{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_15861/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_15861","id":"gutenberg_15861","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15861","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity","Theology, Doctrinal"],"text":"Produced by Justin Kerk, Thomas Hutchinson and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Things Which Remain\n\n_An Address To Young Ministers_\n\n\nBy\n\nDANIEL A. GOODSELL\n\n\nA Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church\n\n\n\n\n_CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE_\n_NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS_\n\n_Copyright, 1904, by_\nJENNINGS AND PYE\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis little book contains the larger part of an address I have delivered\nat several Annual Conferences on the occasion of the admission of\nprobationary ministers into full membership. At the suggestion of some\nwho have heard it when delivered and whose assurance that it would be\nuseful in print I am bound to respect, I have consented to its\npublication.\n\nMatter not directly relating to the theme, but of sufficient importance\nto accompany it in addressing an Annual Conference, is here omitted,\nthat all possible space might be given to the discussion of the\nquestion, \"How much Christian doctrine will still remain, though much of\nthe most radical criticism be accepted?\"\n\n\n\n\nPreface\n\n\nIt will be understood that concessions made for the sake of the argument\nby no means represent my own views of that which must be ultimately\nyielded to the critical spirit.\n\nAlready some opinions which threatened the authority of Gospels and\nEpistles, and which have had wide acceptance, have been modified or\nwithdrawn. My aim in this address was not to scout criticism, from which\nmuch of the highest value to faith is to come, but to steady the\nwavering young minister; to sustain his preaching power by helping him\nto a definite message, and to encourage him to a slow and guarded\nacceptance of critical opinions destructive of \"the faith once delivered\nto the saints.\"\n\nCHATTANOOGA, TENN., December, 1903.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Things Which Remain\n\n\n\n\nThe followers of Him who said \"I am the Truth\" can never afford to hold\nor propagate that which is false. No man can preach with power unless he\nstrongly believes. Teaching force depends on Faith.\n\n[Sidenote: Doing and Knowing.]\n\n[Sidenote: The Divine Call.]\n\n[Sidenote: Conditions of the Call.]\n\nThus far our ministry has had teaching power because it has been founded\non and inspired by a Christian experience. Our Church has always\nemphasized that essential Christian statement, \"If ye do ye shall know.\"\nAt every ordination we have demanded of every candidate a declaration of\nhis persuasion that he was \"called according to the will of our Lord\nJesus Christ\" to the particular office to which he was then to be\nadvanced. By this we do not mean a mediate call through the order of the\nChurch or the judgment of the Bishop, but an immediate call by the Holy\nSpirit from Christ Himself. This call is antedated by that personal\nsurrender to Jesus Christ; that blessed acceptance by Him of the\nself-surrendered; that witnessing Spirit as to sonship which brings the\nconsciousness of pardon, renewal, and justification known as \"a\nreligious experience.\"\n\n[Sidenote: Evidence of the Call.]\n\nThose who possess this know something. Whereas they were \"once blind,\nnow they see.\" They know they have \"passed from darkness to light\"\nthrough the changed love which now controls. However the persuasion\nreached them, it is a persuasion; not merely a hope. It is a conclusion\nborne in upon them by satisfactory evidence, and is a lasting certainty\nwhile the faith which brought it abides in its original measure.\n\nThus to-day we have a pulpit substantially in doctrine and force what\nour pulpit always has been. Even in some cases where doubt has entered,\nit would appear that this Christian experience has steadied the wavering\nhead by the full and regular impulses of the believing heart.\n\n[Sidenote: New Problems in Theology.]\n\n[Sidenote: The Modern Skeptical Temper.]\n\nIt is, however, to be admitted that the years to which we have come\nbring with them problems which our fathers did not have to solve. Doubts\nof which they knew nothing throng our atmosphere and crowd upon our\nconsciousness. The attacks on Christianity are no longer the ribald\njeers of the unlovely and the vile. They come in the name of honest\ninvestigation, historical veracity, and scientific accuracy; and are\nprojected by characters apparently truth-loving, reverent, and candid.\n\n[Sidenote: The Sources of Advanced Criticism.]\n\nThis may be said for most of them, but on occasion it is hard to believe\nthat all the German critics are wholly and exclusively truth-loving and\ncandid. So extreme are the positions of some, so evidently tinctured\nwith overreadiness for criticism and unbelief, that they must be\nexcluded from the \"most\" above described.\n\nI speak of the Germans because they, chiefly, are those capable and\nactive in original research. Most of our American \"advanced critics\" are\nmerely translators and adapters of German work. Their volumes add\nnothing to the controversy to those who know the German originals. Not a\nfew Americans have obtained reputation by the expansion of the note\nbooks they made at the feet of German professors.\n\n[Sidenote: The English Disciples of the German School.]\n\n[Sidenote: Love of Novelty.]\n\nThis also is largely true of the English critics. Many of them are well\nfurnished for Greek criticism. The number of Greek Englishmen is still\nvery large. But these seem also to fortify, at least, their own\nconclusions by the opinions of the original German investigators. It is\nhard to believe that, in the contests for German professorial position,\nas well as in the justification of the incumbent when the position is\ngained, the desire to attract attention by some critical novelty of\nmethod or result has not been in some cases, at least, as influential as\na simple love of truth.\n\n[Sidenote: Some Questions as to Style.]\n\nThere is always the question also, which I profess seems to be one not\neasy of answer, whether the literary judgments as to style when men are\ndealing with another language than their own, and especially with Greek\nand Hebrew, can be as worthy of acceptance as their authors and many\nothers hold them to be; whether, in short, their opinions may not, like\nthose of experts in handwriting, come to be so colored by their\npersonality, or their interests, as to be of little evidential value.\nOn this point it seems to me that not enough allowance has been made by\nthese critics for the difference in style when men write familiarly or\ndidactically, or when they are engaged in narration or exhortation.