THE PULPIT.’
A SCHOLARLY SUNDAY SERMON BY
DR. CHARLES W. M’CORMICK.
Theme: Faith,
Brooklyn, N, Y.—Dr. Charles W.
McCormick, pastor of the Nostrand
Avenue M. E. Church, preached Sun-
day morning the sixth in a series of
notable sermons on “The Fruits of
the Spirit.”” The special subject was
“Faith.” The text was from Gala-
tians 5:22: ‘Now the fruit of the
Spirit is faith.” Dr. McCormick said:
What is faith? Perhaps no one
can answer. Certainly no one will
be able to give a scientific definition.
For faith is one of those ultimate im-
pulses of the soul which defies ac-
curate metes and bounds.
it is so wrought into the fiber of per-
sonality that it cannot be separated
and viewed apart. Yet faith is one
of the most kingly of all human quali-
ties. The old question, which is
greater, faith or love, may never find
its answer. Each is great and in cer-
tain aspects supremely so, and each
conditions the other. Without faith
there can be no love, and without
love there can be no faith, Yet it
would seem as if faith has a certain
priority in that it holds up the light
for love to walk by. If love and faith
are one in their initial manifestation,
they travel but little way hand in
hand. Soon faith takes a step ahead
and becomes the guide of love,
though sometimes faith falls back on
love when it is itself menaced. Like-
wise the question, which is greater,
faith or reason, may be difficult to
answer. Reason in its low ranges
has to do with facts and phenomena
and their arrangement. But reason
in its high ranges draws mighty in-.
ferences, makes great generalizations
and reaches conclusions that may de-
fy demonstration for generations, if
not forever. Here reason merges into
faith and faith finds its foothold in
reason. It seems that faith is after
all hardly other than the highest ut-
terance of reason, Especially. does
this seem true when we remember
that reason in the large meaning al-
ways assumes some great and inde-
monstrable. prineiple.. It seems easy
to say that a grain of wheat will pro-
duce its thirty or sixty fold of wheat
when planted in congenial soil, but
the gneat assumption underlying this
simple statement is that the laws of
nature are uniform in their operation
and this is demonstrable only to
faith.
But what is faith? Can we get any
nearer to an understanding of it? At
any rate, we may clarify our thought
by determining the use we will make
of the word. The term faith is ap-
plied either to the act of believing or
to the content of belief; that is, to
belief as a function of the soul or to
what the individual believes. The
latter meaning is found in the phrase,
“the faith once delivered to the:
saints.”” Here Paul has in mind the
great body of Christian doctrine re-
ceived from Christ and generally ac-
cepted by the church of that day. On
the other hand, when Paul exhorted
the Philippian jailer to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, he referred to
an act on the part of the jailer though
he did not forget that the Christ upon
whom the jailer was to believe was
the Christ of the Gospels, and there-
fore possessed well-known and ac-
cepted characteristics. We have
taken a short step toward wunder-
Etanding what faith is when we make
this distinction and limit ourselves to
faith as an action of the soul. But
we need to make clear also that faith
is not the action of some special soul
power. It is nothing less than the
act of the whole spiritual nature.
This conception excludes any defini-
tion of faith which makes it a mere
intellectual process. Pure intellect
is only a theoretical concept. It is
not found in reality. All intellectual
processes are the outgrowth of the in-
dividual soul as it is, and no soul can
be separated for a single instant from
its: feeling, its trend and its accumu-
lated volitions or habits. Faith, then,
canbe nothing less than the action of
the whole nature of man. In like
manner, a distinction must be drawn
between a transient and a permanent
activity. Faith in the New Testament
sense is not a single act complete in
itself. It is a constant and enduring
movement or trend of the soul.
In the interest of further clearness,
it may be noted also that faith as an
action may relate either to facts or
persons. We may believe either that
certain statements are true, or we
may believe in a person. Faith in
the Christian sense involvés both
facts and a person. Here we must
speak very guardedly. There is much
in the present trend of theological
thinking, which finds its echo in pop-
ular thought, that tends to looseness,
and, it would seem, to vagueness.
