October 1927
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
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Being, aphorisms and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence, sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of Worldly ambition and honors, with an eloquence and per suasiveness which have not been surpassed.- These could not be inventions of the grovelling authors who relate them. They are far above the powers of their feeble minds. They show that there was a character, the subject of their history, whose splendid conceptions were above all suspicion of being interpolations at their hands.” E ditoras N ote The remarkable thing about all of these admissions is that the writers begin by taking away the Deity of Christ and then, because in all fairness they are obliged to admit that Christ Himself is the moral miracle of all history, they try to restore to Him, as a mere man, the superiority of which they have deprived Him by denying His Deity. In the final analysis they concede Him to have been so perfect and sublime in His character and work that if He were n o t w h a t f i e ' claimed to be—the divine Son, • equal with the Father—He must have been the dupe of His own mystical enthusiasm and a wilful deceiver in try ing to accredit Himself. They would have us believe that the history of Christ —the Scriptures—is a tissue of fables and falsehood, nevertheless, they become so taken up with the Hero of this history, and so conclusive is the outside evidence of His having been in the world, that they acknowledge Him to be perfect, sublime, incomparable—the noblest human being the world ever saw. They can find no other type of virtue and moral beauty to compare with Him. They can not escape the fact that He is the rightful chief Of man kind. Does it not seem strange that these thinkers should not think on through the problem and discover that He . whom they admit to have been a moral miracle, must have been capable of all the miracles attributed to Him, and, in view of what He did, must have been what He claimed to be—“God manifest in the flesh” ? W E wonder how many of our readers remember the origin of Spurgeon’s Orphanage, at Stock- well, which, has just celebrated its Diamond Jubilee? A holiday in Germany left Mr. Spurgeon much impressed by the work of Dr. Wickern’s Rauke Haus at Hamburg, and on his return he published an article on the institution in his church magazine. A few days later, from a Mrs. Hillyard, hitherto quite unknown to him, came an offer to place £20,000 at his disposal to found a home for orphan boys in connection with the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Mr. Spurgeon accepted the offer. One of the gifts to the foundation that touched the great preacher most was the offer of the builders’ men to erect one of the houses in their spare time without payment. The house they built, for which the" contractor gave the material, is still known as “The Workmen’s House.”—From The Christian. £O U L D you make a better investm en t than to p u t th e K ing’s Business on reading tables in libraries, doctors’ offices, den tists' offices and pub lic reading rooms? T H I N K T H A T O N E O V E R !
a bad choice in pitching upon this man as the ideal repre sentative and guide of humanity; nor, even now, would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better transla tion of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the con crete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would ap prove oúr lifeg-J. S. Mill. R ousseau , S trauss and R ichter The evangelical history bears no marks of fiction The history-of Socrates, which no one presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. It is more inconceivable that a number of persons should agree to write such a history than that one should furnish the sub ject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the dic tion, and strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel. The marks of its truth are so striking and inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero.—Rousseau. As little as humility will ever be without religion, as little will it be without Christ. And this Christ, as far as He is inseparable from the highest style of religion, is historical, not mythical—is an individual, not a mere sym bol. To the historical person of Christ belongs all in His life that exhibits His religious perfection, His discourses, His moral action, and His passion. He remains the high est model of ieligion within the reach of our thought; and no perfect piety is possible without His presence in the heart.SStrauss, 1838. Jesus Is the purest among the mighty, the mightiest among the pure, who, with His pierced hand, has raised up empires from their foundations, turned the stream of his tory from it's old channel, and still continues to rule and guide the ages.—Richter. B aur , R enan and J efferson If one considers the development of Christianity, its whole historical significance hangs only oh the character of its founder. How soon would all that Christianity has taught of the true and impressive have been relegated to the roll of long-forgotten sayings of the noble friends of man, and the thoughtful minds oí antiquity, if its doctrines had not become words of eternal life in the mouth of its foun der !—F. C. Baur. - Whatever be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young without ceasing; His legend will call forth tears without end; His sufferings will melt the noblest hearts; all ages will pro claim that among the sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus.—Renan. Thomas Jefferson, although a disbeliever in inspiration . and an opponent of the Bible, yet explicitly admits the innate truthfulness and purity of the character and teach ings of Jesus. Writing to John Adams concerning a vol ume entitled “The Morals of Jesus,” which he was then engaged in compiling from the New Testament, he says: “We must reduce our volume to the. simple evangelists, select even from them the very words only of Jesus. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.” Sub sequently he declares as his object in preparing the same book, “to place the character of Jesus in its true high light, as no impostor,' but a great reformer of the Hebrew code of religion.” He further says: “It is the innocence of His character, the purity and sublimity of His moral precepts, the eloquence p f His inculcations, the beauty of the apologues in which He conveys them, that I do much admire.” Yet again, referring to the Gospels, he says: “Intermixed with things impossible, superstitions, fanati cisms, and fabrications, are sublime ideas of the Supreme
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