\n\n[Sidenote: Foundation of Belief Unsettled.]\n\nWhatever may be the truth as to these matters, the present state of\nfaith is due to the unsettlement of the foundation of belief by\nscientific and critical scholarship.\n\n[Sidenote: A New Foundation to Emerge.]\n\nThis unsettlement, admitted on every hand with difference of opinion as\nto extent, is either to increase until faith in Christianity, except as\nan ethical and humanitarian system, is dead, or abide until faith\nrevives by a perception that the Church has maintained an erroneous\nbasis for faith and that a new and stronger one is emerging from the sea\nof discussion. This last I believe to be the truth in the matter. I\nhold, therefore, that faith is not dying, but suffering in some minds\nfrom a kind of lunar eclipse, where a shadow diminishes, temporarily,\nthe radiance, but does not extinguish the planet itself.\n\n[Sidenote: The Authority of the Scriptures Weakened.]\n\nWhen we ask what foundation is weakened, the answer is: The authority of\nthe Scriptures as the sole rule of faith and practice. Some claim that\nonly a few of the books are genuine and almost none authentic. If this\nis to be the final judgment of the learned and the sincere, it is plain\nthat we must seek another foundation for faith than the word of\nScripture. It is no more a \"Thus saith the Lord\" for us.\n\n[Sidenote: Critics not yet Agreed.]\n\n[Sidenote: Archaeology and the Bible.]\n\n[Sidenote: Personal Standpoints.]\n\nBut we are very far from seeing that final agreement among the critics\nwhich warrants us in discarding a single book. If any one has been\nfought about, and fought over, it is the Gospel of John. \"It used to be\nsaid that this was not a history at all, but an idealizing of tradition\nin the interest of a speculative idea;[1] now theologians are mostly\nagreed that if John is the most speculative, he is, at the same time,\nthe most personal of New Testament writers.\" No other book has been\nfinally overthrown. Archaeology has confirmed Paul, and also some Old\nTestament writers, especially those who speak of widely separated\nsettlements of the Hittites. I get a strong impression that the New\nTestament writers are sometimes attacked because they teach what the\ncritics do not wish to believe. Thus it would appear that Harnack scouts\nthe early chapters of Matthew and Luke because he doubts the virgin\nbirth, and would hold that belief therein is no part in authority or\nvalue of the Christian religion.\n\n[Footnote 1: Denney. Studies in Theology.]\n\n[Sidenote: Bible Appeal for Verification.]\n\n[Sidenote: Gracious Ability.]\n\n[Sidenote: Huxley's Passionless Impersonality.]\n\n[Sidenote: Gracious Conditions for Belief.]\n\n[Sidenote: Ethical Conditions for Faith.]\n\nI now wish to declare my own confidence that the verification of the\ntruths contained in the New Testament was never intended to rest upon\nan absolutely inerrant record or on an inspiration which dictated to a\npersonality rather than expressed itself through a personality. The\nBible presupposes a power in man to test and verify its statements and\ndoctrines. It makes its appeal to this steadily from the earlier books\nto the later; the appeal growing in content as the soul has developed\nits power of recognition. This is the familiar law of knowing and doing,\nof proving by practice, of perceiving the leadership of Jesus Christ\nthrough the leading of the Holy Ghost. As to doctrine, there is left in\nman the power to make the beginning of a faith. On this beginning\ndevotion builds a belief in the greater mysteries. Thus reason deduces a\nFirst Cause, then the unity of the First Cause. This is as far as reason\ncan go. Huxley, looking out on the universe with this power, said:\n\"There is an impassable gulf between anthropomorphism, however refined\nand the passionless impersonality underlying the thin veil of phenomena.\nI can not see one tittle of evidence that the great unknown stands to us\nin the light of a Father.\" Nor could he. Religious truth is conditioned\nin a way in which the apprehension of physical truth is not. There must\nbe a certain condition of the heart, conscience, and will to see the\ntruth of the Godhead of Christ. One may resist this evidence.[2] Only a\nliving Christian is competent to look at the subject--\"unto you it is\ngiven to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.\" In physics \"nothing\nis needed but open eyes and a sound understanding.\"[3] Moral character\nhas nothing to do with it, except as vice may affect vision and\ndeteriorate the judgment. But in a soul's relation to the Christian\nreligion, the ethical element is that which is fundamental. \"The pure in\nheart shall see God.\" The foul soul has no vision for the eternal\npurities. In the days of idolatry \"there was no open vision.\" So in the\nheart of sin there is no light of spiritual truth. The higher verities\nappear fully founded to the Christian consciousness only.\n\n[Footnote 2: Cf. Denney.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Cf. Denney.]\n\n[Sidenote: Natural Ethical Canon.]\n\nYet, let us remember that below this Christian consciousness lie the\nsubstrata of reason and ethical canon common to all men. Religious truth\nrests on these in its first revelations. Above the first and simplest\nrevelation, truth rests on Christian experience as to those matters for\nwhich reason and natural ethical canon are insufficient.\n\n[Sidenote: General Calm of Methodist Episcopal Church.]\n\n[Sidenote: Wesley's Advanced Views.]\n\nThis having been the teaching of the Methodist Episcopal Church from the\nbeginning, she has been little disturbed by the critical school. While\nholding that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, she has not committed\nherself to any one theory of inspiration. She has not believed the\nScriptures because they are written, but, being written, she has found\nthem true. She has believed in the supernatural power of the Gospel\nbecause in her sight its leaven has wrought in the individual and in\nsociety what it claims for itself. John Wesley believed that there were\nGod-breathed teachings outside of the Bible. He believed this because of\nhis feeling that the Divine Fatherhood must have spoken to other than\nHis Jewish children. Inheriting from our founder these thoughts, we have\nkept a high degree of calm in these later days of inquiry and doubt.\n\n[Sidenote: Wide Range of Unbelief.]\n\n[Sidenote: Natural Immortality.]\n\n[Sidenote: Reward and Punishments.]