When we are told that faith has to do
with God as a person, or with Jesus
Christ as a person without regard to
any definition or clear historic set-
ting, we are asked to do either the
impossible or the absurd; perhaps
both. It is hard to think of God
without giving to Him some definite
If we know Him at all, we:
qualities.
must know Him as. we know our fel-
lows, through His manifestations.
That is, through the display of His
qualities. The ‘unknowable’ of Her-
bert Spencer may be a fine refuge for
intellectual incompetence when the
mind has failed in its vain endeavor
to ‘account for the universe and ex-
plain its processes. It is worth some-
thing to fall back upon the assertion
that there is an unknown and per-
haps unknowable power working
everywhere and always in nature,
which on the whole makes for right-
eousness. But that conclusion grows
intellect.
Like love,
part of the believer.
out of the inability of the human in-
tellect to go any further in its search.
And this assertion, empty as it is, is
the assertion of faith and not of the
It is a postulate which man
must make because he is made as he
is. But it is impossible either to love
or to believe in a postulate. Faith
must find for its full exercise much
| more than a mere force without qual-
ity or attribute. The personality of
Jesus Christ means something if we
accept as substantially true the Gos-
pel narrative, illuminated and en-
forced by the progress of Christian
history. But if deny the Gospels, or
with Schmiedel reduce the biography
of Jesus to two or three sentences of
the most ordinary sort, it does not
‘seem eredible that Jesus as a person
shall long survive. Whatever else
may be true, it is true that the Christ
in whom the world believes, and be-
lieving has found a regenerating
power from age to age, is the Christ
of the Gospels. In all our present-
day4hinking, it is this Christ whose
image stands before us, whom we
love and in whom we trust. A Christ
who has no history and whose life
therefore presents no facts for cre-
dence would be a vanishing Christ.
Nevertheless, the faith of which the
New Testament speaks relates chiefly
to persoL.. Christianity is not funda-
mentally a creed, but the manifesta~
tion of God in Christ Jesus, to which
man may respond trustfully and loy-
ally, and it is this response which we
call faith. The mission of Christ is
to bring us to God, that we may love
Him and believe in Him, and, there-
fore, serve Him. And I am per-
suaded that many a man finds God in
Christ with whose technical theology
I could not agree. If all men had to
believe the same creed, salvation
would be impossible to many of us
who do not find it difficult to believe
in the same God and the same Christ
with difference of definition.
What, then, is faith? Four our
purposes to-day as it relates to God
it is the continued and loyal move-
ment of the entire soul of a man to-
ward God as the revealer of truth and
the authoritative Lord of life.
We may note also two other mean-
ings of faith which grow out of this
larger meaning, for faith not only:
comprises the entire nature of the in-
dividual, but also the whole field of
his activities. Faith in God implies
faith in our fellowmen as the creation
of God, or from the ‘Christian point
of view, the children of God.* By this
we may not mean a foolish disregard
of all distinctions of character, nor
the assertion that all men are equally
to be relied upon; but it does mean
a recognition of humanity as in-
volved in the purpose of a trust-
worthy God, and therefore, itself
worthy of confldence. He who be-
lieves in (God as his Father, believes
also in man as his brother. Faith in
God implies also good faith on the:
To accept God
as the giver of light and the Lord of
'e
bound to be utterly sincere in our re-
lations to Him. And to acknowledge
the brotherhood of man, including
ourselves,’ is to enthrone the princi-
ple of good faith among men, In a
word, faith is the expression of the
soul’s love of truth and its loyalty to
truth; to God who is truth and whose
plans, though not understood by us,
are the embodiment of His truth; to
man, ‘who, created in the image of
God and redeemed by God’s only be-
gotten Son, preserves yet amid the
ruinous results of his sin, some traces
of the Father’s image and the capac-
ity for unlimited development; to self
as the creature of the true God and
as part of the constituied order of
things where truth forms the only re-
liable basis of harmonious action.
