When delivering the graduate lecture to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich many years ago, an English writer of some distinction talked to the young officers on the honor and high integrity of human nature. He gave as two examples a captain who had gone bravely down with his ship and a mother who had suffocated her own child under a mattress. The first, he claimed, was human nature, and the second was not. He called upon his audience to choose their creed in life as illustrated by these two incidents.
The great theological doctrine of total depravity has had many enemies. Yet we find it hard to understand how anyone can take cognizance of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews and fail to see what roots of sin are in the human heart. To call the instigators and perpetrators of these crimes "bestial" is to insult every animal that ever walked the face of the earth. If we should see a lion bound upon his prey and tear it to bits, it would be only proper to say, "He eats almost in a human fashion."
Some time ago, while teaching a Bible class on the Book of Genesis, I came to the third chapter and the account of the fall of man. In the course of the study I said that many of the great differences in theology which divide men and churches arose out of the question as to how far man fell in the sin of Adam. To my astonishment, the crowd laughed. I was not expecting it at all, and had a flash of stunned silence, but then I immediately saw that the laughter came from a shock of something so unexpected. The audience had never heard the matter expressed in that way, and their minds were totally unprepared for the statement, and did not comprehend it. The combination had touched off laughter.
Our school systems include the study of languages because of the effect of a second language on the mind. If one knows but one language one is tempted to think that everything is understood; in reality the sound and pattern of words and syntax go through the mind, bringing forth reactions, ofttimes without bringing forth thought. If it is necessary to translate an idea from one language to another, it is no longer possible to fool oneself. The translator is forced to think the thing through. He is forced to understand.
A friend recently asked what I felt was my greatest spiritual need. I replied that I was conscious of very many lacks but that I felt that one of my greatest was to know more of the Word of God in order that I might know Him better. My friend was astonished, saying that he knew I had lived my life within the horizons of the Bible and knew a great deal about it. I replied that I knew enough to know how much more there was to know, and that I sometimes felt like a man who had been running for a long distance - chest heaving, lungs pulling for more oxygen. It is possible to long after God with such panting.