\n\nWe have already admitted that the present tendency to unbelief has wider\nrange and fresher foundations than our fathers knew. The belief in the\nnatural immortality of the human soul whether of Platonic or Christian\norigin is shaken to an extent not known in a century. The doubts of\nHuxley, the denials of Haeckel had a purely scientific basis. The\nsuspension of consciousness by sleep, by accident, by drugs, the decay\nof mind by old age and by disease are freely put forth as proofs that\nmind can not exist without the mechanism which supports and manifests\nit. If this last be true a doctrine fundamental to Christianity must be\nabandoned. The doctrine of immortality through Christ does not meet the\nnew objections. The scheme of redemption and the doctrine of future\nrewards and punishments are involved in the fate of the doctrine of\nnatural immortality. We have thus shadows of doubt thrown upon two great\ndoctrines, the virgin birth of Christ and natural immortality. The\nmiracles, Resurrection, and Ascension must be added to the shadowed\nlist.\n\n[Sidenote: Some Influential Facts.]\n\n[Sidenote: A Great Mistake.]\n\n[Sidenote: Doctored Heathenism.]\n\nWhatever relation the fact may have as a cause, it is noteworthy that as\nto time, this new era of doubt largely coincides as to its beginning\nwith the movement to revise the New Testament. The variations of the\nmanuscripts, the interpretations, the comparatively late date of the\noldest manuscripts were before this in possession of scholars only. The\ndaily press have made them the possession of the Christian world. The\nshock to traditional confidence through this was very great. The\nCongress of Religions at Chicago had a similar effect. The mistaken\nliberality which permitted Christianity to appear on the same platform\nwith the ethnic and imperfect religions contributed largely to doctrinal\nindifference. The taking and uncandid misrepresentations of these\nreligions convinced many that there was at least no better foundation\nfor Christianity and no better content therein than for and in the false\nand imperfect faiths. Many of these were defended by men who had had an\nEnglish education and had come into contact with Christian vocabulary\nand civilization. They did not hesitate to read into these religions\nideas wholly Christian and wholly foreign to the original teachings.\n\n[Sidenote: What Remains?]\n\nThese and other considerations lead me to ask what remains that we may\nand do believe? While far from admitting as finally proved the radical\nconclusions reached by some as to authorship and inspiration of the\nBible and Divine authority for doctrines deduced therefrom, it must be\nprofitable for us to ask, \"What remains if some of these conclusions\nstand?\"\n\nRecall that I do not admit all these for a moment, or any of them as\nfinal. Some are probably true. But taking the worst and most\niconoclastic as true, are we compelled even then to surrender our\nChristian faith?\n\n[Sidenote: The Apostles' Creed.]\n\nLet us take the separate articles of the Apostles' Creed and see how\nthey stand affected:\n\n[Sidenote: The Fatherhood of God.]\n\n\"I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.\"\n\n[Sidenote: A Christian God.]\n\nSurely this remains untouched and in full force. Huxley, to requote what\nhas before been quoted, says: \"I can not see one tittle of evidence that\nthe great unknown stands to us in the light of a Father.\" What a\ncontradiction is here! He knows that the great unknown can not be proved\nto be our Father. Then he must know of the great unknown the negative\naspects so minutely as to be sure that no Fatherhood is in the great\nunknown. Then he knows the great unknown much better than he is willing\nto admit, better than an agnostic ought.\n\n[Sidenote: An All Pervasive Spirit.]\n\n[Sidenote: His Commandments.]\n\n[Sidenote: The Divine Ideal.]\n\nYet that the idea of God may remain in power and not as a \"passionless\nimpersonality,\" it must be less interpreted by the teachings of Moses\nand more by the teachings of Christ. Human tempers and passions must be\neliminated from our Divine Ideal. He must not be made an angry and\njealous God as men count these. He must not be thought of as a\nvindictive personality, never so well pleased as when scaring His\nchildren into panic. In the thought of the Church He will be an\nall-pervasive Spirit whose nature is unfolded by the universe He has\nmade. In that universe He will be felt to be immanent as the power of\ndevelopment, order, and destiny. All ages show Him to be \"the power\nwhich makes for righteousness.\" The commandments are not only His\nbecause they are found in the Bible, but because they are perceived to\nbe necessary laws of conduct proceeding from such a Being as we know God\nto be for such beings as we know men to be. Thus we perceive them to be\nthe Divinely authorized bond of society and the guarantee and obligation\nof the Divine Ideal of humanity. All nature and all history are\nscrutinized for traces of the Supreme. These being found to coincide\nwith the Christian Revelation of Him, men will read with new reverence\nthose wonderful books which make up the Book, and which beyond all\nothers anticipate the latest results of scientific inquiry and natural\nethical canon.\n\n[Sidenote: Advantage of Newer View.]\n\nOut of this will come such a sense of the Divine Presence as the Church\nand the individual Christian have not hitherto known. Moral distance\nfrom God will be the only distance. \"In Him we live and move and have\nour being\" comes to full interpretation through this thought of God.\nHumanity is immersed in Him.\n\n[Sidenote: Transcendent.]\n\n[Sidenote: Huxley Against Hume.]\n\nBut this immanent God is also seen to be transcendent. He is in nature\nand far beyond it. Vast as nature is, it is limited. God is the\nunlimited. Within this region of transcendence is room for all His\ngracious activities as distinguished from His natural activities; room\nfor marvel and miracle if He will and we need. When Huxley abandons\nHume's _a priori_ argument against miracles it is not worth while for\nothers to use it. Fewer doubt the existence of a God, I believe, than at\nany time since men sought to prove that He does not exist. The Fatherly\nin God is proved both by His work in nature and by those works of grace\nwhich the student of nature alone can not see. God is a spirit. The\nhuman spirit refined, purified, sees Him in proportion to its\npurification.\n\n[Sidenote: Modern Christology.]\n\n[Sidenote: Former Limitations.]\n\n[Sidenote: Ritual Statement.]\n\n[Sidenote: Aim of Christianity.]\n\n[Sidenote: Likeness to God.]\n\nIn respect of \"Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord,\" it may, it must, be\nsaid He remains in full and glorious vigor as the Redeemer of mankind.\nThe marked difference between our time and a half-century ago with\nrespect to Christ is in the extension, rather than the diminution of His\nrelation to salvation and the extension of the idea of salvation itself.\nIn the former days men's eyes were almost wholly fixed on His death and\nits relation to salvation in the future life. Seldom indeed was the\nvalue of the following text taken into consideration: \"For if when we\nwere enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much\nmore being reconciled we shall be saved by His life.