The Church: The Divine Ideal: The Original Classic by George Dana Boardman [ Bob Mumford, Jack Taylor] on leondumoulin.nl *FREE* shipping on qualifying.
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- Full text of "Life and light; thoughts from the writings of George Dana Boardman"
Possibly, when the Creator moves in that finite world we call time, he leaves light as his personal vestige and train! His mantle ripples into light, is light itself. Possibly the bard of " Paradise Lost" is right when he sings: By day along the astonished lands, The cloudy pillar glided slow ; By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands Returned the fiery column's glow.
As God is Light, so are his children. I believe that light is latent within us all, and that, under the free transcendent conditions of the heavenly estate, it will ray forth spontaneously. Jesus Christ himself, as incarnate, is the Shadow of God's Light. Infinite God, deity, as unconditioned and absolute, no man hath ever seen or can ever see and live Exod. He dwelleth in light which no man can approach unto 1 Tim. Therefore the Son of God, brightness of his glory and express image of his person Heb. How bright Christ's inherent glory was may be seen from the fact that when he had risen again and appeared to Saul on his way to Damascus, his splendor was so effulgent that it actually smote the persecutor into blindness Acts The eternal Word who in the beginning was, and was with God, and was God John 1: Wretched the man whom the god of this world has so blinded that that eclipse be- comes a total one!
Blessed the man who, however profound the obscurity, still perceives the flashing corona of immortal God-head! Thus Jesus Christ is the shadow of God ; and this in a two-fold sense: Yea, that God who in the beginning commanded light to shine out of darkness amid the night-palled chaos, saying, " Let light be," and lo, light was — that same God hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor.
But Jesus Christ is not only the shadow or tempered image of God ; in the very act of be- coming that shadow Jesus Christ also became the Light of the world John 8: The Son of God is the true Prometheus, descending from the true Olympus, bringing down to this dark- ened, groping, chaotic world the blazing torch of heaven's own fire. In his light we see light Ps. He is the true Light which, coming into the world, is enlightening every man John 1: And he is enlightening every man through the manger in which he was laid, through the words he spake, through the works he wrought, through the example he set, through 16 LIFE AND LIGHT the character he was, through the death he en- dured, through the resurrection he won, through the throne he holds.
This, in fact, was the secret of the Christ's mission into the world. The very purpose for which the Spirit of the Lord God had anointed him was that he might claim recovery of sight to the blind Isa. Ill Facts and Truths Take all in a word ; truth in God's breast Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed ; Though he is so bright and we so dim, We are made in his image to witness him. Ill E must distinguish between facts and truths. On the one hand, facts belong to the physical world ; they exist un- der conditions of space and time, having a be- ginning, and, it may be, an ending ; they appeal to the senses — to the eye, the ear, the touch ; they are matters of weight, form, color, place, history, science ; but they are not necessarily moral.
For example, there is no moral quality in the geometrical fact that a cube has six sides, or in the chemical fact that a molecule of water consists of two weights of hydrogen and sixteen weights of oxygen, or in the chronological fact that Jesus of Nazareth died on Calvary. On the other hand, truths belong to the spiritual world ; they are largely independent of the con- ditions of time and space ; they appeal to the senses of the soul — to reason, imagination, con- science ; they are matters of faith, hope, love ; as such, they are intensely moral.
Now, science, or the Bible of Nature, has to do with facts, and moving in its solemn cloisters we tread on holy ground ; we have the God of law, of force, of motion, of phenomena. Christianity, or the Bible of Scripture, has to do with truths — with the spiritual God, in his rela- tion to moral character ; the God who par- dons, loves, transfigures, whose moral secrets are beyond the horizon of scientific observation, above the zenith of philosophical induction, who interprets all facts, who reveals all truths, because He is in himself the Truth of truths.
Thus, truths are infinitely more important than facts, and it requires more faith to be- lieve in truths than in facts. When the Judge of the quick and the dead shall summon us before his bar, he will not ask us about facts, however important they may have been for us as citizens of this world.
