know he never became a "Christ-one/' an obedient follower of Christ. Joseph, of Arimathaea, was a disciple, but he did not possess the courage to become a Christian. The name Christian means so much more than disciple ! It comprehends all of the meaning of disciple and more. After the Antioch church is established and God's people receive for the first time the vision of a world-wide conquest for the King, the disciples are the recipients of a new name, and the Holy Spirit, using Peter merely as the trans- mitting agency, exhorts us to "glorify God in that name."

Because the people of the great restoration move- ment have contended so firmly and uncompromisingly for those names by which the members of the apostolic church were called, and because they have preached that the church, as a body, should wear the names that were worn by it in the beginning, they have

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frequently been accused of arrogating to themselves a monopoly on these very names. The question has many times been asked of them, "Are you the only Christians? Do you not consider it selfish to wear this name? Do you not, by wearing it unChristianize others ?" Like the Yankee, we would ask our inter- rogators the question, "Are you the only Baptists?" We believe in baptism, and practice it. Every man who baptizes is a baptist. Are you the only Congre- gationalists ? We use the congregational form of church polity. Do you not consider it selfish to wear the name? Do you not uncongregationalize us if you are Congregationalists ? Are you the only Methodists ? We are methodical in our work for the Master. Are you not selfish in wearing the name? Are you the only Presbyterians ? We believe in the spiritual super- vision or oversight of the bishops or elders. Do you not selfishly unpresbyterianize us by wearing the name?

We have never claimed that we are the only Chris- tians, but that we are Christians only, and that claim is the very opposite of selfishness; it is indeed the very essence of unselfishness. Every obedient believer in Christ is a "Christ-one" and is so recognized by us, and just as long as he glorifies God in that name he is unselfish because it is the name which all true followers of Christ love. It is a stumbling-block to none; all are willing to wear it, all are agreed that it is right, and it never acts as a factor of division. A man becomes selfish only when he adds to that name another of human origin, for he thus erects a

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denominational or sectional wall between himself and his brother. He becomes narrow because he re- fuses fellowship to him who may already be a Chris- tian unless that one also upholds the barrier by him- self wearing a denominational or unscriptural name. To wear the name Christian is the glorious privilege of all of God's children, and because I realize it and appropriate the blessing am I any the less thoughtful of you? or, because I enjoy it, am I thereby wronging you? No! No! If you are slighting your God-given privilege, the blame must attach to yourself, for it is due to your own neglect and not to any desire to be selfish on our part. We could not deprive you of it and if we could do so, we would not. It is yours ; take it, wear it and in it glorify your God.

"Well," inquires one, "what's in a name, anyway? I don't think the name makes any difference." It is, however, very noticeable that those who ask this ques- tion as a rule flatly refuse to wear any so-called re- ligious name other than the one which they already wear. People sometimes fight over their religious names. A Methodist refuses to be called a Baptist or a Congregationalist a Mormon. A name means something; indeed, every name worn by the great de- nominations emphasizes some doctrine peculiar to that particular people by which it is worn. And this is so beautifully true of the name Christian. It ex- alts a person — Christ — it glorifies the individual be- cause it makes known to the world that he is a "Christ-one."

Then again we will agree that most men usually

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love their own family names pretty well. Although your name may be good, and even famous, and al- though the sound of it may be rhythmically beauti- ful, like the musical name Jones or Smith, yet frank- ly I prefer the old Irish "Kellems" to either of the two mentioned. I would not change my name with George Washington or "Teddy" Roosevelt, or even, though the temptation might be strong, with William Jennings Bryan himself. I am satisfied with my own because it means something to me.

Suppose that some day your wife would come to you and say, "Now, I like your name pretty well, I think it is nice and I enjoy the sound of it, and all that, but I like the name Smith better; so hereafter I shall be known as Mrs. Smith." In such a case as that, think you, there would be anything in a name? Or again, suppose that your rich uncle should die, leaving a will in which he bequeaths to one John A. Jones the sum of one million dollars. If your name was John A. Jones and there wasn't another in the world, would there be anything in the name?

In God's word a name is considered to be of value. Jesus says, "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke 24:46-47.) Christ surely considers a name here to be of importance. We are baptized into a name, and it certainly makes a difference what name it is. "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son,

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and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (Matt. 28:19-20.) Peter tells us that we are bap- tized in a name, as he speaks to the multitudes on the day of Pentecost, "Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remis- sion of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38.) If I, today, were to im- merse a man in the name of Martin Luther, John Wesley or Alexander Campbell would it be a valid Christian baptism? Certainly not. It is made a bap- tism only when the seal of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is affixed. We are baptized only when we are immersed in and into a name.

When Paul came to Ephesus in one of his later journeys he found there certain disciples who had been baptized unto John's baptism. After thoroughly questioning them about it, he said unto them, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who should come after him, that is, on Jesus. And when they heard this they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus." (Acts 19:4-5.) Their baptism under the new dispensation was invalid unless it wore the seal of the Lord Jesus.

Barnabas and Paul risked their lives again and again for a name. "It seemed good unto us, having come to one accord, to choose out men and send them unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have hazarded their lives for the name of

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our Lord Jesus Christ." (Acts 15:25-26.) Paul tells us that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess a name. "Therefore also God highly exalted him and gave unto him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things un- der the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." (Phil. 2:9-11.) Life and salvation are to be given in one name, and one only. "And in none other is there salvation; for neither is there any other name under heaven that is given among men wherein we must be saved." (Acts 4:12.)

If repentance, forgiveness, remission of sins, life and salvation are only important when preached in a name, then there must surely be something in that name.

The followers of Christ, even though they have worn human names, have nevertheless always con- sidered that there was something in the divine name.. Christian. It has ever been to them and is today a name by which to conjure. When they have wished to charm the world they have invariably used "that worthy name."

When that young Congregational pastor, Francis E. Clark, saw at the close of a great revival in the church of which he was minister that a society must be formed to hold the young people and give them a clearer conception of the opportunities of the Christ- life, he gave it the name "Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor." In honor of its founder it might

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have been called, "Young People's Society of Congre- gational Endeavor," but when a name is wanted to lend enthusiasm to the movement, the name Chris- tian must be employed. When an organization was formed to meet, in a practical way, the needs of young manhood, along moral and spiritual lines, an organiza- tion in which, under the directions of spiritually- minded men, young men might enjoy a man's sports in a man's way, and at the same time receive whole- some, spiritual nurture, the name given to the organi- zation was the Young Men's Christian Association."

When among women an organized movement was launched against the legalized liquor traffic, that which gave it its first great impetus and caused it to sweep like an irresistible avalanche over the whole continent was the charming name which it bore, "The Women's Christian Temperance Union." Now it might have been the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian or Congre- gational Union, but when a name was needed which would charm and win, that name was found in the sublime word — Christian.

When the denominational world wanted a name which would attract attention to the literature which they wished to send out they found in "Christian" the name which would make it universally acceptable to all. The Methodist Church, with its great chain of "Advocates" stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacif- ic, might have largely exalted the name "Methodist" by entitling their paper "Methodist Advocate," but they wisely chose to honor and glorify the divine name;

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for upon every issue of their magnificent paper we read with delight the name "Christian Advocate."

