"CHALLENGE OF THE CROSS"

The third of a series of lectures under the William Belden Noble Foundation, on "Civilization at the Cross-Roads" was given by Rev. J. N. Figgis last night. The subject was "The challenge of the Cross."

Whether a man's doctrine be high or low, he recognizes in the communion the carrying to its highest point the idea of worship, so that it cannot be confused with mere inward meditation. The Christian declares that God, although the ultimate reality, is so far personal that he can enter into relations with man. The supernatural nature of the events which led to the founding of the Christian Church, the idea of the cross, and of the immortality of the soul, are quite alien to that closed circle contemplated by the materialist philosopher and the more ornamental theory of pantheistic monism. Christianity is opposed to the notion that the whole course of things appears in inevitable sequence. While it does not assert man's entire independence, it does make him responsible for his actions and gives him the power to deny god if he will.

The sacramental idea has been so much bound up with the life of the Christian Church that it seems quite unwarrantable to omit it and reserve the other supernatural elements. In this respect, as in the belief in the immortality of the soul, there is no middle path to choose, for Christianity defies all attempts to compromise with any of the humanitarian or ethical codes. A man is either a Christian or a non-Christian in his beliefs.

There are two tempers of mind found both in the Christian and the non-Christian faiths, the world-accepting and the world-renouncing tempers. The believer who accepts the world as a revelation of God and who finds in every human act and relation a deep meaning, believes in a better world because of the very incompleteness of this world. The nonbeliever looks forward to death because it closes all, and the believer because it does not. In the world-accepting view the believer tries to find God's will for man and following it he finds that he is led on to something better. But to the non-believer who takes this view, this world is all in all, and he makes the most of it because there is nothing more.

The issue between the Christian and the non-believer in the supernatural is clearly drawn. There is irreconcilable conflict between scientific fatalism and the postulates of the Christian faith. The world is a different place according as it is viewed from a Christian or a non-Christian standpoint, and no amount of mutual sympathy can bring these views together. The Christian believes that our acts are not all determined by natural physical forces. We are more than parts of nature,--we are something beyond it. In spite of the materialistic tendency of the modern world, the great mass of people leans toward freedom and self-development, and freedom and self-development are only likely to find their expression in a great revival of the Christian faith.