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But he will ask us about truths — those august verities which shall abide when earth's facts shall have vanished. Voltaire was a learned man, knowing a great many facts. Light in nature is a fact ; light in Jesus becomes a Truth. He transfigures ma- terialism into Spiritualism ; environment into Instrumentality; biology into Life; history into Providence ; nature into Scripture ; science into Ethics ; philosophy into Theology ; theology into Character ; opportunity into Achievement ; an- thropology into Manhood ; society into Church ; earth into Heaven. IV Forms and Figures The things of earth Are copies of the things in heaven, more close, More clear, more near, more intricately linked, More subtly than men guess ; mysterious, Whispering to wistful ears, Nature doth shadow spirit.
Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God ; But only he who sees takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries. Not that the distinction is recognized in common speech ; although, as it seems to me, it ought to be. Form, in the large, philosophical Platonic? The Form is the idea existing prior to the figure, and independ- ently of it ; the figure is the Form actualized in the sphere of matter ; the idea, so to speak, ma- terialized.
Thus the Form is the essential ; the figure is an incidental.
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The Form is invariable ; the figure is variable. The Form is common to a class ; the figure is an individual of that class. The Form is the perfect archetype ; the figure is a more or less perfect antitype. The Form is the precedent idea ; the figure is the Form as it appears when it comes within the range of our senses. True, we speak of the change as a " metamorphosis ": The Form, which no mortal eye has seen or can see, is common to the caterpillar and to the butterfly; the caterpillar and the butterfly are different figurations from the one invisible Form.
Paul in writing to the Romans, says: Again, writing to the Philippians, the same apostle says: Accordingly, human identity does not lie in the visible, incidental, variable figure ; human identity lies in the invisible, essential, archetypal Form. That arche- typal Form, as in the case of the caterpillar and butterfly just cited, is common to the present figure or natural body and to the coming figure or spiritual pneumatic body ; it is in that arche- typal Form that the identity consists. The resur- rection then will be a transfiguration — not a transformation.
The same thing may be said of the coming 2 Peter 3: The present heavens and earth are to be destroyed ; not in the sense of annihilation, but in the sense of transfig- uration 2 Cor. The fashion figure of this world is passing away: Summary To sum up: The material universe is a myriad-fold visible illustration of a few in- visible Forms or archetypal ideas in the Crea- tor's mind.
To cite the noble lines of Edmund Spenser: What time this world's great Workmaister did cast, To make all things such as we now behold, It seems that he before his eyes had plast A goodly patterne, to whose perfect mould He fashioned them as comely as he could, That now so fair and seemly they appear, As naught may be amended anywhere. That wondrous patterne, whereso' er it be, Whether in earth, laid up in secret store, Or else in heaven, that no man may it see With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore, Is perfect beauty. To restate our theme: All true art is a human figuration from divine Form.
Applications of this Truth in the Art-world And now let me apply this great truth to various departments in the art-world. If, however, I might at this point venture to use one or two technical expressions, I would say that in presenting my theme I shall try, so to speak, the brush of the impressionist rather than that of the pre-Raphaelite ; attempting large- ness of outline and strength of effect rather than exactness of detail or minuteness of finish.
In other words, I have to do with principles rather than rules ; with parables rather than technicalities ; with Forms or patterns rather than figures or shapes. Let me then apply this great truth of divine Forms. Worship is the divine Form ; temples are human figurations. I men- tion architecture first because it is in many respects the fundamental art. Before proceeding, however, to make the ap- plication, let me remind you that the Creator himself is the primal archetypal architect.
For "nature," as Sir Thomas Browne has said, "is the art of God. How grandly grow before us, tier on tier, the outlines of nature's cathedral, its materials of atoms emerging from the abyss of infinite space, and grouping into molecules ; its colossal foundation-stones quarried from chaos ; its clinks and sparks at the strokes of celestial chisels ; its flying buttresses of the hills and massive walls of the mountains ; its mosaic pavement of gems ; its stately aisles of the primeval forests ; its towering columns of crystals ; its foliated capitals and pendants and moldings of vegetation; its windows of auroras; its "majestical roof fretted with golden fires"; its choir of humankind ; its priest and sacrifice the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world ; its vergers of cherubim ; its bell-toll of Sabbath.