Presbyterianism might have emphasized the rule of the presbytery by applying the name Presbyterian to their official organ, but they decided far better when they gave to it a name which would not only bespeak for it a ready acceptance, but would more faithfully represent the spirit in which the paper was issued, "The Christian Observer." When Methodism sent out to the world a magazine which should be as undenominational as possible and which should act as a forum where all alike might give free opinion on religious questions, it wore the name "Christian Herald."

Those great weeklies of the restoration movement, so devoted as they are to glorifying God in the name Christian, wear names which are highly significant of the pleas of the people of whom they claim to be rep- resentative organs, "The Christian Standard," "The Christian-Evangelist," and the "Christian Century." If those papers which bear upon their title pages the name Christian were destroyed, seventy-five per cent of the world's religious literature would perish. The great denominations have realized the peculiar power and charm of the divine name when used upon their religious literature, even though their individual mem- bers refuse to wear that name as the only one in which to glorify God. It is worse than foolish for any man to say that there is nothing in a name.

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III. Five Reasons Why Every Follower of

Christ Should Wear the Name Christian,

and That Alone.

1. The church is declared to be the bride of Christ, and the bride must always wear the husband's name. Paul most confidently affirms this when, in writing to the Corinthian brethren, he says, "I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I espoused you to one husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ." (2 Cor. 11:2.) If the church is the bride of Christ, then let her not wear the name of others, but let her be true to her husband and wear his name.

2. Simple and complete obedience to Christ makes a man a Christian and a Christian only. When we are baptized into Christ, and by that action put on Christ, we become "Christ-ones," and any action be- yond this by which another name is added is an ac- tion unauthorized by the King. The modern union revival often furnishes a striking example of this ac- tion by which a name other than Christian is added. After the revival is over and six or eight hundred conversions have been accomplished, if these con- verts have listened to the gospel and to the very best of their knowledge have become obedient to that gospel, what are they? Why, they are Christians, of course. True, they are Christians. Now, if they are permitted to remain as they are, what will they be? Without a doubt they would still be Christians. But if on the last day of the revival the ministers representing the

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different denominations which have been so earnestly co-operating in the union effort to save men, arise, as they have so many times done, and call out to these newly made Christians, "All desiring to be Methodists come with me, or all wishing to be Baptists come with me," and so on until all have spoken; what process was it that made the converts Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists or Presbyterians? Was it their obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ? Assur- edly not, for such obedience made them " Christ- ones. " Well, then, what was the action? It was one over and beyond the law of the Teacher. In the union revival they united to make Christians ; after it was over, they divided to make sectarians. When by virtue of faith in Christ, and obedience to his law, men are made Christian, why not allow them such to remain?

3. A third obvious reason why every disciple should wear the divine name and that alone is that the truly great reformers and leaders of God's people have desired it and have earnestly entreated their fol- lowers to wear it. Luther, the majestic marshal of the forces of German reformation, exhorts his fol- lowers, "Do not call yourselves Lutherans, but call yourselves Christians/'

Wesley, brilliant, and still the humble, spirit-guided Christian, cries out as he sees the impending evil of division, "I would to God all party names were for- gotten."

Alexander Campbell, the gifted advocate of the unification of God's people, urges upon all true lovers

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of God, "Abandon all party names and take the name Christian."

Paul, veteran of a thousand battles for the name, deplores schism and contention ; "Now this, I mean, that some of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you or were ye baptized into the name of Paul?" (1 Cor. 1:12-13.) These and others of God's heroes, realizing that they were unworthy of the grand honor of having the church named after them, and knowing that such an action could only result in sectarianism and denom- inationalism among the people of God, have earnestly desired that their followers should wear the name divinely given first at Antioch.

Do we not, therefore, do them injury rather than honor when we, against their expressed wishes that we wear the divine name, call ourselves after their names, which they wore.

4. The name Christian should also be worn by every disciple ' who loves Christ and desires the ad- vancement of his kingdom, because it is absolutely the only name upon which Christian Union can be consummated, when that time shall come that God's people, seeing the folly of a divided Christendom, will join their hands and hearts for the final conquest of the nations. Christian union is coming. It must come. The forces of Christ are at last opening their eyes to the stern fact that union will mean life and victory; disunion, ruin and death. When that union

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comes, to it must be given a name, and surely that name will be the one upon which all of the denomina- tions agree, and upon "Christian" they agree now. Concerning it not one dissenting voice is heard. Every disciple redeemed will acknowledge himself to be a Christian, although, before the world, he may wear a name human in origin and divisive in char- acter. If, then, one desires to see the glorious union of God's people brought to pass, let him divorce him- self from everything which will in any way act as a barrier to the accomplishment of that desire. Hu- man names are barriers to union; the divine name is that under which it can and will be brought to pass. 5. The divine name is declared by Paul to be the great family name. "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth, is named." (Eph. 3:14, 15.) Oh, how beautiful is the thought which he here expresses ! "The whole, or every family in heaven and on earth," is called by the wonderful family name. All those blood-washed throngs whose praises resound through- out their immortal home; our fathers, our mothers, our brothers and sisters, our wives and our children, who have taken the journey before us are members of that redeemed family of God, the wearers and shar- ers with us of "that worthy name." As members of that great family should we not be glad to wear that name ? It should be to every son of God a delight un- speakable, a joy unending.

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CONCLUSION.

How glorious is the name ! "If any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed." And have the heroes of God ever been ashamed of it, even though because of it the keenest, most excruciating suffering that fiendish Roman cruelty could devise were heaped upon them ? On the arena's red sands, with the howls of Rome's blood-lustful thousands thundering around them, they fought for that name, the half-starved beasts of Numidia's jungles, and as the last drop of Christian blood dyed the sands a deeper hue, took their journey home with a smile of heaven's own giving upon their lips, and a joy eternal in their hearts. In vats of boiling oil they sang, until, by the hissing death their voices were forever stilled, the glories and praises of the name. With the flames of Caesar's death-fires curling and licking around them, with the smoke of that fire filling their nostrils, even to the last choking breath they glorified, they exalted, they magnified the name of their God. For a name Peter and John were beaten ; for a name they heard the clang of prison bars and felt the pressure of the prisoner's chains. For a name Paul could joyfully say, even though gloomy dungeon walls greeted every turn of his eye and with the prospect of an immediate, horrid death before him, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith, henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day, and not unto me only,

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but also to all them that have loved his appearing/' (2 Tim. 4:7, 8.) Oh, what delight should be ours to be counted worthy to wear that name, the name made glorious by sweat and blood and ten thousand noble deaths ! Withered be our tongues and cursed our lips, if, knowing better, we shall attempt to glorify our God in any name other than the name "Christian."

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IV THE MIRACULOUS CHRIST

IV The Miraculous Christ

Text: "Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." Matt. 7:17, 18.

Modern scientific research has demonstrated the truth of this simple statement of the Great Teacher in so many ways that it has been almost universally accepted as axiomatic. In the old German proverb it was expressed in the statement, "Der Apfel f'dllt nicht weit vom Stanim,;" "the apple falls not far from the trunk," or "like father, like son." To state the truth in words familiar to even the smallest schoolboy, "kind begets its kind."