\" There is less\ndisposition to dogmatize as to theories of the atonement. Most, I\nthink, come to feel that no one view contains the full significance of\nChrist's death. Have you noticed how the Ritual puts it in the order of\nthe Lord's Supper? \"Didst give Thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer\ndeath upon the cross for our Redemption; who made there [on the cross]\nby His oblation of Himself once offered a full, perfect, and sufficient\nsacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.\"\nThe men who wrote that struggled to interpret His death by every\npossible phase of its meaning. In our time we have come to see that the\naim of Christ and Christianity is to develop character and that this\nmust be gained in time that we may be ready for eternity. Thus the death\nof Christ as the ultimate of self-sacrifice persuades us to the death of\nsin in us that we may live renewed in God; \"rise from our dead selves\nto higher things.\" His life persuades us as the condition and example of\ngrowth to move on from the first self-surrender into the habit and fact\nof constant obedience and therefore \"into the likeness of God's dear\nSon.\"\n\nThe consciousness, well-nigh universal, of the nobility of\nself-sacrifice is that which gives vitality and vogue among the masses\nto the doctrine of the atonement. Self-sacrifice becomes more rare as\nwealth and refinement modify men and women. He that has much is loath to\nlose or leave it. Hence the rich generally fight in security. The poor\nmeet the bullets first.\n\nBad as is the conduct of some trades-unionists, it is among these\ntoilers that great deeds of sympathy and generosity are done. How they\ntax themselves to help each other! How their women work for each other\nwhen one is unable to care for herself or her children! Their doctrine\nthat \"an injury to one is a wrong to all\" has much that is Christlike in\nit. Let us who believe in an atoning Christ rejoice that as long as men\nhonor bravery--self-sacrifice unto death for country, home, or the life\nof dear ones; as long as they build monuments to generals, soldiers,\nfiremen, physicians who die for others, so will the world be slow to\ndisbelieve the doctrine that \"Jesus Christ tasted death for every man.\"\n\n[Sidenote: John's Logos.]\n\n[Sidenote: An Anthropomorphic God.]\n\nMore, too, is made of His life before the Incarnation. The pre-existence\nof Christ is an essential element in Christianity. \"His eternal relation\nto God is the only way of conceiving Him which answers to His real\ngreatness.\"[4] The Christ was present and active in the creation. John's\nuse of the word \"Logos\" is right. \"Logos\" is not merely a result but a\nForce. It is not only the speech, but the speaker. Let us admit once for\nall that the fact, much belabored of the critics, is a fact. Let us not\nbe afraid of the word which expresses it. God must be anthropomorphic if\nHe exists. We can come nowhere near to thinking out any other kind of\nGod. Christ has the value of God to devout Christians because in the\nfullness of His moral perfections He expresses God so far as we can know\nHim and man so far as man can hope and grow.\n\n[Footnote 4: Denney. Studies in Theology.]\n\n[Sidenote: How Son of God.]\n\nIs His Sonship different from ours, or only an expansion of the fullness\nand perfection of our sonship? This last seems to me a most important\nquestion. If He was born as we were born--that is, as to the beginning\nof His earthly life, there can be no pre-eminent sense in which He was\nthe Son of God. He was either a happy accident of natural birth or a\n\"sport\" in evolution.\n\n[Sidenote: The Virgin Birth.]\n\nThis brings us to that doctrine which is the greatest challenge to the\ndoubter: \"Conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary,\"--a\ndoctrine fiercely fought by Harnack and yet by no means to be dismissed\nas he dismisses it. His teaching on this point seems to me the result of\nhis theory of Christianity. If one seeks to rid Christianity of the\nsupernatural, here is the place to begin.\n\n[Sidenote: Dignity of the Story.]\n\n[Sidenote: A Greater Puzzle.]\n\nBut who will not feel the force of the position that, granted God was to\nbe incarnate, the story of Christ's incarnation is the noblest and most\nprobable? He is not born of a man's lust nor of a woman's desire--but of\nthe submission of untainted womanhood to the direct creative power of\nGod. The alternative to this is the Divinest man in all the world born\nof sinning and not yet married parents. If the new doctrine of heredity\nbe true that men may inherit good as well as evil, we still have an\nastounding fact to account for; namely, the birth of such a child from\nsuch conditions, that is, with all the good kept in and all the bad left\nout.\n\n[Sidenote: Parthenogenesis a Fact.]\n\nWhen men speak of a virgin birth as incredible and impossible and as the\nweakest of all Christian doctrine, do they know or have they forgotten\nthat parthenogenesis (virgin birth) is a fact in nature; existing, for\nexample, in as highly organized insects as the honey bee? There are\nother insects which are parthenogenetic at one time and sexually\nproductive at another. There are also hints of it in human life known to\nanatomists which can not be fully discussed here.\n\n[Sidenote: Among the Bees.]\n\n[Sidenote: A Small Departure from Nature.]\n\nThe virgin queen bee produces males in abundance, but can not produce\nfemales until she has made her nuptial flight and met her mate in an\nembrace invariably fatal to him. Nor does she ever need to meet\nanother. From that time on, she is the fruitful mother of every kind of\nbee life the hive needs; the undeveloped females called neuters and\nthose who become queens by being fed on royal food. Virgin birth is\ntherefore imbedded in nature's order. To occur in the human species\nnature need call in no novelty. Christ, if born of a virgin, was born\nwith the smallest possible departure from the order of nature. A process\nknown in a lower form of life was carried into the higher to produce the\nunique being called for by the spiritual needs of mankind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Historical Statement.]\n\nPassing over the historical assertions which follow the doctrine of the\nvirgin birth, \"suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and\nburied,\" because there is nothing in these statements difficult or\nincredible, we reach the doctrine of His resurrection, \"the third day\nHe rose from the dead,\" a doctrine next to that of the virgin birth in\nnatural difficulty of acceptance.\n\n[Sidenote: Christ's Resurrection.]\n\n[Sidenote: Surprise of Disciples.]\n\n[Sidenote: The Fact Accounts for History.]