preach (Luke 9:2; Matt. 10:7). The heart of this gospel was Christ himself, his mission and work. Jesus challenged the faith of the twelve in a way that elicited the noble confession of Simon Peter: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16). Near the grave of her brother Lazarus Jesus declared to Martha: "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, tho he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest thou this?" (John 11:24-26). To this solemn challenge of her faith Martha made the noble confession: "Yea, Lord; I have believed that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even he that cometh into the world" (11:27). It is clear, therefore, that Jesus laid stress upon confession of faith in him. He did not feel that it made no difference what one believed. To Thomas, who was still skeptical concerning his resurrection, Jesus said: "Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing" (John 20:27). this challenge Thomas, with sublime faith, replies: "My Lord and my God" (20:28). But Jesus, while accepting the confession and adoration of Thomas, pointed out a higher plan of faith for those who had not seen him and yet had believed, a logion preserved also in 1 Peter 1:8. To Jesus Christ is Christianity. One's attitude toward Christ is the determinative factor. So Peter preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead (Acts 4:2). Paul on his conversion "proclaimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God" (Acts 9:20). This was the central doctrine in Paul's creed. It was regulative of all the rest as we see Paul's doctrinal views expanded and expounded in his epistles. He gives no formal statement of fundamental doctrine, tho the early Christian hymn quoted in 1 Tim. 3:16, explains "the mystery of godliness": "He who was manifested in the flesh, "Justified in the spirit, "Preached among the nations, There we seem to see the beginning of a common creed about Christ as the early Christians chanted it. We know that the name of Jesus was employed in baptism and sometimes the name of the Trinity as Jesus directed (Matt. 28:19). Baptism in the name of Jesus implied the Trinity. In the second century we know that the Christians met and sang hymns to Christ as Lord. Christian creeds grew around the person of Christ. Jesus is still the central figure in all Christian controversy. We have had the Jesus or Christ controversy in our time as it raged in the first century. "What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?" (Matt. 22:42). This was the question that Jesus prest upon the Pharisees at the close of his public ministry in the temple. The deity and humanity of Jesus was the problem then as it is to-day. There are "first principles of Christ" (Heb. 6:1), which are more or less axiomatic to the believer in Christ. The writer of Hebrews enumerates his conception of these (repentance and faith the initial spiritual experiences, teaching of baptisms and laying on of hands two ceremonial symbolisms, resurrection and eternal judgment two eschatological doctrines). Even in their "first principles of Christ" Christians are not agreed, let alone the higher and more intricate doctrines. But surely there is a minimum beyond which one can hardly go and claim to be a Christian at all. But the tendency is constantly toward the multiplication of points of importance. Thus we have seventeen varieties of Baptists, and of Methodists and Presbyterians in the United States there are numerous kinds. These three great denominations have thus become over fifty. They multiply by fissure like some other forms of life. New points are constantly raised that cause schisms in each new body. The logic of this process is complete separation into separate units, exemplified by the Scotch elder who said he had excluded all from the Church but Jeems and he had "douts" about Jeems. The oldest creeds were short, as we see from the germs in the New Testament. If a Jew left his synagog and came to the Christian Church he was likely to be sincere. If a pagan gave up his idols and accepted Jesus as Lord, he was probably in earnest. If a Roman refused longer to worship Cæsar as Lord and worshiped Jesus as Lord, he had counted the cost of such a step. When Polycarp refused to say, "Lord Cæsar" and kept on saying, "Lord Jesus," he was standing by his creed to the death. He was illustrating what Paul said: "No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit." This short creed made one a Christian. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:9). Paul has here touched the core of the whole problem. With the heart one believes and with the mouth one makes confession. The belief precedes the confession and alone makes the confession worth while. It is hollow mockery to mumble a lot of words that one does not believe. This is the peril of long and minute creeds. Even the so-called Apostles' Creed has some points as to which some people to-day have sincere diffi culty. The Apostles' Creed is longer than those in the New Testament. The Nicene Creed is much longer than the Apostles' Creed. The so-called. Athanasian creed is longer still. The Reformation Creeds continue to grow in length. This is not to say that the points at issue are not important. The whole Christian world was divided at the Council of Nicæa on a Greek iota whether Christ was Homoousian or Homoiousian with the Father. But Christianity itself, as it turned out, was also