In His Image | Page 7

for man and birds to sing his cares away. He paints the skies with the gray of the morning and the glow of the sunset; He sets His radiant bow in the clouds and copies its colours in myriad flowers. He gives to the babe a mother's love, to the child a father's care, to parents the joy of children, to brothers and sisters the sweet association of the fireside, and He gives to all the friend. Well may the Psalmist exclaim, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge." Surely everything that hath breath should praise the Lord.
It would seem that a knowledge of nature would be sufficient to convince any unprejudiced mind that there is a designer back of the design, a Creator back of the creation, but, for a reason which I shall treat more fully in a future lecture, some of the scientists have become materialistic. The doctrine of evolution has closed their hearts to the plainest of spiritual truths and opened their minds to the wildest guesses made in the name of science. If they find a piece of pottery in a mound, supposed to be ancient, they will venture to estimate the degree of civilization of the designer from the rude scratches on its surface, and yet they cannot discern the evidences of design which the Creator has written upon every piece of His handiwork. They can understand how an invisible force, like gravitation, can draw all matter down to the earth but they cannot comprehend an invisible God who draws all spirits upward to His throne.
The Bible's proof of God becomes increasingly necessary to meet the agnosticism and atheism that are the outgrowth of modern mind-worship. I shall speak of the Bible in my second lecture; I refer to it here merely for the purpose of pointing out the harmony between the spoken word and the evidence furnished by God's handiwork throughout the universe. The wisdom of the Bible writers is more than human; the prophecies proclaim a Supreme Ruler who, though inhabiting all space, deigns to speak through the hearts and minds and tongues of His children.
The Christ of whom the Bible tells furnishes the highest evidence of the power, the wisdom, and the love of Jehovah. He is a living Christ, present to-day in the increasing influence that He exerts over the hearts of men and over the history of nations.
We not only have God in the Bible and God in nature but we have God in life and accessible to all. It is not necessary to spend time in trying to comprehend God--a task too great for the finite mind; we can "taste and see that the Lord is good." We can test His grace and prove His presence. The negative arguments of the atheist and the indecision of the agnostic will not disturb the faith of one who daily communes with the Heavenly Father, and, by obedience, lays hold upon His promise.
Belief in God is almost universal and the effect of this belief is so vast that one is appalled at the thought of what social conditions would be if reverence for God were erased from every heart. A sense of responsibility to God for every thought and word and deed is the most potent influence that acts upon the life--for one man kept in the straight and narrow way by fear of prison walls a multitude are restrained by those invisible walls that conscience rears about us, walls that are stronger than the walls of stone.
At first the fear of God--fear that sin will bring punishment--is needed; "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." But as one learns to appreciate the goodness of God and the plenitude of His mercy, love takes the place of fear and obedience becomes a pleasure; "His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night."
The paramount need of the world to-day, as it was nineteen hundred years ago, is a whole-hearted, whole-souled, whole-minded faith in the Living God. A hesitating admission that there is a God is not sufficient; Man must love with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength,--and to love he must believe. Belief in God must be a conviction that controls every nerve and fibre of his being and dominates every impulse and energy of his life.
Belief in God is necessary to prayer. It is not sufficient to believe that there is an Intelligence permeating the universe; nothing less than a personal God--a God interested in each one of His children and ready to give at any moment the aid