Article January 9, 1904 Issue

From our Exchanges

with contributions from F. W. Sprague

"The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: ... and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged" (Revised Version). That is a fundamental fact in spiritual experience. Only the man who is "born from above" can "see the kingdom of God," or suspect its presence in the world. Only the heart that is renewed can appreciate God's grace, or delight in God's purpose of love, or even apprehend that He has a purpose by which the world is being transformed. "The things of God" none know except those who are quickened and illumined by the Spirit of God.

But it is well that we bear in mind that these high spiritual experiences are not unnatural, in the proper sense of that term. Man is made for God, created in His image, fitted for companionship with Him by his very nature, and thus creatively qualified to know Him and love Him and live for Him.—The Examiner.

Spenser B. Meeser, D.D., says in The Standard: "We are hearing to-day a great deal about the 'new evangelism." What do men mean by it? Some of them mean, to be very frank, that the old evangelism, which promised men with passionate vehemence that if they accepted Christ in a confession, in holding up the hand or bowing at an altar-rail, if in some heat of emotion they would be converted, it would be all well with them here and hereafter; this evangelism they mean is inadequate and unappealing and ineffective now, and we can hope for little or no progress from such appeals to-day. Men resent it as artificial, shallow, and inefficient, and, therefore, we must have a new evangelism, with a fresh message, more ethical and more effective."

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