No wonder then that when its corner-stone was laid, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy Job So said Jehovah to Moses dur- ing the forty days and nights that he was en- shrined in the glory-cloud of Mount Sinai. But although the tabernacle was divinely planned, yet the details of the plan were humanly exe- cuted.
The divine Form of the tabernacle was shown lo Moses on the mount but the human figurations from the divine plan were entrusted to the artists Bezalel and Aholiab, to devise and work in gold and silver and brass and stone and wood and all manner of workmanship. All which is a hint very rich and significant. There are moments of inspiration or sacred rapture which come to every true architect when, like St. John in Patmos, he is carried away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, whereon he is shown a pattern of the temple not made with hands, even the temple of the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb, and hears a voice divine saying: He will hence- forth conceive his own vocation as a divine call to be also a spiritual architect, commissioned by the Lord of the worlds to do his part in design- ing and rearing Heb.
Not that all his architecture must be in the technical sense ecclesiastical. But his architecture must be in the real sense sacred, that is, Chris- tian. He may select any style of architecture he chooses — Egyptian, Assyrian, Hellenic, Roman, Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Arabic, Com- posite ; but the purpose and spirit of his archi- tecture must be religious. Is he commissioned to design a dwelling-house? He must not only study comfort and beauty ; he must also accompany his design with the prayer that his dwelling-house may indeed prove a Christian home.
Is he commissioned to design an educa- tional edifice? He must accompany his design with the prayer that all the lessons taught in that edifice may be true and uplifting and serv- iceable to mankind. Is he commissioned to design a civic structure? Is he commissioned to design a bourse? He must accompany his de- sign with the prayer that all the transactions in that bourse may be honest and generous and truly sacred. Is he commissioned to design a pleasure-house?
He must accompany his design with the prayer that all the entertainments offered in that pleasure-house may be pure and whole- some and uplifting. In brief, is he commissioned to design any kind of structure whatever? He must accompany his designs with the prayer that his structure may be as it were a porch, or a chapel, or a choir, or a shrine, or a column, or an arch, or a window, or a turret, in our Father's house of the many mansions, even God's own spiritual cathedral. And observe that architec- ture is true in the proportion that it adheres to, and false in the proportion that it departs from, the pattern shown in the mount.
Accordingly that divine Form in and by its very nature ex- cludes all human figuration of evil structures, whether distillery, saloon, gaming-house, or seraglio. Be it for you to inscribe as the motto for your studio the divine legend — Except Jehovah build the house, They labor in vain that build it. Righteousness is the divine Form; virtues are human figurations. I mention sculpture next because, having started with the concept of a temple, I cannot help think- ing of niches and statues and monuments.
I answer, by quoting the very next part of this same Second Commandment, which also says: Remember that Jehovah himself commanded Moses to adorn the tabernacle with figures of cherubim. The lower the conception of God, the ruder the art of the worshiper. Recall the gross figure of the Philistine Dagon ; the vulgar statue of the Indian Guatama ; the tawdry figure of the Italian Bambino.
On the other hand the higher the conception of God, the more exquisite the adorn- ments of his sanctuary.
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I know not all the com- ing ministries of art. But I do believe that, as the Creator himself — the Artist of artists — has already opened the way for the legitimate use of shape and hue and poetry and music in his sanc- tuary, so he will in the course of his unfoldings open the way for the legitimate use of sculpture and painting and gems. No ; the Second Com- mandment does not forbid the use of sculpture in worship.
Then what does the Second Commandment forbid? It forbids all idolatrous representations of Deity. And this for the reason which the divine Man himself stated at Jacob's well: That is to say, we must worship God according to his own nature ; his nature is spiritual ; there- FORMS AND FIGURES 37 fore, just because his nature is spiritual, we must worship him spiritually, that is, spirit-wise, not image-wise ; for only what is spiritual in us can worship what is spiritual above us.
