Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 90:357 (Jan 1933)
Article: The Participation Of Today In Yesterday
Author: C. J. Williamson

BSac 90:357 (Jan 1933) p. 23

The Participation Of Today In Yesterday

C. J. Williamson

There is not a truth we hold dear, not an institution we cherish, to which we have come save across the graves of men of other days, who by their strength and struggle and death have made that truth or institution possible. In our public schools we teach our children the history of their country, for who can be truly patriotic who does not know something of the past of his nation? Why should it not be equally taken for granted that every follower of Christ, to be a more patriotic and valuable Christian, should be acquainted with the history of the church of which he is a part?

Men who have been truly great have been men of religious conviction. The great constructive moral work of the world has been done by men who had a God. Mobs can be so easily stampeded into any wild action; but, as a few men of mighty physical courage have been able on the battlefield to prevent a stampede of the mass of soldiers who are suddenly seized by a terrible fear, so a few men here and there who believed mightily in God and right have been the influences that have kept the world from being hurled as an avalanche into an abyss of ruin. And their lives are a goodly heritage! When the crowd attempts to force us to its will just because it is the crowd, there comes across the centuries that brave voice, “I, Athanasius, against the world!” When worldliness pushes in on our souls like a miasma, we remember St. Francis, deliberately removing his garments of wealth and taking the clothing of a beggar, and so living that within ten years that makeshift costume becomes the honored uniform of ten thousand men. This man who thoroughly believed shaped the life of his generation instead of being shaped by it. When we are tempted to cower before the forces of evil entrenched in high places, we stand in reverence before a Savonarola speaking the truth without fear because he believed in God, with the result that in

BSac 90:357 (Jan 1933) p. 24

the end Lorenzo the Magnificent summoned the monk to administer to him the comforts of religion in his dying hour. “He is the only honest friar I know,” said Lorenzo. Such is the tribute that vice pays to virtue—virtue that is real, and unafraid!

What has there been in the faith of Christ that has made men like these triumphant?

I. Elements Of Power In Christianity

1. A Supernatural Religion. From the very beginning of human history men have been searching to find God; the race has never lost its wistful hope of finding God. Men have tried by ritual, by sacrifice, by self-mutilation, to make their way to the presence of God. They have tried to climb to the heights of heaven, man standing on the shoulders of other men ...