\n\nFaith in this seems to me to depend on how far we have accepted Christ's\nDeity and His incarnation. If by the Holy Ghost we have been able \"to\nsay that Jesus is the Lord;\" if by that blessed energy we perceive His\nDivine mastership; if by the same energy we feel that He has transformed\nus into the image of His dear Son; raising us \"from the death of sin\ninto the life of righteousness\" it is not difficult to believe that\nJesus \"the power of the Resurrection\" rose from the dead. \"The fact of\nthe Resurrection and belief in the fact is not explicable by any\nantecedent conditions apart from its truth.\"[5] The disciples did not\nexpect what they saw. His death was for them so far as we can see,\nwithout hope. They were not able yet to interpret His prophecy that He\nwould build again His temple, nor understand the spirituality of His\nkingdom. These facts seem to me utterly to demolish the theory of a\nvision called up by eager, yea, agonizing, expectation. The idea of the\nResurrection justifies His prophecies as to Himself and the fact\naccounts, better than any theory which denies the fact, for the faith\nand founding of the early Church as well as for the course of subsequent\nhistory and of the believer's experience.\n\n[Footnote 5: Westcott. The Revelation of the Risen Lord.]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Slow Belief in Resurrection.]\n\nIt is much to see that belief became belief only with great difficulty.\nThe idea of the Resurrection was strange and alarming to the disciples.\n\"They were terrified and affrighted and supposed they beheld a spirit.\"\nSlowly by tests of sense as well as by persuasions of teaching did the\ndisciples come to believe that the Christ of the Resurrection was the\nsame Christ who suffered on the cross.\n\n[Sidenote: Not an Invention.]\n\n[Sidenote: An Eye-witness Story.]\n\nIt seems impossible that the Resurrection could have been an invention\nor that the account of it could be a work of the imagination. The last\nis almost as great a miracle as the Resurrection itself. In detail, in\nnaturalness, even in the presence of difficulties and hindrances to easy\nbelief of the story, the narrative seems that of an eye-witness. No\nreasoning can bring faith, however, to one who denies the miraculous. As\na fact, the Resurrection is incapable of naturalistic explanation. To\nthose who deny the miraculous I can only again point out how Huxley cuts\nout the _a priori_ argument from Hume as worthless. As quoted in his\nbiography, Huxley says: \"We are not justified in the _a priori_\nassertion that the order of nature, as experience has revealed it to us,\ncan not change. The assumption is illegitimate because it involves the\nwhole point in dispute.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Ascent into Heaven.]\n\n[Sidenote: The Ascension.]\n\n[Sidenote: Nature not Wholly Love.]\n\n[Sidenote: Evil and Good.]\n\nNecessarily miraculous also is the doctrine, \"He ascended into heaven.\"\nIn this He passed from the visible into the invisible; from the\nconditions of human life to those of the life of a spirit; from the work\nof redemption to that of intercession. If His resurrection be accepted,\nHis ascension presents no difficulties to faith. This, with His\nincarnation, and the facts of His earthly life are the manifestation of\nthe tender side of God to the senses even as His wisdom and power are\nshown to the senses by the facts and laws of nature. As to the doctrine,\n\"God is love,\" nature's word can never be conclusive. In the natural\nkingdom joy and sorrow, ease and pain, love and hate, kindness and\ncruelty, trust and terror exist side by side, as do life and death. No\nman concludes, from nature alone, that God is ruled by love. Because man\ncan not conclude this, Ormuzd and Ahriman are found substantially in all\nreligions, as in that of the Parsees, except in the Christian. Here the\nwarfare is not to be eternal. The victory of good is to come. Divine\nhelp is promised, that it may be secured in every soul. The conquest of\nevil by good is within that Christian omnipotence which Paul knew. \"I\ncan do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.\" It requires a\nChrist to show that the path to rest is through toil; that the way to\nease is through suffering; that the highway to life passes through\ndeath. Only thus can \"mortality be swallowed up of life.\"\n\n[Sidenote: The Meaning of Jesus.]\n\n[Sidenote: Christ as Revealer.]\n\nIn the unity of the Godhead, Christ is God in manifestation, redemption,\nintercession, judgment. In the Trinity, in which we must believe God\nexists, Jesus Christ is the personality expressive, at first visibly and\nnow invisibly, of the tender qualities of the Divine nature which,\nmanifested in part in the world of nature, are there so linked with\nseverity as to require special and peculiar revelation in the person of\nJesus Christ in order that God may be understood both as transcending\nnature and as eternal love.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSurely the doctrine, \"I believe in the Holy Ghost,\" will remain. It is a\nmisfortune that the word \"ghost\" has, in our English use, an unworthy\nand terrifying significance. On this account it were well if we could\nsubstitute for constant use the word \"Spirit.\"\n\n[Sidenote: The Holy Ghost.]\n\n[Sidenote: The Energy of God.]\n\n[Sidenote: The Interpreter.]\n\nThe Holy Spirit is the energy of God, whether working as Creator or in\nthe processes of redemption. It stirs us to the depths when we consider\nthat the Author of the worlds, the Source of the energies is He who\ntransforms, renews, sanctifies, and witnesses in us. There is no\nquestion as to the pervasiveness and competence of the Power which\n\"works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.\" We are taught to\ntrace all our religious uplift to the highest possible source. We gather\na great sense of our worth by the dignity of this association as we do\nof the condescension of our Lord in making His home in our hearts. This\nHoly Spirit is in all Christians the energy of the entire spiritual\nlife. By this we do the things which by nature we can not do. His is\nthat Divine impulse which initiates, continues, matures, and satisfies\nthe life of God in us. It is the indwelling, all-pervading Holy Spirit,\nwhich interprets that great word, \"I in them and Thou in Me, that they\nmay be one as We are.\"\n\n[Sidenote: The Doctrine of Energy.]\n\nAnd if the most advanced philosophy should yet be confirmed as true that\nthere is nothing really but energy, none the less would the doctrine of\nthe Holy Spirit abide. Back of all the individual energies of humanity;\nback of all the forces of nature is the supreme energy of God. If\ncreation be our theory, it is the Spirit of God which broods on the face\nof the waters. If evolution be our creed, it is \"in Him we live and move\nand have our being.\" All science is but the knowing of His way of\nworking, and all theology is but the discovery of His mind. To know Him\nis to know all things. The latest Christian will be saying, \"I believe\nin the Holy Ghost.