The statement of the text refers not only to trees and those living forms belonging alone to the vege- table kingdom, but our modern researches have shown that it applies to every form of life, from the most minute until in the mastodon the climax of things living is reached. Good blood means good stock. In modern times men begin the education of their children long before their birth. Pure blood, or a good tree, never fails to produce the good fruit. Just as no man has ever seen a stunted, dwarfed tree

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bring forth ripe, luscious fruit; equally true is it that in the animal kingdom no dwarfed, stunted animal, with blood full of poison, ever brought forth off- spring distinctive because of its power and beauty. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul states the same great principle when he says, "Be not deceived ; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap eternal life." (Gal. 6:7, 8.)

In this day in which we live it seems to be con- sidered fashionable and indicative of profound scholarship for one to be skeptical concerning every- thing in the Bible bordering on the edge of the miraculous. The purported miracles of Christ, to this school of men, if not gross fabrications are at least figments of the imaginations of the so-called inspired writers, or are simply supernatural powers attributed to him by the blind hero-worship of his followers. He did not convert the water into wine at Cana of Galilee, nor raise from the dead the widow's son at Nain. The disciples were self-de- ceived when they thought they saw him walk upon the water, and the transfiguration upon the green slopes of snow-crowned Hermon was merely an hal- lucination brought on by anxiety and weariness. He did not heal the sick; he gave no sight to the blind; neither did he restore to the lame the power to walk. The idea of miracles is absurd and utterly unworthy

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of that one who makes any pretensions at all to scholarship.

Yet, while these men are so complacently deny- ing the reported miracles of Christ, or claiming that all forms of miracles are in the nature of this world impossible, they are living in the presence of the miraculous every day. The tiny seed is dropped into the cool earth; the gentle rains water it; the kindly rays of the sun warm it until, lo! it breaks trium- phantly forth from its prison into new, and as time progresses, ever-changing form. Can we explain its beautiful evolution? What is life? Who can solve the problem which it presents? The towering gray pyramids of Egypt standing upon the line be- tween the desolate wastes of the L,ybian desert and the fertile valley of the Nile, had held prisoner in their gloomy hearts some quantities of wheat for four millenniums. The hands which toiled to build themselves memorials in those imperishable piles have long since been crossed in their eternal sleep, and he by whose command they labored is but a name soon forgotten; those gigantic despotisms which then thrived amid all the glories of their boasted arts and sciences have long ago been buried in the graveyard of fallen empires, yet these grains of wheat, by which perhaps the one who planted them in stone hoped to fortify himself against some unforeseen famine, when after their four-thousand-years long entomb- ment, they were dropped into the earth, sprang forth into plenteous harvest. The germ of life was there; somewhere in the tiny heart it lay inactive through

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the lifetime of half a dozen nations only to burst forth into beauteous new form when earth and air, sun and rain, united their efforts to bring it to fruition. Who can explain life? Twentieth century skill can construct a grain of wheat so identical in even the minutest detail with those grains discovered in the Egyptian pyramid that the most critical ob- server can scarce distinguish a difference, yet when it is planted in the earth it will not grow And why? Because the first grain has the germ of life which only God can give, while in the second, even though perfect in form and detail, that germ is lacking. Life itself is a miracle ; unexplained and inexplicable with- out God.

Not only is life in all its wonderful and multi- farious manifestations a miracle, but as Stevenson, in his essay, "Pulvis et Pumba," so aptly says, "It is a miracle and a wonder that we live at all." We live ever in the presence of death. In ten myriads of forms the monster menaces us. As we eat or sleep; as we work or play; he is solemnly stalking near. From the moment that the first morning rays peep over the eastern hills until, the golden circle com- pleted, he there smiles again, we tread the vale of death. Wonderful is it that we live at all !

Surrounded as we are by a universe of miracles, how foolish for one to say that the miraculous is im- possible. Only a frank and free acknowledgment of the miraculous can make our universe rational or understandable. Those who deny that the miracles of Christ are possible are "straining at a gnat and

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swallowing a camel," because at the same moment that they make their denial they accept Jesus as a historical personage; the one who was admittedly the most astonishing miracle of his time.

The brilliant and versatile Benjamin Disraeli, astounded at the marvelous influence of Jesus, ex- claims in a burst of fiery eloquence, "The wildest dreams of their rabbis have been far exceeded. Has not Jesus conquered Europe and changed its name to Christendom? All countries that refuse the cross wither, and the time will come when the vast com- munities and countless myriads of America and Aus- tralia, looking upon Europe as Europe now looks upon Greece and wondering how so small a space could have achieved such great deeds, will find music in the songs of Zion and solace in the parables of Galilee."

The unhappy and ill-fated Lord Byron, wonder- ingly comparing Jesus with men in their follies and miseries, solemnly gives words to the noblest con- ception of the Man of Galilee which has ever blessed the mind of man; "If ever man was God, or God was man, Jesus Christ was both."

PROPOSITION.

My proposition concerning Jesus in this address is stated in the following form: "The fact that Jesus was not in any sense or respect a product of his time, but that he is good fruit, while the tree from which he sprang, or is supposed to have sprung, by those

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who deny his divinity, is evil, is conclusive proof that he is the Miraculous Christ, "the Word that became flesh; the only begotten Son of God."

ARGUMENT. I. An Objection to the Proposition Answered.

Immediately upon the announcement of the above proposition, our friends, the disbelievers in the mirac- ulous, file what to them appears to be an insuperable objection. "The fact that Jesus was not a product of his time is no proof of his miraculous or deific character, because there have been many to whom we have not attributed such nature who have been products of their respective times, but in thought and action have been far in advance of the ages in which they lived. If upon this proposition Jesus is claimed to be divine, then equally divine are Shakespeare, Burns, Napoleon, and a score of others, because neither were they products of the times in which they lived."

If we consider Shakespeare carefully can this claim that he is a freak or sport, in no sense the product of his time, be substantiated? The age of Shakespeare was one not especially famous for its moral standards. Liberties almost akin to license, indifferently accorded to men then, if exercised to- day, would even cause the man who is but average in his morals to blush with shame. While misde- meanors were punished with sterner rigor than like offenses of our days ; yet the public conscience was

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far less lively at their committal than would be the public conscience of modern men. And was Shakes- peare here in advance of his age? Ah, sadly must we answer, he was not even apace with it. He was not even as good as his time. How sad it is that history must record of one whose pen seemed afire with heaven's own wisdom that he was a thief and a libertine. However deep our admiration may be for the man whose name so justly stands at the top of that long list of those whose names have, by their works of literature, been made immortal, we cannot erase even by our reverence those dark blots with which his immoral deeds have dimmed the luster of that glorious name forever. In his personal life he was every whit the product of his moral-lax age. Or yet, if we study him from the viewpoint of his genius can we rightly affirm that he was not a product of his time? Were those mighty tragedies which will ever thrill, inspire and delight all men, the fruits of that one tremendous brain alone? Or did he not draw from those great men who had preceded him years and even centuries before, as well as from his contemporaries, many of whom were almost as il- lustrious as he himself? View it as we will, Shakes- peare was simply the embodiment of the spirit of his age; its finest, noblest and most representative son. His was the age of Sidney, Marlow and others whose names are almost household terms. His was the age of the brilliant L,ord Bacon. It was pre-eminently the age of drama. His race was one passionately fond of literature and productive of the most noble

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and enduring forms of it. If a primitive savage tribe in the heart of Africa's darkest jungle^ad given to the world a Shakespeare we would be forced to acknowledge that the gift was a miracle or the impos- sible ; that a corrupt tree can bear good fruit. Shakes- peare was simply the climax, the acme, the snow- peak of his age, but the product, the son, of all that was and of all that had gone before him.

