March 1929
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Tremble At Thyself “I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psa. 139:14). T HE word " fearfully" in this passage is indeed impres sive. So delicately combined; so much in danger of being dissolved by innumerable causes, is man, that one must tremble who stops to consider. Where can we find a pump as perfect as the human heart? If the boss treats it right, it stays on the job for more than 600,000 hours, making 4,320 strokes and pumping 15 gallons an hour. We have no telephonic mechanism equal to our nervous system; no wireless as efficient as the voice and the ea r; no cameras as perfect as the human eye; no ventilating plant as wonderful as the nose, lungs, and skin; and no electrical switchboard can compare with the spinal cord. The very air we breathe may cause death. The touch of an insect, a cut or scratch, a delicious morsel of food, may instantly turn the most athletic form into a corpse. Where is the mysterious link between spirit and body? How do they touch? Why is it that the spirit does not wander off to the stars any moment, like flights of mind ? Where is the secret laboratory where birth as a natural fact and creation as a supernatural fact, coincide ? We can not find it. Life shrouds its secret with a veil as impene trable as that which shrouds death. It is a solemn fact— we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." • We wonder that there are so many premature deaths. Is it not strange that there are not more? “Our life contains a thousand springs, And dies if one be gone. Strange that a harp of a thousand strings Should keep in tune so long!” . But all this has principally to do with the body, the casket in which the jewel is kept. How much more reason we have to fear, when we recall that we are moral and accountable beings, made for eternity! What consequences hang upon small, apparently trifling beginnings of evil! An evil thought forms into a purpose. Then follows an action, a course, the influencing of others and perhaps perdition not only for one’s self but others who have been drawn after him. It is no wonder that Andrew Fuller ex claimed : "O my soul, tremble at thyself !" “A sacred burden is this life ye bear, Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly. . Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly, Fail not for sorrow; falter not for sin, Look upward, onward, and through Christ you’ll win.” —K. L. B. This is a Christian Fastidius described a Christian as follows: “A Chris tian is one who shows mercy to all; who is provoked by no wrong; who relieves the wretched, succors the needy; who mourns with mourners, and feels the pain of another as his own; whose wrongful dealing no man feels; who serves God day and night, and ever meditates upon His precepts; who has no deceit in his heart; whose soul is simple and undefiled, and his conscience faithful and pure; whose whole mind rests on God; whose whole hope is fixed on Christ, desiring heavenly rather than earthly things, and leaving human things to lay hold on things Divine."
father, did not invent the doctrine of the Trinity. He defended it, and very ably too, as Arius, his Unitarian opponent, could tell you if he were here. It would be a good thing if all college students were required to take a thorough course in Church History. Then when they become famous sociologists, they could speak with more accuracy when they enter the field of historical theology. If there is any person on earth who should be grateful for the Christian doctrine of the Triune God, it is the sociologist. This doctrine assures us that the true God is a social Being—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It gives the sociologist, if he, be a Christian, a basis for his science in the very nature of God Himself. In the relations of the three Persons of the Godhead, there is a perfect model for the ethical relationships of men. All this wealth of meaning is lost in the Unitarian conception of God. Theirs is a barren God who dwelt alone throughout a past eternity. He could not have been a God of Love, because there was no one to love. If He began to love when He created a world of men, then Love is no part of His eternal nature, and if this be so, how can we be sure that He will not sometime cease to love? Over against this, how rich and satisfying is the Chris tian God as He appears in the prayer of our Lord to the Father: “FOR THOU LOVEDST ME BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. O righteous Fa ther, the world hath not known Thee; but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent Me. And I have declared unto them Thy Name, and will declare it, that THE LOVE WHEREW ITH THOU HAST LOVED ME MAY BE IN THEM” (John 17:24-26). ¿Me. a» “The Tragic Joke” R ALPH D. BLUMENFELD, Editor of the London Daily Express, has been touring in the United States. Having returned to England, he describes prohibition in America as “a tragic joke.” He says, “I went to many private dinners in all parts of the country, and with only one exception, I never saw a prohibition table.” That is nothing. Before the 18th Amendment there were many men who could never find anything but saloons when they went to town. But what they said was not taken seriously. Doubtless the editor’s experience proves that conditions are bad in this country, but it also sug gests that his hosts while here must have been chosen with remarkable foresight. Dr. Kyle Speaks T } R . MELVIN GROVE KYLE, noted Archeologist and President of Xenia Seminary, writes some pointed sentences in the Bibliotheca Sacra: “The rapidity with which American manners have been going down grade morally has made many people so dizzy that they have shut their eyes tight—but they keep on going.” “The unseemly scramble of many would-be great preachers to get into a great place instead of trying to make a place great by being in it, is one of the distinguish ing marks of little men.” “War memorials minister to that national spirit of patriotism which, more than anything else in the world, ministers to the production of other wars. They do not help the dead; they do not minister to the necessities of dependent ones left destitute: they only stir up pride in the achievements of arms and a spirit of revenge which guarantees more wars —and more war materials.” —Alva J. McClain.
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