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Forgiveness of Sin.]\n\n[Sidenote: Huxley on Depravity.]\n\n[Sidenote: Not All Born Good.]\n\n[Sidenote: Experience of Hell.]\n\nAnd what becomes of the doctrine of the \"forgiveness of sins\" in this\noutlook for \"the things which remain?\" Accepting Huxley as the\nincarnation of the skeptical spirit of our time, I quote from him his\nthought of sin, depravity, and punishment, as a hint of where the\nscientific spirit may yet aid us. \"The doctrine of predestination, of\noriginal sin, of the innate depravity of man, the evil fate of the\ngreater part of the race, of the primacy of Satan in this world, of the\nessential vileness of matter, of a malevolent Demiurgos subordinate to a\nbenevolent Almighty who has only lately revealed Himself, faulty as they\nare, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth than the liberal,\npopular illusions that babies are all born good, and that the example of\ncorrupt society is responsible for their failure to remain so.... That\nit is given to everybody to reach the ethical ideal if they will only\ntry; that all partial evil is universal good; and other optimistic\nfigments.\" \"I suppose that all men with a clear sense of right and wrong\nhave descended into hell and stopped there quite long enough to know\nwhat infinite punishment means.\"\n\n[Sidenote: Transmission of Evil.]\n\nSurely, the established truths of heredity confirm the doctrine that\nman, if not born depraved, is born _deprived_ of tendencies toward good\nessential to his own welfare and that of the race. \"Where sin has once\ntaken hold of the race, the natural reproduction of life become\nreproduction of life morally injured and faulty. With evil once begun,\nthe race is a succession of tainted individuals; an organism that works\ntoward continuance of evil. Not but that good is transmitted at the same\ntime, for it goes along with evil. Any virtue or value which is strong\nenough to live will pass from generation to generation even while evil\nis making the same journey.\"[6]\n\n[Footnote 6: Outline of Christian Theology. Clarke, p. 242.]\n\n[Sidenote: Depravation and Deprivation.]\n\n[Sidenote: Natural Standards.]\n\n[Sidenote: The Decalogue.]\n\nWhile we hold that this tendency, this natural sluggishness in laying\nhold of the things of the higher nature is not in itself guilt, it\nbecomes so by the voluntary adoption of the lower forces as the guide of\nlife. Nature has her own decalogue. There is a law written upon our\nhearts. The wasting of power by anger, jealousy, envy, covetousness and\nthe like, and the degradation following their expression in acts of\nrevenge, concupiscence, and mere rapacity, are known without revelation\nby all races which have not suffered the downward evolution. The\nliteratures prove this back even to the days of Hamurabi. Thus natural\nstandards of temper and conduct are seen to exist, below which men may\nnot live without loss, and hence there are natural laws to disobey which\nis sin. The table given on Sinai, though given to Moses, was in the\nworld long before Moses. But higher sanction was given it by the\nlawgiver, and the highest by the re-enactment of the Decalogue by Jesus\nChrist.\n\n[Sidenote: The Heart Law.]\n\n[Sidenote: Effects of Sin.]\n\n[Sidenote: Characteristics of Sin.]\n\n[Sidenote: Results of Sin.]\n\nSin is blameworthy because it is born of the human preference and the\nhuman will. The nation which, knowing most of the Divine will, disobeys,\nis the most guilty because the most knowing. The proportion of guilt\ndepends on the measure of knowledge and the measure of opportunity.\nHence there is some guilt among those who know only a part of the truth,\nand if a man perceives, without the aid of revelation, a law in nature\nand a penalty, and breaks that law, then is he a sinner. Some of the\nphysical consequences may apparently be avoided by future obedience. But\nthe inner and spiritual consequences of sin are the worst--these things;\nnamely: In the weakening of the will; in the hardening of the\nconscience; and, later, in the recklessness as to consequences,\nindicated by that terrible indictment by Paul, \"Who, being past\nfeeling, have given themselves over.\" The consciousness of sin is\npractically universal. It is no invention of Christianity, though\nbrought to its greatest force by Christianity. Religions, governments,\nliteratures,--all and everywhere,--treat of sin as a fact. It is more\nthan dominion of body over spirit; more than an incident of growth; more\nthan a result of undeveloped judgment, tinged with emotion, and applied\nto questions of motive and conduct. Sin is the abnormal; sin is a\nvariant from standard; sin is self-will and selfishness throttling duty.\nWhere men accept a God, it is opposition to His law and government.[7]\nIf no personal God be believed in, then sin is willful opposition to the\ncourse of nature and to law, as proved by experience. So, in every case,\nit is unworthy, injurious, and guilty, and must be repented of and\natoned for. The doctrine of sin will never be essentially disturbed.\n\n[Footnote 7: Cf. Clarke. Outline of Theology.]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: A Supernatural Event.]\n\n[Sidenote: Lacks Scientific Proof.]\n\n[Sidenote: An Old Fallacy.]\n\n[Sidenote: A Jewish Argument.]\n\n[Sidenote: Kant's Reasoning.]\n\n[Sidenote: Can Not Be Demonstrated.]\n\nThe next clause in the creed, \"The resurrection of the body,\" if it\nremains as a permanent article of faith, must rest on the declaration of\nChrist and on His resurrection. It is confessedly dependent, not on a\nnatural, but a supernatural order. On this point it is again worth our\nwhile to note a concession by Huxley, as showing the consistency of one\nChristian truth with another. \"If a genuine, and not merely subjective,\nimmortality awaits us, I conceive that without some such change as that\ndepicted in I Corinthians xv, immortality must be eternal misery.