SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 287, 26 April 1913, Page 9

SUNDAY READING

IS CHRIST INDISPENSABLE TO / LIFE? (Being a Sermon recently delivered by REV. T. H. ROSEVEARE at New Plymouth). "For me to live is Christ."—Phil. 1-21. In setting out to answer the question, "Is Christ indispensable to life?" we must first make some necessary assumptions. We cannot start out to prove everything from the beginning. It would be unreasonable to expect it. A man said the other day, "I believe nothing except you can give me a reason for it." If we were to act on that principle in everything we should never make headway in thought at all. Parallel lines never meet: a straight line lies evenly between two points. These are elemental facts that we must take for granted. Let us now take for granted that Christ was and is a reality; that He lived the life whose record we have in our four gospels, and that He is alive to-day, and that what is written of his mission is what He actually claimed for Himself in life. It is true that there are those whom R. E. Walsh, in his book, "In Relief of Doubt," .calls "professional doubters." We have heard and .read of Herbert Spencer and Renan, of Baur, Huxley, Hankel and others from Germany and Oxford who would go behind our gospels and try to supplant them with some other theory of the world and man. We are not without such men in these days. Mr. Blatchford, editor of the London Clarion, is continually pouring forth fulminations at the Christian religion and receives a following. But I think lam safe in saying that we are nearly all on common ground when we assume Christ has lived and that lie was accurately reported in the Gospels. The position that has to be faced to-day is that arising cut of the fact that many men and women believe that Christ is an optional clement in life. Life is complete without ! Him, but that some people choose to adhere to Him; some do not, the latter not suffering by their attitude, at in the meantime. That leads us to make certain as.smillions about life. What we mean is mt mere existence on the level of the lower creatures. We shall take it for granted that we owe our existence to God, the Almighty Creator. Nor yet are we to be satisfied with the life of a rational savage. Life means the dust that can be made of life, and

THE HIGHEST ELEMENT IN LIFE is the moral, and deals with character. This is what our Christian religion declares; this, too, is what our scientific evolutionist declares. He says: "The highest element in evolution is man, and the highest element in life is the moral." The question that now presents itself is: ■ls tlie Christ of the Gospels indispensable to the highest moral interests of man? Is Christ to the life like a wall to iha sea when the rocks and sand are quite sufficient to keep it in bounds? Or is Christ to the life like the banks and dykes of Holland, any tampering with which would let in the devouring Boa of passions that would soon destroy the life? We adhere to the latter view, and so answer the question in the affirmative. Look at the matter on a low level first. A boy, we shall say, has set his heart on becoming a farmer. How is he to set about attaining his end? Will ha set to work to read up all the latest information about improved methods of agriculture, and about chemical actions on the soil, and so on, and then go directly from the school or college to mhul a farm? Xo; he. will get all the information he can, but he will also go and live with a practical farmer where diligence and methods have led to success, and so he will learn. We cannot learn to swim by reading books on swimming. We must get into the water with one who has learned the art. So it is in the whole round of life and thought. It also applies to the art of right living. We must keep our eyes upon someone v!io has lived the ideal life, and so learn how we may do so also. Where are we ■ to find such a one? Certainly not among ordinary men—not even anion?; the best of men. There is only one life that will stand, and that is the life of Jesus Christ. His enemies could fin.l no fault in Him. Further, we cannot consider the life of Christ without beng compelled to take up a moral attitude towards Him. Think of the narrative of Peter discovering Jesus! He fell down and said, "Depart from me for 1 am a sinful man, 0 Lord." We cannot think of Christ without thinking how unworthy we are, and without having desires after better lives. Christ works changes, and is the onlv power on earth that can keep men and women from sinking into immorality and wretchedness. What we know of purity, love, forgiveness, humility and other virtues we learn from Christ. It is true that we bad the Ten Commandments before Christ. Yet He threw new life and meaning upon them, so that we may claim that our knowledge of the highest life is due to Christ. The alphabet was in existence before Shakespeare's time, the octave of notes before Pade.rcwski's, the elemental colors before Holman Hunt's, but what a new world of drama, music and painting is produced by these men! So Christ produced a new life for us to live by showing us the possibilities of life. Let us now ask, what about the other teachers of morality? Our Scriptures cannot claim a monopoly of ethical teaching. Tn fact, Mrs. liesant goes so far as to say, "All that is fair and beautiful in Christian morality had been taught in the world ages before Christ was born." Christ was the Son of God, and God made man with desires and aspirations after Himself and with intuitions of truth. Christ came to work along God's plan and not to cut out a new theory of life at all. It is a most reasonable thing that Christ should take ii]) the Hashes of Divine life and amplify them. It really adds to Christ that He is in line with what is good and right in life. Hut docs it really matter what a man believes so long us he lives right? Do we not find good lives among atheists, agnostics, unbelievers and Christians alike? And do we not, on the, other hand, find bad lives among Christians? Tn view of these facts we are again compelled to ask. Is Christ indispensable to life? And does it really matter what we believe? The answer to this question will depend to a great extent on the nature of our belief. Tf our belief is merely a ma Iter of opinion, it does not matter in the least. A man may have his shelves filled with books, but if he never reads them it does not matter whether they are good, bad or indifferent, because they never get the chance to affect him. So if a man merely holds certain opinions, it does not matter what they are so long as they don't alVeet his life. This, f believe, is the reason of many lives among these who hold loose theories of life. There are many Mormons who are polvgamists; there are many pessimists who do not commit suicide-not because of their beliefs but in spite of their beliefs. Tt is not until a man's beliefs become his convictions by which his life is governed that it really matters. Further, the nature of the facts under consideration are important in the matter of our beliefs, especially if these beliefs are sincere conviction. What does it matter whether or not we believe that Mars is