wrapt up in the contest over that iota. Athanasius had the insight to see it and the courage to stand for the real deity of Christ. Paul prayed that the Philippians Philippians might abound in all knowledge and discernment so that they might be able to distinguish between things that differ (Phil. 1:9-10, Margin). There is an old saying that is pertinent to-day: "Unity in essentials, in non-essentials liberty." It is certain that the apostles made loyalty to Jesus as Lord and Savior from sin the text for those who desired to join themselves to the Christian body. It most instances this was enough. But when the Judaizers sought to impose Jewish ceremonial legalism upon the gospel of grace, Paul did not hesitate to term the effort a perversion of the gospel, no gospel at all in reality (Gal. 1:6-7), a complete falling away from the grace in Christ (Gal. 5:4). So he challenged the Galatians, who "were called for freedom" (5:13), to "stand fast." "For freedom did Christ set us free" (5:1). Likewise he warned the Colossians against the Gnostic speculations that degraded Christ from the rank of God's Son to that of an aon. "Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ; for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the god- compassed the crucifixion of Christ. head bodily" (Col. 2:8-9). The constant tendency of a wornout creed is that it will take the place of one's sincere convictions and be an empty shell. One thus is led to prevarication or to intellectual subterfuge. Indeed, the creed tends to supplant the Scriptures which it professes to interpret. This was true of the oral law which the rabbis held as more sacred than the Old Testament. There are those to-day who set up theological standards about the New Testament. Each age must interpret Christ for itself and express its faith in its own way. This is the only way to be absolutely honest and free. Candor in one's creed is a virtue. One must be willing to confess his ignorance as well as his faith. If members of our churches allow a reasonable amount of liberty to their preachers and teachers, they have the right to expect a corresponding honesty that will lead one to give up his position rather than sail under false colors or use his office to carry on a propaganda against the very doctrines for which he is supposed to stand. Freedom in preaching and teaching does not carry one beyond common honesty and sincerity. One is bound to be honest with himself. Like Luther, he must be able and willing to say: "I can do no other." And then he must be willing to take the consequences of his action. Truth wins its victories in the open. It has often proved true that the heretic of one age is the hero of the next. Jesus himself was the arch-heretic of all time to the average rabbi in Palestine. The Sanhedrin verily thought that they were promoting the glory of God when they The preacher must always prefer being right to being popular, else he has lost his self-respect and the esteem of all others. The creeds of the past are of value as historical documents, not as clamps or chains upon the human spirit. The confession that carries weight to-day, as of old, is that which bears witness to what Jesus has done for the speaker. It is the living Christ who is Lord of life and death. Each one to-day, as in the first century, has the right to say what he knows of Jesus as Lord. It is affirmation, not negation, that carries conviction to men. One's creed should not be an academic declamation or declaration, but the burning conviction out of the crucible of his own experience. It is quite proper for groups of Christians to set forth, from time to time, statements of doctrines as expressions of their convictions about Christ. Only men should be wary how they claim fulness of knowledge of Christ or of the New Testament teaching. We can be positive about what we know. "I know him whom I have believed" (2 Tim. 1:12), so Paul said. But he also wrote: "I press on toward the goal with the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:14). That is the goal for us all in creed and in conduct. We can indulge generous consideration for those who do not see all things as we do, provided we are all engaged in the passionate pursuit of Christ as Lord. To know Christ is the one thing worth while in life. The man who is engaged in this holy quest will not go far astray in the essentials of his creed. 13 MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES THREE experiences in my life stand out above a thousand others of like character, but of lower order, and seem to be classable as distinctly mystical. The first of these experiences came to me in a room in New York City. It was early in the day; I was alone, and was engaged in manual work. My morning devotions had not been. marked by any special intensity of fervor or effect. I was not in a particularly devout or contemplative mood, and no great crisis of interest or purpose was swaying my life or accentuating its movement. The experience consisted of an intense sense of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, with accompanying and sequent spiritual effects. No No form was visible, no voice was heard, no mandate or message was in any way delivered, and no change in the outward order of my life was indicated as the purport and intended. issue of the manifestation. Something of a luminous effect, with a tinge of warm color, attended the manifestation; but these phenomena