\"[8]\nSurely, this is a great testimony to that famous chapter on the\nresurrection. No scientific proof or probability can be adduced for the\nresurrection of the body. The older theologians used to point out that\nthe caterpillar entombed itself that it might emerge to the higher life\nof the butterfly. But we must not take from such a fact what suits our\npurpose, and leave a fatal weakness in our argument. The butterfly does,\nindeed, emerge from the coffin of the cocoon and the seemingly dead\npupa. But it is only for a brief day of life. Then it lays its eggs and\ndies forever. It is born to no immortality, but to the most ephemeral\nlife. The early Church; yea, the Jewish Church, found rational warrant\nfor belief in immortality and the resurrection of the body, first in the\nthought that it was unjust for those who fought for and brought in the\nkingdom of God, to enjoy nothing of what they secured. So the doctrine\nof the first resurrection appears as a contribution of justice to holy\nlife. Later on, similar reasoning demanded the resurrection of all. A\njudgment is necessary, not to acquaint God with the merits of men, but\nto acquaint men with the righteousness of God. This would be impossible\nwithout the resurrection of all. Very close to this is the reasoning of\nKant, summarized as follows: \"Every moral act must have as an end the\nhighest good. This good consists of two elements, virtue and felicity,\nor happiness. The two are inseparable. But these can not be realized\nunder the limitations of this existence. Immortality follows as a\ndeduction. The moral law demands perfect virtue or holiness; but a moral\nbeing can not realize absolute moral perfection or a holy completeness\nof nature in this present life.\" It is wholly of faith that men are\nimmortal. It of necessity can not be demonstrated. The mass of mankind\nhave believed it, and do believe it, and it is one of the most\ndifficult of beliefs to escape from, returning to some skeptical\nscientists almost as an intuition, conquering the logic of death and\ndecay.\n\n[Footnote 8: Biography, Vol. II. p. 322.]\n\n[Sidenote: How Faith Grows.]\n\nIt is also true that faith in immortality grows with the fullness and\nintelligence of the spiritual life. It becomes a complete persuasion to\nthe pure in heart. Yet some scientific facts, as related to man, make\nthe idea of his extinction improbable, and separate him from the \"beast\nwhich perisheth.\"\n\n[Sidenote: Men and Brutes.]\n\n[Sidenote: What Brutes Have.]\n\nIt is true that much is common to men and brutes. They walk the same\nearth; breathe the same air; are nourished by the same food, which is\ndigested by the same processes. Their life is transmitted by the same\nmethods, and their embryonic life is strangely similar. It is also true\nthat there are strong mental resemblances. Both love and hate; are\njealous and indifferent; are courageous and cowardly; they perceive by\nsimilar organs; record by similar mnemonic ganglia; and are within\ncertain limits impelled by the same motives. Nor can a measure of reason\nbe denied to animals. While much of what appears to be mental life is\nautomatic and unconscious response to an external stimulus reaching a\nnerve-center, yet within limits they deliberate; they exercise choice;\nand determine routes and methods.\n\n[Sidenote: Man Above Brutes.]\n\n[Sidenote: Habits of Animals.]\n\n[Sidenote: Limits of Brute Intelligence.]\n\n[Sidenote: Limits Continued.]\n\nBut when all this is said, man rises almost infinitely beyond the\nhighest brute. Man can stand outside of himself; contemplate the\nmovements of his own mind; watch the play of motive upon energy and\nwill, and know himself as no brute can ever be trained to do. Nor have\nbrutes the ganglia, lobes, or convolutions which house and direct such\npowers; and no tribe of mankind has been found without them, however\nundeveloped. Very limited, indeed, is the use of natural forces or of\nsupplied materials in the life of a brute. The birds pick up feathers,\nhair, twigs; but no bird provides such things by deliberate prevision\nand co-operation with nature. What animal sows that he may reap? The\nso-called agricultural ants gather what they have not sown, and reap\nwhat they have not planted. Man sows that he may gather; breeds that he\nmay use; and accomplishes civilization by an ever-increasing mastery and\nadaptation of natural forces. An insect may float with the current on a\nchip; but what one ever put a chip into the water? A beaver may build a\ndam; but what beaver ever turned the heightened water on a wheel? The\ndog may lie in a sunny spot; but what dog ever created artificial heat\nor condensed by a lens the sun's heat on a particular point? The hen may\nlay and incubate an egg; but what hen ever invented an incubator to\nsave her long sitting in one pose or place, or studied the development\nof life in and from the egg she produced? The ox may select the richest\npasture; but never dreamed of creating a rich pasture by the culture and\nfertilization of which he is the chief source. The tiger chooses and\nslays his prey; but does not know how to propagate, develop, and safely\nmature the animals on which he feeds. All animal life below man must\nlocate where its food abounds, or follow that food in its migrations or\nseasonal changes. Man alone stores and transports his food, creating\ncommerce by his mastery of climate.\n\n[Sidenote: Man Parts Company.]\n\n[Sidenote: Man and Brute Compared.]\n\n[Sidenote: How Man Can Live.]\n\n[Sidenote: How Man Can Decay.]\n\n[Sidenote: Incidental as to Body.]\n\nThe brute obeys law unwittingly in the sustenance and transmission of\nlife. Man alone perceives and deduces law from a thousand facts, and\nconcludes a lawgiver from the law, and one Lord and Giver of Life \"from\nthe unity and universality of force.\" The brute turns its eye skyward to\ndetect danger; but never measures or counts the stars, discerns the\nmovements of the planets, nor extends vision and hearing by telescope,\nmicroscope, and megaphone, nor proves by the spectroscope the sameness\nof stellar elements with those of our own world. The brute neither makes\nhistory nor records it. He remembers, but does not recollect. His\naffections are evanescent as to his kind, and only approach permanence\nas they are fastened upon us. The brute cognizes external things, but\ndoes not perceive their being. Thus man can live in an intellectual or\nspiritual world as to his aims, motives, and occupations. He need touch\nmatter only so far as it is necessary to support the bodily strength on\nwhich his spiritual and intellectual movement must depend for basis and\nmanifestation. On the other hand he may reduce the intellectual and\nspiritual life to the lowest limit by giving the mastery to his physical\nappetites. We feel instinctively that to do this last is unworthy of\nmanhood and destructive of the higher nature and intent. But who expects\na brute to do anything else but minister to his appetites? If he delays\na single second in doing it, it is only through fear of man or of some\nstronger animal. His intellectual movements have this as an end in\ncomplete reversal of the case with man. With the brute the intellect\nseems incidental to the body. With man the body is incidental to the\nintellect. One feels for this reason that man might live a purely\nspiritual and disembodied life. No one from this standpoint thinks so of\na brute.\n\n[Sidenote: Immortality of Force.]\n\n[Sidenote: Christ's Light.]\n\n[Sidenote: The Christian's Eye.]