And where shall we class Robert Burns? Was the brilliant Scot, who could see beauty in the tiny- things of earth, whose pen could exalt them to posi- tions of dignity and respect, a product of the age in which he lived? Assuredly he was. Though he could weep over the ruined home of the little mouse, the virtue of "the lass that made the bed to me," was to him as common merchandise. One of the worst of licentious libertines was Bobby; not even on a level with the moral standard of his time. In the Bard's Epitaph, which he wished to be his own, he confesses his depravity when he mournfully wails,

"The poor inhabitant below, Was quick to learn and wise to know,

And keenly felt the friendly glow and softer flame, But thoughtless follies laid him low And stained his name."

Ah ! You have it right, Bobby Burns ! You have it right ! 'Twas drink and woman and lust and un- restrained desire that laid him low, and that fair name, the very symbol of love for the humble things of life, unloved ; how much fairer it would have shone had it not been for just those thoughtless follies.

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But if the claim of superhuman genius, based upon our proposition, fails in the case of Shakes- peare and Burns, does it not still hold good of the great Napoleon? That one of unparalleled military genius, who swept like a meteor across Europe's sky, still reddened by the glare of the French Revolution; that one at the thunder of whose legions kings pros- trated themselves, while their subjects quaked with terrible fear; that one to whom the hoary summits of the hitherto unconquerable Alps were but the stepping stones to still more lofty heights of fame ! Say you that this mighty one was the product of his age? Yes, and in every respect from which his life may be viewed. As Shakespeare represented an age at its best in literary excellence, just so Napoleon rep- resents a world at the highest point of its military power. His age was a military age; the age of the French Revolution. His prenatal training was mili- tary. While she still carried the future emperor in her womb, I^aeticia Bonaparte heroically endured the nerve-racking hardships of the march, the camp and the battle, side by side with her husband, and for the independence of her beloved Corsica. The babe was born with the hot war blood bounding feverish- ly through every vein. The war spirit was sucked into the tiny form with every intake of the maternal milk. The first objects upon which his baby eyes were opened were the dreadful implements of cruel war ; the uniform, the gun, the sword. His first and noblest hero was Paoli, the soldier-statesman lead- er in the cause of Corsican independence. As soon

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as age permits he is sent to France to receive the education of a soldier ; an officer of artillery. Hered- ity, prenatal training, environment, education — all com- bined in evolving a soldier, a world general and a dictator. Thus even the Napoleonic genius may be explained by a knowledge of the tree from which he as the fruit, sprang; a war age, an age of "blood and iron."

Consider also the personal life of Napoleon. Was it better than his age or as good? An age of deceit, of intrigue, of low standards of virtue among both sexes, an age trained in horrible cruelties by a quarter of a century of bloodshed and war, was Napoleon better than this? No! No! In cruelty he surpassed even the most cruel. Spurning the body of a French dragoon, who had died to satisfy an insane ambition, as it lay stark and cold on the frozen field of Eilau, the emperor sneeringly remarked to the officer ac- companying him, "mere rabble, mere rabble." When talking with some of his officers about the terrific loss of life among his soldiers, he impatiently ex- claims, "What care I for the lives of a million men? I am a soldier." When, by intrigue, he steals the reins of the French government, he coolly calls it a "Coup d' etat." Although he promised free govern- ment along democratic lines to those who had sacri- ficed so much to obtain it, yet, when that government had come into his hands it was so despotic that he might well have said with his kingly predecessor, Louis XIV, "IS etat c'est moi. (I am the state)."

For virtue he cared nothing; woman was to him

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merely a plaything, the means for the partial satis- faction of his insatiate bestial passions. He was the father of nine illegitimate children. Almost the last act of his life was the attempt in his autobiography to delude the people of France by telling them of his glorious reign, by which France had become the world's mightiest power. Eight millions of graves dotted the face of Europe from Russia's bitter plains to Spain's sunny hills, mute evidences of the benefits conferred by Napoleon. The flower of French man- hood perished. And for France ? No ! For Na- poleon. He whipped them with scorpions ; he blasted their homes, sacrificed their young men by millions; and left France poorer and weaker than he had found her. Still he writes, "When I die bury me on the banks of the Seine among the French people, whom I have so loved." Was this brutal, licentious monster a product of his time? Yes, the blackest and most wicked son of that black and wicked age. But as a still further answer to the objection of- fered, let us quote the words of the emperor him- self. Even his illimitable egotism would not permit him to make himself equal with Jesus. In conversa- tion with General Bertrand, at St. Helena, he says, "I know men and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and other religions the distance of infinity. Alexander, Caesar and myself founded empires. But upon what did we rest the

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creations of our genius? Upon force, sheer force. Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him. In every other existence but that of Christ how many imperfections ! From the first to the last he is the same; majestic and simple; infinitely firm and in- finitely gentle. He proposes to our faith a series of mysteries and commands with authority that we should believe them, giving no other reason than those tremendous words, 'I am God'."

Where the great proposition which we have taken relative to the Christ holds firm is in the statement, "That he was not in any sense or respect the prod- uct of his time." Intellectually, morally and spirit- ually, he was not only absolutely different from his age, but shows no connection whatever with it. If it could be shown that in one particular he was like his age, then our proposition would be materially weakened, but even this one instance cannot be shown.

II. Christ Not a Product of His Time.

1. Intellectually he was not. (1) Christ always silenced his enemies. Never were they successful in their numerous and cunning attempts "to ensnare him in his talk." The hypocritical Pharisees ap- proached him as recorded in the twenty-second chap- ter of Matthew, that great trial chapter, fawning be- fore him and flattering him with the oily words, "Teacher, we know thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth, and carest not for anyone: for

— One hundred sixteen

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thou regardest not the person of man. Tell us, there- fore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?" This question, so cunningly asked, was ingeniously devised to provoke immediate interest. The listening Jews will be interested at once, for if he affirms that it is lawful, then he is a traitor to all his training as a Jew; he is a friend of the hated Caesar, the oppressor of Israel. The Romans will be interested, because if he affirms that it is unlawful, he is a traitor to Caesar, and as such he is deserving of a traitor's death. Truly, the dilemma was an embarrassing one, and to the minds of the complacently waiting Pharisees, one that could not fail of its purpose to entrap the Nazarene. What- ever answer he may give he is bound to make an enemy of one party or the other. Sneeringly they awaited his words, quietly rubbing their hands in fiendish glee at the prospect of his undoing. But the keen mind of the Saviour was not to be so easily entrapped, for with his wonderful insight into human nature, he perceived their wicked intent. Looking into their eyes until the very souls within them seemed to shrivel before his purity, he scathingly inquires, "Why make ye trial of me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money." And they brought to him a denarius. And he said unto them, "Whose is the image and superscription?" They said unto him, "Caesar's." Even before he answers their question he has forced them to answer it themselves by ac- knowledging the ownership of the coin. Then calmly came his answer, "Atto^otc 0vv ra Kataapos Kaiaapi

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koI ra tov I Oeov tw $t<j>" — "Render, therefore, or pay back, unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Confused, amazed, stricken with a sense of guilt, they who were erstwhile so confident, at this clear answer of their prey, slink away like beaten dogs. Both Jew and Roman are answered, and so skillfully that the en- mity of neither is incurred.