were not prominent or arresting, nor seemed an essential part of the manifestation, but rather its natural and inevitable accompaniment. The manifestation had no theological connotation nor express bearing on the all life was touched and translated by him who was thus manifested, not in any theoretical or doctrinal construction but in a purely conceptive or immediately cognitive way. The effect was a sense at once of profound subjugation and of wondrous exaltation. drous exaltation. The subjugation may have been in the recognition of an ineffable goodness and the exaltation in the realization of highly favoring privilege, tho I was not conscious of any such construction or inferential process. With this was a sweetly constraining attraction drawing me with grateful and rejoicing consent into devotion and fellowship. My life, it seemed, must be thenceforward and through all its further course, configured by the manifestation, and "By the vision splendid Be on its way attended." The vision gradually faded and life resumed its wonted tone and way. The high devotion and fellowship thus indicated may not have been maintained nor all the aspiration and resolve of the favored hour carried into effect; but, however far the actual may have fallen short of a fulfilling sequel, my life's true ideal has always seemed outlined in that mystical experience. The second of these experiences came to me as I was standing by a stable on a bluff overlooking the Kaw River, in the City of Lawrence, Kans., waiting to take an extended ride. It was morning; the day was fine; and, tho it was the fall of the year, the nature aspect was radiant with rich autumnal beauty. I was not in a distinctly spiritual frame of mind, and piety, while not countered by any antagonistic sentiment, had no prominence in my thought or feeling. In full-tide health and tingling with buoyant vigor, I was just in a natural way feeling the zest of life and enjoying the prospect of my ride. As I thus awaited the bringing out of my horse there came to me a sudden, arresting and thrilling sense of the divine presence. The whole scene about me seemed to become charged, so to speak, with the ineffable essence, as tho that which is ubiquitous and constant, but not an object of sense perception, had been locally raised to a higher degree of manifestation so as to be matter of vivid realization. There was no theophanic form nor centering nucleus of the manifestation, but all the space about me seemed filled and every object permeated with the transcendant presence and bathed in its sublime sanctity, while all the evil, disorder, and mystery of the world seemed to have potential, and the pledge of actual, solution in the power and grace and efficient purpose of the august Being whose presence was thus manifested. The sequel of the experience was the same as in the previous instance, the gradual fading out of the manifestation, the slow subsidence of the spiritual tension, and the persistence of the experience as a disclosure and temporary realization of the true ideal of life. on The third of these experiences came to me as I was camping in the then well-known Maryland Camp Albany Lake in the Adirondack wilderness. This experience is harder to describe than the preceding ones. It came to me in the night, and whether it came to me in my sleep and began as a dream or was throughout a waking experience I do not know. I know that I was awake at its close, and I had no sense of awaking; yet I have no clear remembrance of the beginning of the experience. It was upon me, without prelude or opening, and in full effect, so to speak, before I knew. beatific life of the departed. It was centered by the person of my mother, who had died some years previously, and who appeared in visible presence. Yet it did not seem like a visit to me of the departed, but rather as tho a veil had been removed and I was permitted and empowered to look upon an actual and wonted scene but one beyond the present ken of our ordinary human powers. The face and form of my mother were very distinct, and unmistakable in identity with her personal appearance as I had known her in life, but in this appearance my mother was transcendantly beautiful, beyond the remembered actual even as enhanced by filial love. Every sign of imperfection, and every trace of care and suffering, were gone, and every hint of beauty and goodliness were fulfilled and carried to the highest degree. My mother appeared as in a fellowship of like beatified being, but no other personality was as distinct as hers, and none was recognized as having been previously known. They seemed happily engaged tho it was not apparent what they were doing; and all bore the aspect of a serenely blissful happiness. My mother did not speak to me nor make any indication or demonstration toward me, yet I felt that she had a profound interest in me and was fully aware of the effect of the vision upon me. It seemed as tho she knew that the vision itself would convey all that she desired to communicate. How long the vivid phase of the experience lasted I can not tell. It seemed not long, yet long enough to be fully realized and to leave no feeling of incompleteness or that there had been failure in the conveyance of its full content and purpose. It did not fade out, but, as it had opened in full effect, so it closed by immediate cessation, with no shock of The experience was a vision of the abruptness, however, but as tho the |