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Recall that memorable scene when the great apostle to the non-Jews, standing on the Areopagus, re- minds his Athenian listeners of a saying of one of their own poets named Aratus: As the architecture of which I have spoken is spiritual architecture or the cathedral of wor- ship, so the sculpture of which I now speak is spiritual sculpture or statues of character. The sculptural Form of which I speak is the arche- typal character-pattern shown on the mount.
The statues of which I speak are human excel- lencies and virtues figurated from that divinely archetypal Form. Even now, as I am speak- ing, I catch glimpse of the Incomparable One: The Man of Nazareth is the perfect character- figure sculptured from the infinite Form of the eternal Righteousness. And it is our un- speakable privilege and honor to be sculptured as statuettes, each according to his own endow- ments and temperament figurated from the Divine Man and enshrined in the niches of Jehovah's own cathedral.
It is the physical forces, light, electricity, gravi- tation, which are swift. It is the vital forces which are slow — they are processes. For exam- ple, how slowly grows the plant ; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear ; and the nobler the plant, the slower the growth. How slow also the educational processes. Which things are an allegory. Thus Laertes to Ophelia: Nature crescent does not grow alone In thews and bulk j but as this temple waxes, The inward service of the mind and soul Grows wide withal. Watch that grow- ing statue ; how long the time between the ideal form as it stands in the artist's conception and the actual realization in the complete figure.
What cost of unwearied diligence, careful meas- urements, constant alterations, painful toil. Even so with the Divine Man enstatued within us. How inadequate our first conceptions of him. How many mis- takes to correct. How many discoveries to make. How countless the touches with which the fingers of the soul must shape the godlike statue which is to hallow and glorify her shrine.
Beauty is the divine Form ; graces are human figurations. I am aware that our great master in artistic literature, John Ruskin, has said: More, I think, has always been done for God by few words than many pictures, and more by few acts than many words. Sometimes, indeed, the love of this form of art is the mask under which a thirst for morbid excitement will pass itself for religion.
On the other hand, I remember that this same great master of thoughts, as well as of words, has also said: In my opinion, sacred art, so far from being exhausted, has yet to attain the development of its highest branches ; and the task or privilege yet remains for mankind to produce an art which shall be at once skilful and entirely sincere. The histories of the Bible are, in my opinion, waiting to be painted.
Moses has never been painted ; Elijah, never j Gideon never ; Isaiah never. What single example does the reader remember of painting, which suggests so much as the faintest shadow of these people or their deeds? Strong men in armor, or aged men with flowing beards, he may remem- ber who, when he looked at his Louvre or Uffizi catalogue, he found were intended to stand for Moses or for David. Now I would go farther than Ruskin himself in this latter paragraph, and say that, in my judg- ment, painting has yet a great mission to accom- plish in the domain of worship.
I feel sure that the God who himself is light, and in whom there FORMS AND FIGURES 41 is no darkness at all, and who has disfracted his own whiteness through the prism of his own cre- ation into the various colors of his various natural objects — the red of his rose, the green of his grass, the blue of his sky — has still a sacred mis- sion for his colors in the service of his sanctuary — the red of his love, the green of his life, the blue of his heaven.
However this may be, do not, I pray you — let me say in passing — misuse God's colors ; for they are holy. Never use your brush to pander to what in us is low — the coarse, the mean, the unlovely, the impure ; ever use it to chasten and heighten and strengthen what in us is best — the things that are true, and honorable, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report.
For instance, were I an artist, I do not think I would ever paint a monster, or demon, or ruffian, or hag, or satyr, or sybarite, or bacchante, or cyprian, or even a nudity. Moreover, I believe that the time is coming when it will be considered artistic in painting the picture of a good man, not only to portray him accurately, so that his likeness shall be easily recognizable, but also to portray him — so to speak — transcendently, that is, at the crest of his good possibilities. As the architecture and the sculpture of which I have spoken is spiritual, belonging to the cathedral of character ; so also is the painting of which I am now speaking.