This dilemma was placed one time in all of its original setting before a company of Brahmans ; a people who for keenness of perception into the finer intellectual problems have no superiors and but few peers. They listened with marked interest to the question propounded by the Pharisees and the Herod- ians, it having been explained to them that the Jews and Romans were at sword's points on this very ques- tion. When Jesus gave his answer, each turned to his companion in profound astonishment; then in ad- miration they shouted as a man, "He has answered them, he has answered them!"

In the same twenty-second chapter of Matthew another intellectual battle is recorded, but this time with the Sadducees, "they that say there is no resur- rection." They came to Jesus with their stock il- lustration, one which they had long cherished as being absolutely unanswerable. "Teacher, Moses said, 'If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.' Now there were with us seven brethren : and the first married and deceased, and having no seed left his wife unto his brother ; in like manner the second, also,

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and the third, unto the seventh. And after them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her." (Matt. 22:24-27.) What confidence was theirs as they hurl this hitherto unanswerable question ! We can almost feel the sneer, "Aha, Master, now we have you ! If there is to be a resurrection, how, pray, will you dispose of this case?" Without one trace of agitation Jesus answers them, and the answer pro- duced the effect of an exploded bomb among them. "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven." (Matt. 22:29-50.)

Luke in his Gospel, chapter 5:17-27, relates still another incident showing how quick was the mind of Jesus in the presence of every enemy. Great multi- tudes had come "out of every village of Galilee and Judea." The proud doctors of the law, the hypo- critically pious Pharisees, and perhaps scores of the common people, to catch the wonderful words as they fell from the lips of the Teacher. And upon that day the power of the Lord was upon Jesus to heal. As he earnestly taught the eager multitudes they crowded closer and closer about him, so that the four bearing, upon his weary couch, the man long sick of the palsy could find no access to him. Climbing to the roof they quickly removed the tiles and let the man down "in the midst before Jesus." Seeing their great faith, all the compassion of his great heart was stirred, and he exclaims, "Man, thy sins are forgiven

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thee." Like the shock of an electric current was the effect of the words upon the hearers. At once the Scribes and Pharisees began to murmur fiercely among themselves and reason concerning this, to them, terrible statement. All their Jewish training rebelled against the calm usurpation of that author- ty which they well knew belonged to God alone. In anger they questioned, "Who is this that speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" But Jesus perceiving their reasonings answered and said unto them, "Why reason ye in your hearts? Which is easier to say? Thy sins be forgiven thee, or, Arise and walk." Not which is the easier statement to make, as so many have commonly interpreted, but which statement is indicative of more power on the part of the one making it? To paraphrase and inter- pret the question, "If I say, They sins be forgiven thee; is not that a statement indicating greater power and authority than to say, Arise and walk?" Sin is the foundation of all disease, and if the Master could forgive sin he assuredly could perform the much easier task of healing disease, the result of sin. Then, to clinch his argument, he says, "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to for- give sins (he said unto him that was palsied) I say unto thee, Arise and take up thy couch and go unto thy house." As the man, glorifying God, hilarious with the joy of renewed strength, arose and de- parted, carrying his former bed of torture, fear and amazement took hold of all those who saw and heard,

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and as they wondered they said, "We have seen strange things today."

(2) As a philosopher, Jesus was not a product of his time.

Luke tells us (Luke 2:41) that at the age of twelve he amazed the doctors in the temple, both by the questions which he asked them and the percep- tion which was his, as he listened to their teachings. Viewed from every standpoint the philosophy of Jesus was revolutionary and utterly at variance with all the accepted usages and customs of his day.

(a) Politically it was revolutionary; not in any respect the product of the political economy of the time. The Greeks and Romans had almost the same idea of the state and man's relation to it. To them the state was the law. There could be no powei higher. What the state decreed must be right by virtue of the fact that the state had decreed it. The modern statement, "My country right or wrong," almost exactly describes their attitude, with the ex- ception that to them the country would never be wrong. The "Antigone" of Sophocles, or "King Lear," of Shakespeare, vividly portrays this passion- ate devotion of the pagan world to the state. The gravest crimes were not those committed against the gods or against men, but rather such crimes as trea- son or rebellion; those committed against the state. The severest of all severe punishments were heaped upon those who dared to plot against the welfare of the state. The idea of the church apart from the state was not known to the pagan world. The church,

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or religion, was merely a part or department of the state as in modern usage the legislative is but one branch of government. Zeus, Hera, Jove or Mars were not separate or apart from the state, but their interests, their desires, their associations were those of the earth, and the earth was the state. They were as much a part of the life of the state as the em- peror or senate; the army or navy. There was no line of demarkation drawn. Religion was subserved to the interests of the state and yet not subserved because it never intruded objections that might ob- struct the purposes or movements of the state. Moral as well as religious standards were determined by the state and not by the gods.

The Jewish idea of the state; of man's relation to it and that of the church, was almost the exact op- posite of the Greco-Roman. To the Jew the state was merely a department of the great religious order. The government, departments and laws of the state were determined by the divine will. When King Saul is chosen he is selected according to divine direction. When he rules contrary to the will of Jehovah he is punished severely by the higher power. David is anointed by the messenger of God and by the will and according to the will of Jehovah he must rule. To the Jew his religion was the state, not the state his religion.

The political economy of Jesus might be called a combination of the Jewish and the Greco-Roman, yet if combination it be, it is different and utterly at variance with both of them. Concerning man's re-

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lation to the state one of the clearest statements of his philosophy is that already referred to in the ad- dress, "Render, therefore, unto Caesar, the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." The Christian bears a positive relation to the state. He is a part of it although his moral and spiritual standards are not to be determined by that state, but by the law that cometh from God. Those duties which man owes to God cannot be rendered by simple obedience to the state but they must be paid to Je- hovah himself and in the coin dictated by Him.

Of the relation of the church to the state, Christ said, "My kingdom is not of this world." His king- dom was to be spiritual, the kingdom of the heart, and as such its laws would never interfere with the prog- ress of the state but would rather exercise an ac- centuating influence upon all forward movements of the state. Paul in writing of the fruit of the Spirit explains the relationship of Christ's kingdom and the kingdoms of the world when he says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self con- trol; against such there is no law." (Gal. 5:22-24.) The subject therefore in this kingdom is above all law. He is to be in the world and physically he is of the world, for he must eat, sleep, live the life in the flesh as do other men; yet in his allegiance to the King he is not of the world. Church and state are to be separated because the activity of each lies in a totally different realm; the state having to do with those things which are fundamentally of the

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flesh and the church with that realm in which lie the things of the Spirit. Thus in the philosophy of Jesus the church is within the state but not of the state. In a word, then, he has given unto us that philosophy which we so proudly proclaim as distinctively mod- ern.