Faith thus defined bulks large. It
is seenyto be not merely the transient
activity of a single phase of man’s
nature, the intellect, but the contin-|
ued movement of man’s entire being,
intellect, sensibilities, will, toward
truth and ultimately toward the God
of truth.
hour, but for all time and for all eter-
nity. It is not limited to a single fac-
ulty of the human soul, but involves
the whole soul. It has not for its ob-
ject a limited area of truth, but
reaches out toward all truth, even the
infinite God of truth.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to
draw a clear line of distinction be-
tween what is called ‘natural’ and
what is called ‘religious’ faith. To
one who believes as I do that man is
a religious being through and
through, the faith which arises in the
ordinary so-called ‘‘secular’’ processes
of life and has to do with practical
daily affairs is itself a fruit of the
spirit. . By this I mean that man is a
creation of the Almighty, upon whose
soul and its consequent activities God
has stamped His own nature. Fur-
thermore, God has interwoven Him-
self in the very fabric of the universe.
If, as we have said, faith is necessary
to all progress, then the exercise of
faith on the part of man displays
something of the divine nature within
him. It is because God has sent forth
His spirit into the heart of man that
man is able to think God’s thoughts
after Him in the universe and to
reach forward with those majestic
reaches of confident expectation
which have wrought the great accom-
plishments in the material and intel-
lectual development of human life in
relation to the world outside of man.
Yet it must be conceded that re-
ligious faith is of a higher order than
this general faith because it deals
with a higher order of facts. The
moral nature of man is his crowning
possession, The apprehension of God
marks the highest reach of his moral
intelligence. Fellowship with God is
at once his crowning glory and su-
preme privilege. To believe in God is
the highest attribute to faith and the
exercise of this attribute is condi- |
‘tioned by personal fellowship with
God. As with every one else, God
must first be known and then be-
lieved. ‘When one knows God, es-
pecially as a personal friend and
Saviour, it is not difficult to believe
what otherwise would be most in-
comprehensible, nor to trust God
where without such knowledge trust
would be impossible. This knowl-
edge 'of God is made possible through
the Holy Spirit whom God hath sent
into the hearts of those who believe,
crying, ‘“Abba, Father.”
In like manner it is this knowl-
good faith on the part of ourselves.
If God has faith in man, the believer
in God must have also, and if God
has faith in man, then the individual
is to acknowledge ourselves |
It is not for a day nor an
who realizes that God has faith in
him must make a fitting response of
good faith.
Great heights give wide visions to
open eyes. It is only when the spirit
of God leads men to those exalted ex-
periences where he knows and feels
that God is, that the very ground
about him becomes holy ground and
the horizon is pushed back so that he
can behold the infinite glory beyond.
FEMININE NEWS NOTES.
The body of Miss Helen A. Blood-
good was found in Lake Carasaljo,
Lakewood, N. J.
A bank for women only and man-
aged by women opened in London
with more than 400 depositors.
Miss Virginia Harned Sothern ar-
rived at Reno, Nev., to obtain resi-
dence to enable her to win a divorce.
‘Mrs. Elsie G. Latham dropped her
contest of the probate of her hus-
band’s will, which gisposed of a
$600,000 estate.
Mrs. Amanda W. Reed, of Port-
land, Ore., bequeathed $2,000,000 to
establish a college in Portland, to be
known as the Reed Institute.
Mrs. William Storrs Wells and her
son, J. Raynor Wells, refused to sail
from France on the same ship with
the actress the son had married.
Suing for $50,000, Mrs. Helen M.
Walters, of Chicago, got a $3000 ver-
dict against Theodore A. Ryerson, of
New York City, for breach of promise.
Miss Kathlyn Oliver, a housemaid
domestic servants’ union which aims
to bring every servant girl in Great
Britain and Ireland under union con-
trcl.
The - Marchionesy of Londonderry,
one of the most intellectual and gifted
women of the time, was appointed by
the King to be a member of the first
senate of the Queen’s University, Ire-
‘land.
Women of the Third Assembly Dis-
trict attacked Assemblyman Oliver at
a mass meeting for his alleged dis-
courteous treatment of a constituent,
Miss Mercy, one of the suffragist
workers who went to Albany.