inhabited, or whether Moses wrote the Book of Deuteronomy, or whether there were two Isahihs or only one, or whe-" tlier Paul wrote Hebrews? These do no iill'ect conduct, nor are they vital to our faith. But it is an entirely different matter whether we believe or not in Christ, the Saviour from sin, the Lord of our lives, the motive power of right thinking.

Turn now to actual life and see how J this statement is borne out by facts. We cannot pick out any case at random and from that generalise into a rule. We shall be more just if we take what shall be considered representative cases. There have been leaders of schools of thought whose lives we know something about, who have thrown Christ aside as indispensible and who have adopted some other theory as a guide to conduct. With what results let us see. Take the case of John Stewart Mill, the famous infidel philosopher. His father, James Mill, was also an infidel, and was careful to give his son an education on severely sceptical principles. Here, surely, is an opportunity for a Christless life to develop a good character. But what do we find? Mill associates himself with the closest intimacy with a Mrs. Taylor while her husband is still alive. He dines with her twice a week while the husband, whose protests are in vain, dines out. He takes a trip with her to the continent, and so breaks up the most sacred ties of a home on the pretext of congenial companionship, and attempts to justify himself in the action. Carlyle was another who emphasised the importance of character, but discarded . Christianity. With what result? "His life," says W. L. Watkinson, "was one long snarl at circumstances and people." His conduct to his wife for sustained selfishness and bitterness is perhaps without parallel. This was not owing to adverse circumstances, for he early attained distinction and independence. Xor was it owing to ill-health, for he was essentially robust. He himself says: "Were I right in my own heart nothing else' would be wrong." j

Take the case of George Eliot, who is going to make morality consist of poetry and aestheticism and rejects Christianity. Judge her own life by her own standard. At a time in life when she should have known better she consents to live with a Mr. George H. Lewes, whose wife is still alive It was not stress of poverty nor youthful passion that drove her to this. Her life demonstrates afresh the impotence of moral philosophy. But, you ask, is it a fact that all unbelievers are immoral? Are not some good and kind and true? But what we have shown is that there is a tendency in the downward direction whenever Christ is rejected. This tendency has free play in the instances quoted. In many cases it has not had free play. We must remember that there is what R. E. Walsh calls "diffused Christianity" in society. Just as a nation cannot be changed from savagery to the pinnacle of civilisation in a day, neither can a life revert to savagery in one generation when surrounded by Christian principles and influences. We owe more to Christ in our social life than we are often aware of. On the other hand, what about bad Christians? Do all those who believe in Christ live so as to prove that Christ keeps lives right? Let us frankly admit that many professing and nominal Christians live bad lives. These are not a product of Christianity; they are rather samples of those who need Christ. They are bad not because of Christianity, but for want of it. It would be manifestly unfair to charge the Reformation of the Middle Ages with the ravages and outrages committed in its name. It would be unfair to charge civilisation as being ' the cause of all the vice and wretchedness of civilised lands. So Christianity is not the cause of the bad lives lived in its name. Moreover, our standard is not the lives of Christians, even the best of them. Look at Christ; lind a flaw in Him if you can; find a life that has been committed to IJim that He has been unable to renew and uplift and keep, anil then will be time enough to turn elsewhere for your standard of living. Is Christ indispensiblc in life? Without Him we cannot live, and without Him we dare not die.