(b) The economic and social philosophy of Jesus is not in any sense a product of his time.

To the pagan world the idea of universal brother- hood was a shibboleth unthought of and unknown. Their social systems made such an idea repugnant to all classes. To the Greek or Roman a man was a brother if he were so fortunate as to belong to the same nationality or caste as himself. And even then the idea was the Buddhistic, "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you." To the Jew a brother meant a Jew, or one who belonged to the same sect as himself, Pharisee, Sadducee or Herodian. The idea that the Greek or Roman was his brother was one which had never entered his mind.

But how different is the meaning which Jesus attaches to the idea. All men are brothers, whether as Paul says, "they be Jew or Greek, bond or free, they are all one man in Christ Jesus." Publican or sinner, Pharisee, Sadducee, Jew, Greek, Roman, how petty were these barriers to Christ. Man was man no matter how low his estate or what the color of his skin. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and that neighbor was the man in need of love and care, no matter who he might be. Love was to be the basic principle in the social order in the philosophy

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of Jesus. Love of man for man, not that expressed by the selfish, inactive "golden rule" of Buddha, "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you," but rather the active, positive, "All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you even so do ye also unto them, for this is the law and the prophets." (Matt. 7:12.) This is the most glorious expression of the grandest con- ception of brotherhood that man has known. Hospitals, asylums, orphanages, associated charities, homes for the feeble-minded, and those otherwise un- fortunate, these and a thousand other institutions that make for the ennoblement of mankind have been made possible only when men accept Christ's philoso- phy of brotherhood. In his peerless sermon on the mount, the teacher proposes to change the social order by first making the fundamental change in man. Coextensive with the conversion and transforma- tion of the heart the Christian economic and social philosophy proposes to alleviate suffering and sor- row by purifying the environment of the sinner.

Will this economic and social philosophy of Jesus stand the demands made by modern conditions? To- day, in the multitudinous discussions of the ills that oppress our social and economic order, the great lead- ers are more and more being brought to realize that only a reversion to the Christ ideals ; only a system of Society founded upon the Christian principle of love of man for man, can ever attain to the most glorious heights of perfection or long endure.

Modern? His philosophy is the ever new phi-

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losophy, the one ever talked about, and in proportion- as men accept it in its purity in just that proportion are they happy and contented. His teaching will burn out the selfishness from the heart and will re- place it with a passionate desire to serve men. It will bring man at last to learn "that it is more blessed to give than to receive." How glorious would be that social order based upon brotherly love? Truly it would be as near an approach to Heaven as could be experienced in the present life.

Another fact strikingly observable in the intel- lectual Jesus, and one in which he towers above all others, is the calm, majestic confidence of his teach- ing. How changeable are men. Now they believe one thing and teach it; tomorrow it is a new and strange doctrine to which they adhere. Jesus is al- ways the same. There is never one note of hesitancy. Never does he say, "I think" or "I opine." Not for a moment does he doubt his message. He always speaks with authority and, in the words of Napoleon, "Gives no other reason than those tremendous words, 'I am God'." One of the great quartette of his biographers aptly said of him, "The multitudes were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes." As the cultured, scholarly Nicodemus comes into his pres- ence he reverently greets him with the words, "Rab- bi, we know thou art a Teacher come from God." (John 3:2.) Of all teachers, Jesus was the Master; of all philosophers he was the Prince.

Intellectually then he is not the product of his

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age. Nothing which preceded him is adequate to explain the keenness of his mind ; the magnitude of his mental grasp. The harsh, barren philosophies which antedated his could in no way have been the ancestors of those wonderful, hope-inspiring, life- giving teachings upon which, for two thousand years, men have been trying to build their orders, social, economic and political, and by which they have been endeavoring to regulate life and conduct.

2. Morally Christ was not a product of his time. It is doubtful if there has ever been an age of his- tory so immoral and dissolute as the age of Christ. It is difficult to determine which had fallen the deep- est into the horrible mire; Jew, Greek or Roman. It was the day of the revolting, gluttonous, and licentious revels of the Caesars. It was the age when even the rites of worship performed at the shrines of the gods were absolutely unnamable because of their vileness. It was the Epicurean age; a follower of the hilarious dictum, '%et us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." Purity was laughed at; chastity was sneeringly scorned. A brief enumeration of a few of the crying sins of the time will serve to emphasize our meaning.

Of the Greeks, pride of intellect was one of the most petted sins. Oh, how they loved to boast of their intellectual attainments. How they delighted to parade their knowledge before the eyes of the world. The egotistical philosophers of Mars Hill greeting

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Paul with sarcastic questionings are illustrations of men afflicted with this sin.

Christ, the teacher of teachers, the philosopher of philosophers, the possessor of the mightiest mind of the age comes not with words of pomp and the manner of an egotist but with calm and humble maj- esty he quietly inculcates the eternal truth of God.

The chief sin of the Roman was pride of power. He gloried in a mighty army or anything that showed power and strength. For things intellectual he cared not a whit. When Christ talks to Pilate about truth, the Roman indifferently asks, "What is truth?" In Achaia, Gallio, when importuned by the Jews to judge concerning Paul's offense, as they charged against the law, remarks, "I am not minded to be a judge in these matters." And Luke goes on to say of him, "Gallio cared for none of these things." (Acts 18:17.) Matters of truth, art, or beauty were of but little moment to the Roman; he was interested rather in those things by means of which he could increase his empire or enhance his power. So long as a man obeyed the laws and paid his taxes, the Romans left him unmolested in matters of religion and all those things that pertain to the mind.

And was not Jesus a personage of power? He who could heal the sick, give sight to the blind, still the tempest, or raise the dead, if right there be in pride of power, had he not that right? He who could suffer the scourge or endure the cross without a murmur, was he not a man of strength? But

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how happy should be the Christian of this fact; there is not one word in all the history of Jesus of boast- ing because of his power. The most profound humil- ity and simplicity accompanied his every act, whether it be to still the lashing waves of angry Galilee with the calm command, "Peace be still," or the cry to the man in the tomb, "Lazarus, come forth."

Charity was a virtue practically unknown at the time of Jesus. The unfortunates of earth were out- casts. For them there was no love or words of cheer and hope. The treatment of those afflicted with the dread disease of leprosy illustrates the cruel, harsh temper of the age. The leper was forced to live like the wild beasts of the field, in the tombs or other places far removed from the homes of men. The weird, wild cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" as the poor wretch of rotting flesh and decaying bone fled in terror at the approach of the stranger, was the hope- less cry of the outcast, the unloved and uncared for. The blind and the lame were accorded almost as harsh treatment. The beautiful meaning of charity and pity to those less fortunate, that virtue which we today guard as a priceless heritage, was given to the world, first, by Jesus. The incident of the heal- ing of the leper as Christ descended from the moun- tain after the delivery of his memorable sermon is one of the grandest pictures of sublime charity that has ever been witnessed. The leper prostrates him- self before the Saviour with the wailing, pleading cry, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean!" What a revolting spectacle he must have presented !

