Article July 1, 1905 Issue

From our Exchanges

with contributions from William H. P. Faunce, Edward Payson Ingersoll

The race wearies of the monotonous confession, "The thing I would not, that I do. Who shall deliver me?" Every religion has striven to answer this agonized query of baffled and beaten humanity. They err egregiously who would represent the heart of Christianity as merely an enunciation of a better life philosophy, an improved system of ethics with wiser maxims and somewhat profounder moralizings. It can never be understood except as motive, impulse, strength, inspiration, empowering. It means that humanity shall be charged with a dynamic Holy Spirit, whose natural and inevitable product is righteousness and holiness, supplementing human weakness with Divine efficiencey, linking man's frailty to God's almightiness. Christianity may be described as a broader and more rational creed for the intellect; as a mysticism; as a philanthropy. But its chiefest characteristic is that it is a religion of power.—Western Christian Advocate.

The present religious revival shows two things clearly: First—That man is incurably religious. Great material prosperity or great material distress may for a time push the physical side of life into the foreground and hide the deeper needs of the soul. But inevitably the hunger of the human spirit reappears and the soul "thirsteth for God." The religious man is simply the complete man; the irreligious man is a fragment, lacking in full humanity. Secondly—That modern scholarship is furnishing new and powerful aids to the religious life. The centre of interest is no longer in physics and chemistry; no longer in biology, but in psychology and the social sciences. But these have to do directly with the man's inner life.

William H. P. Faunce, LL.D. The Watchman.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

From our Exchanges

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access