THE GRAND ADVENTURE
Genuine conviction must rest on fact, whether positive or negative. Nor can true love have any other true basis. An assumption of infallibility, historic and absolute, for men or organizations is in essence unjustified optimism. Except in the case of Jesus Christ, there has been no demonstration of absolute perfection in the flesh. Therefore, those who represent Him must base their hope on what He has done, is doing, and will do for us, in us, and through us.
The Christian church did not suddenly arrive at its doctrinal conclusions. Nor may the twelve apostles be said to have possessed truth from the day they were called. Indeed, they were remarkably slow to understand sublimest truth, though taught by the Master Teacher Himself. To them, truth was a progressive revelation. Their conviction of the truth of their movement lay not in the vain assumption that they understood all things fully from the start, but rather that they would seek out truth as for hidden treasure—and follow it wherever its trail should lead, through whatever trial. This was the spirit of the Reformation. We can plead no more than pursual and acceptance of truth, whatever its demands in terms of previous belief and practice.
We need not blush apologetically if the Christian fathers sometimes drew false conclusions from limited information. Nor is there anything to gain by denying this. Progressive man learns from his failures and successes. It is the Laodicean spirit that proclaims, We have always been right about everything—and always will be. The true church has ever been a growing church. It is this spirit that has sparked the grand adventure in search of truth.
E. E. C.
"I BUILT THAT WALL"
A TRAIN going north from the English Midlands brings to the traveler's view miles and miles of low, winding stone walls. Over the hills and far away they run. If you were to examine them you would find them mortarless. Dry walls, they call them. A famous man tells the story of walking along a country lane in the English Lake District. He fell in with a man who turned out to be a dry-waller. At one spot the man proudly pointed to a low, well-built wall, and said: "I built that wall. And if it's not interfered with, it will last three hundred years!"
A year ago we read the story of a boy who was wounded and caught on the top of a now infamous wall as he sought to flee into West Germany. Who built that hate-surrounded wall? Hate-filled men who sought to shut people in, and from both sides hate is hurled over that wall.
Every time men are divided one from the other, a wall is built. Unspoken or spoken innuendoes, bitter words, subtle suggestions, political maneuvering, polite depreciations, unkind criticisms—these are all walls that separate man from man.
Every time someone forsakes the path of rectitude, he is walled off from his fellows. Every time a young Christian loses his faith through the inconsistencies of older men, someone built a wall that shut him out from God.
The embittered, the cynical, the selfish, the defeated, the sinner—these are all walled-off people. But how often it happens that, if the truth were known, these shut-off people are there because you or I or some other man contributed to their sad state.
May we never have to confess: "I built that wall!"
H. W. L.
PIED PIPER
The news is disturbing. There is a preacher shortage. But—why? In accounting for this phenomenon some have blamed everything but the weather. Unquestionably, there are many contributing factors, not the least of which is the decline in respect for the clergy, owing to compromises in morals and manners. The multiplicity of administrative duties also has done little to enhance the image of the ministry. In fact, the concept of the minister primarily as the mouthpiece of Jehovah, whose message and manner converted sinners and chastened saints, has given way to the image of an urbane solicitor—can in hand—a joke of all trades, whose prayers are routine and whose sermons are dull. No wonder there is a preacher shortage.
Preachers incubate in the heat of revival fires. Soul-stirring, spirit-filled preaching fires the young with the desire to preach. Icicle formalism has in it nothing desirable, and hence does not attract. You can't start a fire with a snowball. Show me that pastor whose preaching reflects the concern of his heart and I will show you a dozen youngsters under his influence who want to be like him. Let the pastor seek the promised power until his soul thrills to his own preaching, and like the fabled Pied Piper of yesteryear, he will lead to the rostrum a widening stream of ministerial aspirants.
E. E. C.