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Perhaps one arm gone, or his face so eaten by the disease that it looked like one great whitened sore; the hair prematurely white, coarse and long. We can see the disciples and the multitude shudder and shrink away, or begin to gather stones to hurl at the beast and drive him from their midst. But Jesus, the Matchless Son of Love, the One of perfect com- passion, leans forward and before the very eyes of the breath-startled watchers, actually touches the quivering, frightened form, uttering as he does so those blessed words, "I will, be thou made clean."

One other incident illustrative of Christ's beauti- ful charity toward all is the case of the woman taken in the very act of adultery. As the terrified creature, writhing in the first agony of detection, is dragged before the Master, expecting nothing but his censure and condemnation to death by the brutal method of stoning, she hears a message which illumines the darkened caverns of her soul with a new and glori- ous hope. What a portrait this scene ! The old age is contrasted with the new ; the dark, unpitying faces of those hypocritical, lustful Pharisees as they stand demanding the death of the woman of sin, contrasted with the beautiful, pitying countenance of the man of compassion as he shields and protects her.

See those "whited tombs" slink like frightened curs from the stinging invitation, "Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone at her." (John 8:3-11.) The blind, the lame, the dumb, the maimed and the leprous; how they hailed, with joy, the coming of the Man of Galilee, because they knew

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his ministrations were inspired by a holy compassion and love. Christ's charity could never have been the product of his harsh, unsympathetic age.

The caste system with all its attendant evils was also one of the curses of the age of Christ's advent. It was the day of Jew and Greek, Barbarian and Roman; Pharisee and Sadducee; publican and sinner. And the lines of caste were drawn with a rigidity which to our democratic age would be incompre- hensible. The Jew would sooner die than to eat with the Gentile. The Roman considered the bar- barian a being almost akin to an animal. When Jesus comes he transgresses all the laws of caste. He was pre-eminently the cosmopolite. Fiercely the Jewish leaders murmured against him, "He eateth with Publicans and sinners." He could converse with ease and amazing comprehension with the learned doctors in the temple or the cultivated Nicodemus ; or in simple parables he could make known to the unlettered fishermen the hidden things of God. With- out a qualm he could talk to the adulterous woman of Samaria, or in compassion restore to health the daughter of the gentile Syrophcenician. The petty barriers of race, sect or caste were to him non-exist- ent. Man was man, lost and in need of a world Saviour, no matter what his distinguished racial char- acteristics might be. Christ was the cosmopolite, the democrat, "the one man for the all men."

Another of the sins widely prevalent in Jesus' day, and paralyzing upon the peoples of his time, was the sin of licentiousness. Domestic infidelity was ram-

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pant. Blindness, and every form of decrepitude ex- isted as the terrible results of promiscuous cohabita- tion and wicked sexual indulgence. The conscience of the people had become seared so that the sin was looked upon with cool indifference. Even great and noted men kept their concubines without one word of rebuke from the public which glutted itself with the same damning sin. The brilliant Socrates could, with impunity, cohabit in lustful indulgence with the volup- tuous Athenian courtesan Aspasia without provoking one word of censure. At the times of the great feasts the palaces of the Caesars were described as disgust- ing hells of prostitution. The sacred groves of Daphne, and scores of other infamous resorts, had, from places of rest and worship, degenerated into veritable brothels where the so-called "pure virgins" ministered to the blistering passions of drink-crazed men. To be pure was a condition so unknown that when the Christians met secretly for worship, they were accused by the Romans of meeting for immoral purposes, and of eating the children born of these meetings. The very fact that assemblies met se- cretly was enough to inspire suspicion. Others did these things and why not the Christians ? Thus deep- ly in the filthy mire wallowed the nations at the time of Christ.

The remarkable purity of the life of Jesus stands out above the sordid immoralities of his day like a flashing beacon on hills of darkness. Never has there been such a life of spotless piety. In admiration and devotion Emerson says, "Jesus is the most perfect of

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all men that have yet appeared." Even the Pharisees, so contentious about legalistic matters, could find nothing impure in his personal life. On one occasion Jesus asks them, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" To the question they vouchsafed no answer, for they were able to find nothing amiss within him. Pilate, so well versed in the weighing of evidence, and the hearing of testimony, after a searching ex- amination, could only say, "I find no (fault or) crime in him." Judas, in the throes of remorse for his awful deed of betrayal, cries wildly as he hurls the now detested silver at the feet of the priests and scribes, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed in- nocent blood." Upon quaking Calvary, as the Christ breaths his last sigh of agony, the Roman centurion, the officer of the execution, exclaims with deep con- viction, "Truly this was the son of God." (Matt. 27 :54. ) His wonderfully immaculate life could not have been the product of that wicked age in which he was born; that age so notoriously disregardful of personal righteousness.

The idea of forgiveness was one foreign to all classes at the time of Jesus. It was the age of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." That man was effeminate who would allow a slight or insult to go by unavenged. It was a mark of manly strength to make an enemy pay for his wrongs, and in his own blood. The virtue of forgiveness seems not to have been known.

Jesus taught that not only were men to forgive wrongs committed by friends, but to go also to the

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almost unattainable heights of forgiving our enemies; those who wrong with intent to wrong and who gloat with satisfaction at the pain which the wrong inflicts. Not only did he teach this beautiful, but to the most of us, hard to receive lesson, but how wonderfully he exemplified it in his own conduct. With the scorch- ing Judean sun beating upon his festering wounds, every one of which had become a dead weight of agony, with a howling, jeering, brutal-faced mob, spitting their foul slime upon him; his enemies all of them, gloating in every moment of his excruciating suffering, he raises his blood-stained face to the darkening clouds with the pitying, compassionate en- treaty, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." A profound astonished silence followed this wonderful prayer. Wide-eyed each looked into the face of his neighbor asking, "What did he say? Did you hear him? Is he praying for us, and we his enemies?" They could not comprehend his meaning. That he should pray for his murderers, those who hated him, was to them the most astound- ing marvel.

A lengthy enumeration of the shortcomings of Christ's age might here be listed but these already mentioned are adequate to illustrate sufficiently how wicked, depraved, licentious and cruel was the time. And think you that Christ, so humble while they were so proud; so charitable while they were so cruel ; so cosmopolitan, democratic while they were so caste bound; so spotlessly pure while they were rotten to the moral vitals; so forgiving while

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they were so unforgiving; think you that in his marvelous life he could have been the product or child of an age such as his? Every known law of heredity and environment is silent and inactive in the case of Jesus. He is unlike his people in every respect. His tree was evil yet he as the supposed fruit was good. "An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit, neither a good tree evil fruit."

3. Spiritually Jesus was in no respect the product of his time.

(1) Condition of his time spiritually.

