Testimony of Christian Experience 77 slow about it and very reluctant about it even yet, apparently because it is not as obvious to the sense as the facts of the physical world. The world has laughed long at brother John Jasper who contends that the “Sun do move” around the earth because he sees it on one side of his house in the morn ing and on the other side at night. But we know there is a system and set of motions in the background more compre hensive and wonderful than the rising and setting sun alone can explain. Now to refuse to accept the testimony of Chris tian experience because it lies in a realm behind sense—expe rience is to adopt the John Jasper attitude towards truth. Science and philosophy have both* been guilty of this to a greater or lesser extent. They have been pursuing the Ptole maic system of truth with brother Jasper instead of the Coper- nican with modern astronomy. RELIGIOUS RADIUM Nobody now doubts the existence of radium, and yet as one says, it has been “bombarding” the universe for aeons and under the very nose of science, and yet it was only discov ered yesterday and already threatens to revolutionize sci ence. Now religious experience is the radium of the spiritual universe, which needs only discovery to revolutionize any man’s thought as to life and destiny. Christian experience, the experience of regeneration and conversion, of moral transformation through Christian agen cies, has evidential value in several directions. EXPERIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY I. It is the supplemental link to complete philosophy. Philosophy is man reaching up towards God. Christian ex perience is the effect of God reaching down to man. Philosophy seems always on the point of discovering the secret of the universe, but it never succeeds in doing it. We
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