The County Judge of Cook County,
Illinois, has recommended the ap-
pointment as a woman as inspector
of all institutions to which delinquent
and deficient children are committed.
‘He suggests a salary of $1800 a year.
NEWSY GLEANINGS.
All France is aroused by the Duez
scandal.
Paris is declared officially to have
resumed its normal healthy condition.
Arthur F. Zimmerman, spurious
Baron Lichtenstein, was convicted of
perjury in Brooklyn,
Congress devoted a day to exercises
in connection with the unveiling of a
statue of John C. Calhoun.
Plans to use oil as fuel in the Uni-
ted States Navy arouse strong inter-
est in the British Admiralty.
Prince Henry of Prussia, speaking
at Hamburg, expressed absolute con-
fidence in England’s good will. -
The German Government proposed
to introduce a bill widening the self-
government af Alsace-Lorraine.
Canada is flooded with anonymous
circulars directed against any tariff
concessions to the United States.
Serious street fighting followed a
meeting of Catholics at Saragossa,
Spain, to protest against lay schools.
Liverpool brokers resented the
treatment of James A. Patten by the
members of the Manchester Cotton
Exchange.
Sir Edward Grey, speaking at a
Liberal dinner in London, urged a
radical reform of the Lords, but op-
posed a single chamber.
Cheers, fireworks, singing and
‘speeches ‘marked the trip of the first
electric train on the Harlem Division
of the New York Central Railway.
A bill was passed at Washington,
D. C., providing for the enumeration
of the nationality and mother tongue
of all persons included in the next
census,
Prosecutor Garven, of Hudson Coun-
ty, N. J., appeared before a legisla-
tive committee at Trenton, and told
conditions of cold-storage plants of
Jersey City, urging a law to protect
the people.
ORANGE CHOCOLATE PIE.
Put in a double boiler 2 cups of
water; add the juice and grated rind
of a large orange; add a little lemon
juice and lump of butter size of wal-
nut. Beat together 1 egg, 1 cup of
sugar and flour enough to thicken.
Take 2 cups of milk, heat and add
the beaten yalks of 2 eggs, 1-2 cup
of sugar, 2 tablespoons of cocoa and
flour enough to thicken; flavor with
vanilla. Have ready the baked
crust and add the above in alternate
layers. Beat the whites of the eggs
3 for the ‘meringue.—Boston Post.
edge of God which underlies and con-,
ditions faith in our fellowmen and
usual.
Jeather that a
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SNOW SHOE, PA,
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How to Build Fire in a
Cook Stove or Range For
CANNEL |
COAL
1st. , Empty the Ash-pan.
fire.
ing a fire.
BEST coal, for household use.
For sale by,
WM. H. LUCAS,
2nd. Take off one or two griddles, (and the short spider over the
fire, if necessary) and with a stiff poker, rake down all
fine ashes, even to the grate.
3rd. Pick out all large ‘‘chunks’ (not clinkers, for Cannel-Coal
makes no c¢linkers) and you are then ready to start the
4th. Use DRY kindling, light it in the way it suits best, and let it
burn for a few minutes,(until you get the tea-kettle filled
then place a few lumps on the fire, and let it burn until a
good fire is secured, afterward fire in the usual way.
Aq pair of Cotton Gloves is an excellent thing to wear while mak-
Always keep the Ash- -pan from’ getting TOO FULL.
Keep the stove, pipe and chimney clear. of soot; the tubes of all
‘boilers have to be cleaned frequently.
If any dirt is made in building a fire, clean it up immediately ; and
do not blame the coal for making dirt—all coal is dirty, in a sense.
Follow these instructions and you will have no trouble to burn the
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Dr. J. Estlin Carpenter was a mem-
Says th: Boston Herald: Whether
ber of a deputation which was met| or not the preservation of the for-
by the kaiser at Potsdam, who be
gan an address with “Gentlemen and
brothers.” The address had been
drawn up at the foreign office, but the
“brothers” was ian intenpolation
made by the emperor.
ests will. materially affect the rain-
fall, it can hardly be denied that
such conservation would play an im-
portant part in the better preserva.
tion and utilization of such rainfall
as Nature and other factors provide.