(a) Spirituality among the Greeks was at this time at a very low ebb. Faith in the old deities was breaking down, due to the undermining effects of the continued and determined attacks of Grecian philoso- phy. The withering blows of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the stoic Zeno, as well as those of the Epicureans, had well nigh destroyed all belief in the ancient gods. Religion had become more and more a matter of form. Sin consisted merely in igno- rance rather than any overt crime against the higher powers. Zeus, Hera, Apollo and all the rest of the inhabitants of Olympus were still revered but rather as we today reverence our national heroes than worshiped as gods. Coexistent with the decline of faith the wickedness of the time increased. Epicur- ean was the spirit of the age, "Let us have a good time now, for tomorrow we die."

The spiritual conditions of the Romans was almost identical with that of the Greeks. Like the Greek, their religion was, "a polytheistic conception of the

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powers of nature based upon a semi-pantheistic con- ception of the world." They had the same gods and goddesses as their tutors, bearing, however, different names. Ever a religion of form anyway, in the time of Christ it had become even more formalistic due to the same damaging attacks of Grecian philosophy. Jupiter, Juno, Jove and the rest were still revered, but like the Grecian deities as national or historical characters rather than gods. One of the Roman orators about this time was vigorously applauded when he said, "The gods are dead." Religion had degenerated into simply a formal and faithful per- formance of the ancient rites. Sin consisted in the transgression of these formal laws or the failure to observe ritualism rather than the disobedience of a moral command.

The Jews were as barren of spirituality as were either the Greeks or Romans. They were split up into various warring sects, each jealous for some peculiar phase of doctrine and all alike careless about matters of personal life. Like the Greeks and the Romans they were placing the emphasis upon the legalistic side of their religion. Their ritualism, their rites and ceremonies were the most gorgeous. The priesthood was proud, cultured and aristocratic. The outward form of piety was the condition most to be desired. To the Pharisee religion consisted in making long prayers before men or zealously ob- serving every law of the Sabbath. His hands must be washed in accordance with the traditions before he ate bread; always must he keep himself from the

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contaminating presence of the despised Gentile. To take in his hard-heartedness the sustenance of widows and orphans or to commit unnamable impurities, these were considered entirely permissible, but the forms of religion must ever and in all places be rigidly ob- served. The statement of Paul exactly describes them when he speaks of those who "have the form of godliness without knowing the power thereof."

How infinitely Jesus differs from his time spiritually. He relegates form to the background in all of his teaching. There is no religion known to men so devoid of formalism as pure Christianity. The organization of his church was majestically simple. No senates, councils, episcopacies or ecclesias- ticisms with dictatorial authority to rule over his people. He was to be their lawgiver and head. Two simple ordinances, Christian baptism and the me- morial supper were to be the only elements of worship partaking at all of the nature of rites or ceremonies. Beautiful in its majestic simplicity, wonderful in the fewness of its legalistic requirements, is the religion of the Christ. His was to be the religion of the heart ; the teaching that would transform the wicked life and rekindle the nobler fires of the soul in the sin- ner so long smouldering. How vehemently he ut- tered his woes against the Jews, "Woe unto you Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith, but these ye ought to have done and not to have left the other undone. Ye blind guides that strain out the

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gnat and swallow the camel." And in the remainder of the same chapter it is, Woe ! Woe ! Woe ! "Ye cleanse the outside of the cup and platter but within they are full from extortion and excess." He calls them, "whited sepulchres," outwardly beautiful and ornate, but within full of hypocrisy and iniquity, or "serpents and offspring of vipers." (Matt. 23 :23-34.) On another occasion, in despair, he cries out, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you saying, This people honor- eth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." (Matt. 15:8.) With Jesus, religion was to be a matter of the inside man, of the heart. "Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, and of the platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also" (Matt. 23:26), or "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8.) Be- lief in him as the Saviour and King was to purify the heart and thus by cleansing the source from which the springs of conduct rise to transform the whole being. Peter before the Jerusalem council describes the glorious process when he says, "And he made no distinction between us and them, (Jew and Gentile) cleansing their hearts by faith." (Acts 15:9.) Jesus differed then from those of his time, Jews, Greeks and Romans, in that while they contended for the form of religion and practiced unrebuked shock- ing immoralities, he emphasized the heart change, pur- ity of life, and not only emphasized it in his teach- ing but practiced it, lived it. From a world, a desert as far as spirituality was concerned, this divine ex- ponent of the life of the Spirit, this one who taught

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that men must be born anew by the birth of the spirit could not by any law, that man knows, have been produced. Such a result would have been as impossible as for a corrupt tree to bear perfect fruit.

CONCLUSION.

Truly conclusive is our proposition that not in any sense or respect was Christ the product of his time, intellectually, morally or spiritually, for in an age in which all men were conscious of a feeling of intellectual at-sea-ness, Christ, the calm, resolute, revolutionary philosopher, speaking with the author- ity of a God, appears ; in an age above all others char- acterized by moral dissolution and decay, Christ the pure and sinless, the "lily of the valley,, and among ten thousand the fairest, suddenly emerges from the chaotic whirlpool of moral degradation like a morn- ing star from the deeps of night; in an age pre-emi- nently devoid of spirituality and pierced through and through by the arrows of doubt and skepticism, Jesus in the form of man with the soul of God arises amid the crumbling, rotting ruins of humanity as the new and blessed Hope of life, from the environs of death.

If, according to all the laws of heredity and en- vironment, Christ is not the product of his time, he is himself a miracle, the miraculous projection of God's will and manifestation of his love into his time and for all time. He is therefore God's son, not a son, but the "only begotten son," God manifest in human flesh. There is but one way to consistently deny the

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deity of Christ and that is to deny that he, as a man,, lived. If Jesus lived, then he is God's son; if he did not, then our grandest and noblest institutions are founded upon the most beautiful conception ever reached by man. It would take a Jesus to conceive of a Jesus. To deny Christ's historical character is as impossible as to deny the existence of night and day. He is history itself, the center, the point of convergence. Without him, what has been is but a hollow shell, impossible to understand or at all to rationalize. He is the heart and soul of it all, the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. Let us conclude with the vitriol-tongued skeptic of France, Jean Ernest Renan, as in extolling Jesus, he says : "All history is incomprehensible without him. He created the object and fixed the starting point of the future faith of humanity. He is the incomparable man to whom the universal conscience has decreed the title, Son of God, and that with justice. In the first rank of this grand family of the true sons of God we must place Jesus. The highest consciousness of God which ever existed in the breast of humanity was that of Jesus. Repose now in thy glory, noble founder! Thy work is finished, thy divinity estab- lished. Thou shalt become the cornerstone of human- ity so entirely that to tear thy name from this world would rend it to its very foundations. Between thee and God there will be no longer any distinction. Complete conqueror of death, take possession of thy kingdom whither shall follow thee by the royal road which thou hast traced, ages of adoring worshipers.

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Whatever may be the surprises of the future Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears with- out end; his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts and all ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus. Even Paul is not Jesus. How far removed are we all from thee, dear Master! Where is thy mildness, thy poetry ? Thou to whom a flower didst bring pleas- ure and ecstacy, dost thou recognize as thy disciples, these wranglers, these men furious over their pre- rogatives, and desiring that everything should be giv- en to them? They are men; thou art a God."

Finis.

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