Chapter VII 

 ATONEMENT 



The subject of my address is Atonement ; or^ as the 

 obvious etymology of the word suggests that we should 

 pronounce it, at-one-ment« 



Now, I make no pretence to scholarship, but I think 

 that I am quite safe in saying that the worship of all 

 races of mankind, even the most primitive, has been the 

 expression of a desire to be at one with God, or with 

 gods* So that when Augustine said, ** Thou has made 

 us for Thyself and our souls are restless till they rest 

 in Thee,'' he gave perfect expression to a spiritual 

 experience which must be well nigh, if not quite, 

 universal* And I want us now to consider this much 

 longed-for atonement, in order that we may the better 

 understand what it meant to primitive mankind and 

 what it ought to mean to us to-day. 



We have already seen, in the chapter on ** Worship,'* 

 that the act of worship was always associated with the 

 rite of sacrifice ; and I like to think that the late ProL 

 Robertson Smith was right when he taught that the 

 earliest thought associated with the rite of sacrifice was 

 not the thought of expiation, but the thought of simple 

 fellowship, or at-one-ment. 



But, alas ! This simple thought of fellowship and 

 communion was not the only thought associated with 

 the rite of sacrifice. Whether it was, or was not, the 

 earliest thought it was certainly the purest and noblest. 

 But another thought early entered in, which had no 



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