_Atonement_.
The new Century will demand an atonement for sin.
The consciousness of sin is the most enduring fact of human experience.
From generation to generation, from age to age, amidst the ceaseless
changes which time brings to everything else, this one great fact remains,
persists--_the condemning consciousness of sin_. It appears with men
in the cradle, and goes with them to the tomb; without regard to race, or
language, or creed it is ever with us. It was this robbed Eden of its
joys; it is this makes life a round of labour and sorrow; it is this gives
death its terrors; it is this makes the place of torment which men call
Hell--for the unceasing consciousness of sin will be "the worm that never
dies."
All attempts to explain it away, to modify its miseries, to extract its
sting--whether they have come from the party of unbelief, or the party of
education, or the party of amusement, have failed--and failed utterly. No
matter what men say or do to get rid of it, there it is--staring them in
the face! Whether they look amongst the most highly civilized peoples or
amongst the lowest savages; whether they look into the past history of
mankind or into its present condition, there is the _stupendous fact of
sin_, and there is the incontrovertible fact that everywhere _men are
conscious of it_.
It is going to be so in this twentieth century. If God, in His mercy,
allows the families of men to continue during another hundred years, this
great fact will still stand out in the forefront of life. Sin will still
be the skeleton at every feast, the horrid ghost haunting every home and
every heart, the spectre, clothed with reproaches, ever ready to plunge
his dripping sword into every breast.
Sin. The world's sin. The sin of this one generation. The sin of one city.
The sin of one family. The sin of one man--_my sin_! Ah! depend upon
it, the twentieth century will cry aloud, "_What shall be done with our
sin_?"
Yet, thanks be to God! there is an atonement. The MAN of whom I write has
made a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins
of the whole world. He stands forth the ONLY SAVIOUR. None other has ever
dared even to offer to the sin-stricken hearts of men relief from the
_guilt_ of sin. _But He does_. He can cleanse, He can pardon, He
can purify, He can save, because _He has redeemed_. "Thou wast slain,
and hast redeemed us unto God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and
tongue, and people, and nation."
Will you come and join in our great world-mission of making His atonement
known? Will you turn your back on the littleness, and selfishness, and
cowardice of the past, and arise, in the strength of the God-Man, to
publish to all you can reach, by tongue, and pen, and example, that there
is a sacrifice for men's sins--for the worst, for the most wretched, for
the most tortured? As you set your face with high resolve towards the
unknown years, take your stand with THE MAN FOR ALL THE AGES; and let this
be your message, your confidence, your hope for all men-"_Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world_!"