God's beauty is the archetypal Form ; man's excellencies are the antitypal figurations. This application of our theme to painting, it seems to me, is especially appropriate. For, while painting appeals chiefly to the sense of beauty, it is God himself who is the primal, archetypal, essential, infinite Beauty.
How often we read in his own Book of the " beauty of holiness " ; and God is holiness itself. For there is an inward world of beauty even more truly than an outward world. Browning, in her " Sonnet to a Child Asleep " sings: Even pagan Socrates felt this, and said: Aye, "the king's daughter is all glorious within. And holiness is the culmination of beauty ; consecration is the acme of perfection. Worship Jehovah, then, in the beauty of holiness. Or as a modern poet quaintly phrases it: Straight is the line of duty, Curved is the line of beauty ; Follow the one, and thou shalt see The other ever following thee.
Trtith is the divine Form ; words are human figurations.
Words are the most wonderful of things: And Jesus Christ himself is the divine, archetypal, true, eternal Word. The Divine Man is Deity's eternal alphabet, from eternity to eternity God's every inter- mediate letter. And therefore by his own words and works the world and the universe is year by year, century by century, aeon by aeon, justifying him — the Word of God — more and more. And as Jesus Christ is the Divine Form of truth, so human language is true in proportion as it is figurated from him.
This in fact is the reason why language is such a sacred gift. The Creator has bestowed it on man that it may serve as the shrine and organ and disburser of truth. For it is by means of words that men can under- stand the truth, and convey it to one another, and so co-work in building up society. Language is the bridge between man and man ; it is the circulating medium of human exchange — the exchange of human thoughts, sentiments, plans. Language is the blood of mankind, flowing through its arteries and veins, making all man- kind one human corporation or body, converting the numberless human units into the one human unity, all men into one Man.
Here is the secret of a genuine, wholesome, abiding, per- fect literature. That literature is the most con- summate which is the most imbued with the spirit of Him who is the divine Word become flesh. Let me apply this. Are you looking forward to public life, preparing yourself to become a preacher, a lecturer, a lawyer, a statesman?
Your oratory will be true and wholesome and powerful in proportion as it is vocal with the eloquence of Him who taught as never man spake. Are you contemplating a literary career? Your publications will be true and ennobling and gen- uinely classical in proportion as you use your rhetoric for the praise of God in the weal of man.
In brief, you will be successful figurators of words in proportion as you are followers of Him who is the Form of Truth. In the day when he shall judge the quick and dead, may it be said of each one of us: Harmony is the divine Form ; melodies are human figurations. All deep feeling is essentially poeti- cal. It is so in all lands ; it has been so in all ages. All deep emotion, alike of joy and of grief, instinctively yearns for the accompaniment of sound and measure.
Even the Delphian pythoness was wont to breathe forth her oracle in hexameter. All this is pre- eminently true of religious feeling. For the truest devotion is the highest poetry. Accord- ingly, the Bible is in way of eminence a book of poems, and the Psalter of the Bible has ever been the favorite praise-book of the church. To the thoughtful worshiper few things are more inspiring and sublime than the sense of joining in strains thus centuries old.
Ah, here is the real concord of the ages ; here is the true ecumenical. Devotion borrows music's tone, And music takes devotion's wing ; And, like the bird that hails the sun, They soar to heaven and, soaring, sing. But the music, not less than the feeling and the words, must be religious Eph. But devotion is even more than a song ; devo- tion is also a life. And here even the deaf and dumb may sing, singing and making melody in their hearts unto the Lord.
Oh, how many spirit- ual Beethovens there are! There are in this loud, stunning tide Of human care and crime, With whom the melodies abide Of the everlasting chime ; Who carry music in their heart Through dusky lane and mart, Plying their daily task with busier feet, Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat. Our Father, thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. The real music after all is the anthem of daily life, the antiphone of daily character, the doxology of daily service.
