FROM OUR EXCHANGES

[George B. Hatch in Hartford (Conn.) Seminary Record.]

Personally I do not blame the modern man for not responding to the average so-called "message" as presented to him through the church. And I feel sure that he never will respond, until the message of the church is presented to him out of the deep and glowing experiences of living men. What our preachers need is themselves to receive the atonement. It is all right to discuss socialism, ethics, therapeutics, and what not, for all things are ours and the circumference of Christianity sweeps out and includes whatever is human; but we may discuss these circumferential concerns till the day of doom, and still the church will run down, and all the faster it will run down and tend to become like other human institutions, unless the burden, the message, the heart and vitality of what we say is the evangel, the good news, the central reality, the love of God in Christ which takes away the sin of the world, spoken out of souls which themselves have received, are daily and deeply receiving, the atonement. The modern man would respond to St. Paul. The modern man would respond to anything real, however spiritual that reality might be. The modern man would listen to the atonement, if he knew how to say it. He would have to. He needs to. It is his deepest, most inclusive need.

[Universalist Leader.]

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August 13, 1910
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