Saving The World - What It Involves And How It Is Being Accomplished (1902) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. THE LOST. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Luke 19: 10. This text is very similar to the one under consideration in the preceding chapter, and is a fit companion for it. Like it, it pithily presents the purpose of the mission of our Saviour, and reveals the character of those whom he came into the world to save. It is noticeable, however, that the characterization of those He came to save is different from that in the former text. There he is represented as having come to save sinners; here he is represented as having come to save the lost. While actually the same persons are meant in both cases, yet the points of view from which their character and condition are regarded are different. Moreover, in the characterization given in the present text there is an element of pathos which is wanting in that of the former one. The lost What emotions are stirred by the word What depths of sorrow and anxiety may be, and often actually are, covered by the term There is no such suggestion in the term sinners. It calls to censure rather than to sympathy; and awakens feelings of revulsion rather than of compassion. There are at least three elements entering into our conception of the lost, which give to the term a pathetic suggestiveness. The first is the fact that whena thing is lost cessation of control and ownership is involuntary. We did not mean to alienate possession?did not, in fact, relinquish ownership. It has passed out of our control and beyond our reach without our knowledge and against our wishes. The second element is the absence of compensation. When we alienate a possession by sale or gift, we are content; for then we have had compensation for the alienation. True, in a gift there is no material compensation; but the s...