I have discussed with painful meagreness a transcendent theme. I have tried to show that the Art of arts is to shape life according to the pattern shewn on the Mount. Thus living, we shall build a celestial house ; we shall shape a heavenly statue ; we shall paint the incomparable beauty ; we shall speak the ineffable language ; we shall sing the undying song.
V The Incidental Christ Though truths in manhood darkly join, Deep seated in our mystic frame, We yield all blessing to the name Of Him that made them current coin. And so the Word had breath and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds, In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought. The Incidental Christ is the outward Christ of circumstance ; contingent ; chronological ; geo- graphical ; racial ; hereditary ; temperamental ; educational ; ecclesiastical ; theological.
In brief, this is the Christ of environment ; of our own temperamental conception, our educa- tional training, of our own desire ; the Christ whom our own longings robe, vesture, image forth to consciousness. The Essential Christ is the in- ward Christ who is therefore independent of circumstances, or conditions of time and space: How often is this divine Christ obscured, hidden by environments and tempor- alities. We recognize Jesus the Man, but not Jesus the Christ.
He stands among us, but "we know him not,'' except as casual, incidental. He is in history ; as center of chronology, migrations, institutions, legislations, progres- sions ; yet to many historians he may be but a racial, geographical Christ. He is in philosophy ; as center of nature, mat- ter, law, order, cosmos ; yet to some scientists he may be but a transient, phenomenal Christ. He is in Christianity ; as center of Gospels, Acts, Epistles, Covenant, Church ; yet to some he may be but an ecclesiastical, theological Christ. He is in society ; as center of mankind, of individuals, of outcasts, of monopolists ; yet to some sociologists he may be but an incidental, temporal Christ.
Suppose we endeavor to translate the Christ of the past into the Christ of the present ; the Christ of Palestine into the Christ of America ; the Christ of the Hebrew into the Christ of the English ; the Christ of idiom into the Christ of language ; the Christ of theology into the Christ of ethics ; the Christ of ritual into the Christ of practice ; the Christ of parable into the Christ of science ; the Christ of letter into the Christ of spirit ; the Christ of form into the Christ of life ; the Christ of the church into the Christ of the kingdom ; the Christ of yesterday into the Christ of to-day; the Christ of to-day into the Christ of to-morrow.
Do we not find the Essential Christ "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever"? Ever adjust- able, because absolute ; ever flexible, because changeless ; the preterit and futurist of all existence. Christ formed within us the crescent hope of 54 LIFE AND LIGHT character, becomes the life-element ; the motive power, ever unfolding all incipient possibilities ; ever developing all capacities ; allowing for all personal equations ; healing all discords ; enno- bling all weakness ; transfiguring all errors.
Thus drawn by his graces into the sphere of his royal personality the visibles vanish, the invisibles emerge ; the tangibles dissolve, the intangibles solidify ; the vast dwindles, the small expands ; the near recedes, the far ap- proaches ; and the dynamic force of an endless growth swells into the full-orbed glory of the Essential, Eternal Christ. Without the Way there is no going ; Without the Truth there is no knowing ; Without the Life there is no living. VI Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: Christ had just been saying: And ye know the way whither I go.
Full text of "Life and light; thoughts from the writings of George Dana Boardman"
In the sense of beginning. He is the door of entrance into his own kingdom ; the gate of the soul's access to God. Jesus is the true ladder between earth and heaven, the true Scala Sancta of our devotions, The great world's altar stairs That slope through darkness up to God. By his incarnation, life, teachings, and death, he reveals the mystery of existence, awakens the sense of God's loving Fatherhood, gives the impulse of obedience to the divine will, and the hope of higher life, of knowledge, and com- munion with the Father. In the sense of continuing. He is not only the beginning ; he not only shows the way ; he is the Way itself.
He is the conditioning element of all things, the sphere and medium of all existence. Nature is in him as its sphere and vehicle — constituted, systemed, kept in everlasting equipoise in him. He is the medium not less than the source and the end of all existence.
