will be said that it is the fault of the Church that there is so much religious strife and so much debate on the Gospel. No; while the Church has not been without fault, and there have perhaps been more divisions in the Christian hosts than could be wished, that is not the real cause of present day dislike of what we may call evangelical Christianity. No. Does anyone believe that if all the churches in Great Britain were made one to-morrow they would all be crammed the following Sunday? No one's hope is fool enough to be-TE would be just the same Francis preached to the The pike went on stealing; Yes; the very next Sunday races! might be run; tennis and baseball Hwould be played as usual; hotels would give tea-dances, and multitudes would be anywhere except in. church, or at a prayer-meeting, or having' a quiet think over themselves and their relation to the God he real reason. dislike to plain. evangelical Christianity ix that it] keeps mankind in hot water. Whitt-Fai down to windy abstrac: ions. it antagonizes no one, but as Paul preache! it, and Aristarchos und) Gaius believed it, it is a disturbing element in life. "The truth always]
and must be in a world that cares for (ruth in very moderate doser, ud then with jam to help it down. It takes man to be a real Christian when we come to think about it. Only a few simple considerations show us that. The very initial idea of it is, of course, that man fs all wrong. If that is not its idea, why does it call itself a salvation?" But} mankind likes to think itself all right, at all events with a little effort. of a moral kind, which a man can put forth if he cares to do so; while man is quite sure, that if he is! spiritually somewhat shady, he can make up for it by being intellectual, cultured, a bit of a connoisseur at, Painting and music, and literature.
Culture and Faith:
It is a lending idea to-day, that! culture can be a makeweight for faith in God und obedience. Lord Morley held that. Christianity has no use at all for any such idea. It says, the case was so bad with us, that the Son of God had to come to save us, And it says.
man's attitude to they impudently call themselves, hate the idea. But that is Christ Jesus Christ came to call us Russell, Wells, and hoe genus one, of the "leading men" sort, like to hol that there is no hope for them unless they repent, became humble believers in Jesus Christ? No. Does the ordinary man of business and of all the innumerable sporting clubs feel impressed by the Christian doctrine of the value of the soul that man is lost unless he sees, that he is a fool if he "gains the whole world and loses his own soul?" No, only very fitfully, when a sudden death or calamity seares him. Christ janity keeps mankind in perpetual hot water over so many. things. Not only its demand for a changed life through faith and repentance. but a new life to be lived. This out across and athwart so many things, that we in our natural state say. are There is the forgiveness of enemies. Bitterness and revenge are the natural feeling. Who likes to forgive? Few. But Christ says, that if we do not <erpive our enemies, how Jean God forgive us? Ti that case; late there any rel Christians at all?" farther, makes every:
's soul, It is precious Men say, that Christianity is a Kkill-joy because the church seems to cut across peoples enjoyments on Sundays and someone weekday What is the trath about that? The New Testament is not hard in its Sabbatarianism. It cays all proper things are a Christian's. But it does imply this, that a man's first duty, as it ought to be his pleasure, to God, his life he never worships, never prays at! home or in church, never puts himself in touch with' those: times and opportunities in life, that bring his soul to God, and bring divine things to his soul.' What would a golfer's success at golf be, if he thought Aittle about his form, as: so many people do about Jesus Christ? Christianity requires the cutting down of indulgence in a great many nice pleasant things in order tha! we may give our soul the chance of coming into touch with still grander things, the "things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are] not seen are eternal." Christianity too seems to throw an absurd amount of responsibility on us for people, who we say, nothing to us at all. Take the natives of New Guinea! A man says, "Pooh; what. on earth have I to do with them? i cannot have any responsibility for them." But the answer to that is in the case of Paul and these two travelling companions of his. They had found a wonderful thing, salva. tion in Christ, and they actually did feel bound to tell everybody about it. Every man in the world is a "brother for whom Christ died," so that our responsibilities are very heavy. We! may take these as examples of the fact, that the Gospel upsets all our common ideas. "It gives us new and better ones, but it is an upset all the same, and man is rather bored by it. He doesn't mind it if it is-watered down, but as Paul and his brave friends understood it, it needs all the grace of God in Christ to keep us faithful. It does look as if the world will be in perpetual hot water over the Gospel until it repents.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.