Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1917 — ATONE WITH CHRIST [ARTICLE]

ATONE WITH CHRIST

How All Divisions .of Life Arer Overcome in the Divine Life. Text—Eph. 1:10: “That. . . he might gather together in one all things in Christ.” This is a gathering together of scattered things, sundred things, things which ought to be living in fruitful harmony, but which are rioting in alienation and revolt. It is the gathering together of distracted and wasteful members round about the governance of a common head. It implies the ending of a riotous independence and of sluggish and selfish apathy, and a welding together of many members into a blessed, and prosperous unity. How is the gathering together effected? asks Dr. J. H. Jowett in the Christian Herald. Let me illustrate: Yon take a handful of steel filings and scatter them over a surface of a sheet of paper. There they lie, severed and apart, each one to itself, having no communion with the others. Now take a strong magnet and draw it beneath the under surface of the paper. WlfaFTiappehs?"’ Each of the steel filings stands erect, and the whole company moves across the page in orderly and co-operative movement. Reach item was first of all pervaded by the common power of- the magnet, and then in the strength of the com-n-peevasixm, all ... in fellowship. I look, then, at myself. Here is a divided kingdom. — It Isfull —of ftundered members and powers which often plunge my being into a state of civic insurrection, member fighting against member in dire hostility. There is distraction and 0 division where there ought to be harmony. I think of the many capacities by which I am endowed. There is conscience, there is will, there is imagination, there is desire, there is all the varied agency of passion. And then there are outer powers, all the means of expression by which I am endowed, the gift of speech, the language of gesture and all the many agencies by which my thought is conveyed to another. Then I have my senses, and along with these the hungers and thirsts and cravings of the flesh. All these many Rnd waried capaci ties are often waging warfare in the life, and producing the discord of revolt. How Harmony is Produeed.

Before the conductor comes on to the orchestra every-duember of the band appears to do as he likes. One instrument proclaims one note, and another another, and there is discord and confusion. But when the conductor appears, the individual wills of the members are subdued to his own, and the'one- will, controls the host*. And when the Lord Christ comes into my being, where every instrument has been playing for Itself, without any co-operation with the rest, and has I produced jarring discords and pains, the strength of his own controlling purpose restrains the Individual rioting and brings the disorderly orchestra into fellowship and harmony. Now, let me turn to another sphere where the individual members are often scattered and in mutual revolt. I turn to the sphere of the home. How frequently home is a divided kingdom, its members severer) by deep gulfs, living frequently in a spirit of unlovely isolation! There are many things in home life to create division. There are differences in body. Some members of the family are physically strong and others are physically weak. One member has nerves like steel, while another has nerves like the tenderest strings of a violin. One is comparatively coarse-grained and is untroubled by trifling shocks; another is finely organized and sensitively trembles like an Arab steed. Where there are these differences in bodily constitution there is abundant scope for misunderstanding and strife. The Problem in the Home. The members of a family are like sundered units; how can they be “gathered together?” All things must be “gathered together* in one in Christ.” The different members of the family must be Christ-ruled and Christ-pervaded. The temperament must be Christianized, the gifts must be sanctified, and in this common spirit the uniting fellowship will be found. It is the same if we turn to another sphere and contemplate the divisions of society. How great and deep are the dividing gulfs! There are social divisions separating men into rich and poor, into employers and employed. There are gulfs created by culture, dividing society into the literate and the illiterate, the mentally dark and the mentally Illumined. And there are the ecclesiastical gulfs separating men into sect and sect, and often placing them in fierce and relentless antagonism. How shall all these scattered members become one, and co-operate in smooth’arid progressive fellowship? They can only be. gathered together in one in Christ. Nothing else Can fashion the unity, i But the unity is to be larger than “the things in earth.” It is to be Inclusiveof “the things in heaven and things in earth.” We are to be all One in Christ. .