\n\nOnce more let Huxley speak as to the scientific possibility \"with regard\nto the other great Christian dogmas, the immortality of the soul, and a\nfuture state of rewards and punishments, what possible objection can I,\nwho am compelled, perforce, to believe in the immortality of what we\ncall matter and force, and in a very unmistakable present state of\nrewards and punishments for all our deeds, have to these doctrines? Give\nme a scintilla of evidence, and I am ready to jump at them.\"[9] But when\nall conditions are considered, and just weight given to all the\nprobabilities, the full persuasion of immortality comes through Him who\nhas \"brought life and immortality to light.\" These seem part of His\ncommunication to the souls in whom He dwells. To them He says, \"Because\nI live, ye shall live also.\" Into their being He injects the power of an\nendless life. Their hopes, faith, affections center less and less on\ntime. The truer, fuller, richer life is felt to be coming. It is to\nsurpass the earthly life in quantity and in quality only because the\nsoul, as it flutters Godward, must here feel the attrition of its\nfleshly tabernacle. This dissolved, the fullness and the freedom come.\nThe house not made with hands henceforth enshrines the spirit. Christ's\ngreat Word is finally interpreted: \"I am come, that they might have\nlife, and have it more abundantly.\"\n\n[Footnote 9: Biography. Vol. I, p. 260.]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Life Everlasting.]\n\n[Sidenote: Literalism.]\n\n\"The life everlasting!\" This is the grand finale of the Creed as it is\nthe end which all devout souls seek. It is made probable by what man is,\nwhich is the same as saying that there are, from considerations above\nmentioned, probabilities in its favor. It has been the habit of pious\nsouls to attempt to understand and describe this life, and many are the\nvolumes which proceed upon the literalness of the Bible descriptions. I\nsuppose there are phases of faith which can not reach beyond\nliteralness, and hence do not rightly interpret the splendid imagery of\nSt. John. Such we must leave to the blessed surprise and ecstatic\nawakening of Paradise.\n\n[Sidenote: Great Figures.]\n\n[Sidenote: Locating Heaven.]\n\n[Sidenote: Eternal Punishment.]\n\nTo other minds the life everlasting is unbelievable except as the great\npictures of John are spiritualized. To such the place becomes a state or\ncondition. It is of no interest to us to inquire, as did the Christian\nphilosopher, Dick, into the locality of heaven and hell. Such ideas as\nthose recently put forth by a preacher, not of our Church, thank God!\nthat hell is in one of the spots on the sun, and heaven in the\nchromosphere are distasteful to the last degree to those who believe\nthat \"God is a Spirit,\" and that \"flesh and blood can not inherit the\nkingdom of God.\" Such feel that heaven may be anywhere and everywhere;\nthat the gulf which separates the rich man and Lazarus may be only a\nmoral gulf, seeing that they talked across it. They see eternal\npunishment in the perception of the sinner that he has forever stunted\nhis soul by his sinfullness and the grossness of his affections. Though\nhe should begin a progressive life from his present status, he could\nnever catch up with a soul which has a purer point of departure.\n\nThere is an awful penalty in the fact that this sense of loss may be\neternal. The consciousness of limited powers, the certainty that so much\nis lost, never to be regained, is surely a fire that is not quenched; a\nworm that dieth not!\n\n[Sidenote: Limitation by Sin.]\n\n[Sidenote: Illustrations.]\n\n[Sidenote: Strength and Disuse.]\n\nBut how much more awful the thought that this limitation of the nature\nby sin, whether of body or soul, may affect the soul through unending\nlife without fitness for any pleasure or delight possible to that\nstate! The company of good and refined men and women is here little less\nthan hell to a bad and coarse man, if he is compelled to stay in it.\nThere is nothing in the spirit, aim, and employments of such that he can\nmeasure. He can understand the delights of eating and drinking. Even\nthen it is the coarse foods and the drunk-bringing drink that he most\nenjoys. He can understand noise, coarse jokes, but not quiet\nconversation, nor the play of a delicate wit. When the pleasure of life\nis sensual, bodily, the capacity for mental and moral pleasure slowly\ndiminishes, and at last dies. Project such a soul into the company of\nthe redeemed; place it where the body has no existence, and therefore no\npleasure to give; compel it to remain among those whose every thought is\npure, and whose eyes are fixed on the \"King in His beauty,\" and, like\nthe rich man, it will lift its eyes in torment, and ask for \"water to\ncool his parched tongue.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is no part of my aim to say a final word on any of these great\ntruths, even if I deemed myself capable thereof.\n\n[Sidenote: Aim and Intent.]\n\n[Sidenote: Confirmation by Experience.]\n\n[Sidenote: Effect on the Bible.]\n\n[Sidenote: The Coming of Revelation.]\n\nBut it is my hope to point out the way in which we find our faith\nstrengthened, and to show that the great truths of Christianity will\nsurvive the most radical criticism of the Scriptures. Every one of these\ntruths has increasing confirmation as we accumulate the teachings of\nscience, history, and religious experience. The Bible will never be\nsuperseded, because it contains the struggle of every type of soul\nGodward, and because its record of what the Lord said and did; of what\nHe was, and of what the apostles thought Him to be, stands as the\nverification of what we know Him to be. The Bible and experience are\nmutually illuminating and corroborative. It is possible that the Church\nreceiving the deposit of truth orally from the apostles, might have\npassed that truth down orally, and by her ordinances, illustratively as\nshe did, until the Gospels were written; as she must do now in lands\nwhere the people can not read, having no written language. To avoid,\nhowever, the defects of human memory and to accumulate a standard by\nwhich teaching and experience should be verified, \"God who at sundry\ntimes and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers, hath\nin these last days spoken unto us by His Son;\" through His Son to the\napostles; and by the apostles and their successors to us; those\nsuccessors being not those made so by the touch of a human hand; but by\nGod's transforming grace, giving to every believer power and privilege\n\"to speak the things we do know.\" \"We having the same spirit of faith;\naccording as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken, we\nalso believe, and therefore speak; knowing that He which raised up the\nLord Jesus, shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with\nyou. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might,\nthrough the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God.\"","title":"The Things Which Remain: An Address To Young Ministers","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":9236}