Article December 12, 1903 Issue

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Life should be to us the great opportunity. We believe we shall go into the other state as we leave this, not blossoming immediately into an angel, but remaining essentially human. Is there progress there? We hope devoutly there is, but we do not know. Suppose there is not, that we are to remain as we arrive, neither better nor worse. The thought has an awful implication, that of a fixed and changeless state. Supremest bliss would not satisfy our restless souls on those conditions. No, we must advance, expand, grow. A bud that forever remains a bud suffers a peculiar kind of annihilation. The aspiration is for more life and richer. But are we worthy of it if we neglect the great, good chances of this life for the growth of a nobler?—The Christian Register.

The truth that we desire here to impress is, that the Christ who has so mightily affected the ages, dominating the thoughts and lives of men, is not so much the Christ of the creeds, the confessions, the great controversies, but the Christ of the Gospels. We plead for a better knowledge of him among us. We are saying nothing against confessions, creeds, theologies. But the great mass of our people are ignorant, amazingly ignorant, of the Christ of the Gospels. It is easy to read theologies, and to contend for the beliefs that some man has formulated; but it is not so easy to read, with faith and insight and joy, under the tuition of the Spirit of God, the Gospels that, with inimitable transparency, portray for us the inimitable and real and supreme Christ.—The Examiner.

Faith is not a creed, but it expresses itself in a creed. We voiced our childish faith mainly in words which were given us. But now it is a privilege to find our own forms of expression, old or new, embodying our belief in words of our own choice. It would clear up thought amazingly with many of us if we took time to put in words what we really do believe. Men reach heaven by faith expressed in holiness; but they would have an easier time on earth if they thought honestly and clearly as well as believed with childish simplicity. For doubt is of the dark—of the gray twilight of vague thought and not of the broad day of thoughtful sincerity.—The Congregationalist.

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