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How significant are those frequent scriptural expressions which represent the Christian life as a way or walk! As then we receive the Lord Jesus, so let us walk in him! He is the true line of direction — the king's highway of holi- ness ; the saint's promenade — the sacred, majestic aisle along which the church catholic and im- mortal are marching up to perfectness.
The emphasis Jesus put on himself as the Way, made the word a synonym for Christianity. No wonder the early Christians loved to talk of "the Way. In the sense of ending. He is not only the source and medium, he is the goal, the terminus ; the "author and finisher. Christ is himself the fountain, arena, meaning ; final cause of all things from atom to vastest star, be- ing in himself Nature's origin, Nature's means, Nature's goal.
The center of gravity and pivot for the universe, he yet fills all things ; raying every possible radius to utmost periphery ; or, to use Pascal's striking paradox, his " center is everywhere, his circumference is nowhere. I am the Truth. Jesus Christ is the truth or reality in dis- tinction from prophecy and type.
He is the ful- filler and realizer of all figures and shadows. He is the True Light ; he is the original, underived, archetypal Light, of which John was but a reflection and suggestion. These are but symbols: He is the Reality. He is the True Tabernacle. Not that the tabernacle of the wilderness was not a sanctuary ; but he is the original, archetypal temple ; the True Taber- nacle which the Lord pitched and not man, and to which all other tabernacles, whether of Sinai, of Moriah, or of Christendom, are preliminary and subservient, and of which they are but figures and signs.
They are types ; he is the Antitype. The phenomenal is the parable ; he is the interpretation thereof. Jesus Christ is the truth or reality in dis- tinction from mere facts. Facts are physical, belonging to the realm of matter ; truths are spiritual, belonging to the realm of morals. Nature teaches facts ; the Bible teaches truths. Facts are conditional, temporal, local, secular. There is no necessary morality in the facts of arithmetic, chemistry, geometry, chronology; but truths are unconditional, eternal, universal.
There can be no truth except in connection with a personal moral nature. Calvary changed the trend of human history. Jesus Christ is the Truth in that he is the meaning of facts. It is a great thing to know facts, or what Is ; it is a greater thing to know truth or what the Is is For. Science tends to be retrospective, searching out antecedents as the basis or at least conditioning element of what is: Religion is prospective, asking what the is means, and what its final issue.
Science, regarding what is, as the inevitable progenitor of what is to be, and content with this iron bar of entail, has for its watchword Mitst. Religion, regarding what has been, and is, and is to be, as means to end, and exulting in the prerogative of choice, has for her watchword Ought Thus at a single immeasurable bound, she springs from necessity to duty, from matter to spirit, from earth to heaven ; from nature as a means and man as the end, to nature under man as a means and God as the end — God in Christ, the final cause of both nature and man.
Jesus Christ is the truth or reality in distinc- tion from the apparent. There is an invisible world more truly than there is a visible. Hence we are bidden to walk by faith, not by sight. What, in fact, is faith but transfigured imagina- tion? One of the most felicitous instances of masterly diction in the realm of science is Pro- fessor Tyndall's discourse delivered before the British Association in on "The Scientific Use of the Imagination. That magnificent theory of modern science, the wave theory, is a palmary instance of faith.
No man ever saw and, by reason of the very terms of the atomic hypothesis, ever will see, an atom of ether. Yet the whole scientific world unhesi- tatingly proceeds on the assumption that there is this universal ether. The theory is even said to be demonstrated, and I do not for a moment question the assertion, because it perfectly ac- counts for so many various phenomena otherwise inexplicable. For instance, phenomena of radia- tion, absorption, reflection, refraction, polariza- tion, etc.
Allow me also the scientific use of the imagination. I believe in him because he accounts for moral phenomena otherwise inex- plicable. He accounts for my moral nature, my experiences, my aspirations, my joys, my victories. He is the substrate of all existence. In him all things were created and in him all things subsist. He only can answer Pilate's question: I am the Life. No cover image available Come to me: Smith by Smith, Roy L.
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