The Power of Christianity
By L. A. S.
Everything good in life is positive. There is no virtue in a mere negation. There is no inspiration, no life, to be drawn from doubting or denying anything. Life is a process of building up, not of tearing down. A system of belief which merely opposes itself to something else, and gives forth only doubt, denial, and ridicule of some other system, contains no life, and hence can impart no sustaining power to anything. Such a system is atheism, which exists only by denying and opposing Christianity. Atheism points continually to that which is false and bad, or which it asserts to be such, and therefore it cannot lead its adherents to anything good. It cannot impart any real comfort or satisfaction. The literature of atheism is tiresome to the atheist himself, for no person, of whatever religious belief, can experience satisfaction in feeding on moral chaff. It is the wheat alone—that which can impart life, build up the body, and furnish material for growth—that satisfies. And this is done by Christianity. There is chaff mixed with the wheat, but this fact does not affect the character of the wheat. Christianity does not stand condemned because of the fraudulent and counterfeit things which associate themselves with it. Rather does the existence of the counterfeit testify to the worth of that which it pretends to be. There would be no counterfeit dollars if there was not a genuine dollar worth counterfeiting. The charge is persistently made by Romanists that Protestantism is a merely negative system, which finds expression only in denying and protesting against the papal religion. If this were true, their point against Protestantism would be well taken. But the Reformation was not wrought by any system of mere disbelief. Protestantism based itself on the Word of God. The Word of God was the weapon of its warfare. It asserted the word which was from the beginning, before the system against which it protested came into existence. Protestantism was a power which moved men, only the strongest and most positive power in the world could move them. It was a force which broke the strong control of the carnal nature, transformed the heart, and wrought a revolution in the whole life of the one accepting it. It accomplished that which could be done only by the Word of God, the mightiest and most positive power in existence. It protested against Rome, because it was the truth, and the system of Rome was error. Truth protests against error because error is a denial of the truth. But the truth was before all error, and antagonizes all negative systems that have ever existed. It did not lose its positive character when it stood opposed to error which had sprung up in its path. And so Protestantism, while it was a protest against Rome, no more depended on Rome for its existence and its force than truth depends upon error. Protestantism spoke to the people the word which was from the beginning and is to endure through all time, and the mighty reformation which it wrought in a world seemingly given over to papal errors and transgressions, testified that its power was from the highest heaven. Every genuine reformation comes through the Word of God, which points men, not to existing errors primarily, but to the ever-living truth, which was before all error, and which is filled with the light and power of its eternal Author.