The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1856-04-12

lend Of our very life and beng. 1t suggests
70 ms the idea that piety is not for Sunday
onlv. but for all days that spirituality Of
mind is not appropriate to one set of actions
and an impertinence and intrusion with re-
ference to others, but like the act of breath
ing, like the circulation Of the blood, like
the silent growth of the stature, process
that may be going on simultaneously with
all other actions-when we are busiest as
when we are idlcst-in the church, in the
world, in solitude, in society; in our grief
and in our gladness in our toll and in our
rest; sleeping, waking; by day, by night
amid all the engagements and exigencies of
life. For you perceive that in one breath
as duties not only incompatible, but neces-
sarily and inseperably blended with each
other-the text exhorts us to be at once
mot slothful in business, and fervent IN
spirit, serving the Lord"
l. Religion viewed in two aspects-as
science and an art in other words, system
of doctrines to be believed, and a system of
duties to be done. In either light the
preacher insists upon the compatibility of re-
lieion with common life. Viewed as a sci
ence-as truth to be understood and believ-
ed religion is not, like the higher mathc-
MATES or metaphysics based On reconcile
and elaborate reasonings, capable of being
mastered only by the acutest minds after
years of study and laborious investigation.
In this case the Gospel would be Gospel
for scholars alone, religion, like the ancient
PHILOSOPHERS, for a scanty minority, who had
the comprehension to grasp and the time to
discuss its doctrines. "But the Gospel is no
such system of high and abstract truth.
The salvation it offers is not the prize of a
lofty intellect, bat of lowly heart. The
mirror in which its grand truths are reflected
is not mind of calm and philosophic alb
straction, but heart OF earnest purity. Its
! light shines best and fullest, not on life I'M
disturbed by business, but On soul I'm
stained by sin.''
Again, viewing religion as an art, our
preacher finds that it may be practised ST.
mutaneously with all other work and occu-
patton in which We may be engaged that
while the practice of one secular art ex-
ciudes for the time, the practice of any 9TH
er, SO that a man cannot be studying archi-
lecture and law at the same time religion
is the universal art, the common, all-cmbra-
cling profession, belonging to no one set OF
functionaries and to no special class of men.
Religion is defined as the art of being, and
of doing, good: "To be an adept in it is to
become just, truthful sincere, selfdenied,
gentle. forbearing. pure in word and thought
| and deed And the school for learning this
art is, not the closet, but the world-not
some hallowed spot where religion is taught
and proficients, when duly trained are sent
forth into the world-but the world itself
the coarse. profane, common world, with its
clres. and temptations, its rivalries and COM
petitions, its hourly, ever-recurrihg trials of
temper and character. This is, therefore, an
art which all can practice, and for which ev-
cry profession and calling, the busiest and
most absorbing, afford scope and discipline.
When child is learning to write, it matters
not of what words the copy set to him is
composed, the thing desired being that,
whatever he writes he learn to write WE'LL
| When man is learning to be Christian,
it matters not what his particular work in
life may be; the work he does is but the
copy-llne set to him the main thing to be
considered is that he learn to live WE'LL
The form is nothing, the execution is every
| thing. 1t is true, indeed. that prayer, holy
reading, meditation, the solcmnites and SER
vices OF the church, are necessary to reli-
gion, and that these can be practised only
apart from tie work of secular life. But it
is to be remembered that all such holy exer-
cises do not terminate in themselves. They
are but steps in the lad1er to heaven, good
only as they help US to climb. They are the
irrigation and enriching Of the spiritual soil
worse than useless if the croo be not more
abundant They are, in short, but means to
an end-good. only in SO far as they help us
to be good and to do good-to glorify God
and do good to man; and that end can, per-
haps, best be attained by him whose life is a
busy one, whose ayOcations bear him daily
into contact with his fellows, into the inter
course of society, into the heart of the
world.
"No man can be thorough proficient in
navigation who has never been at sea, tho
he may learn the theory of it at home. No
man can become soldier by studying books
on military tactics in his closet: he must in
actual service acquire those habits of cool
ness, courage, discipline, address, rapid COM
bination, without which the most learned in
the theory OF strategy or engineering will be
but schooboy soldier after all. And, in
the same way, man in solitude and study
may become most learned theologian, or
may train himself into tie timid, efeminate
piety of what is tcchinally called the reli-
gious life.' But never, in the highest and
hottest sense, can lie become religious man,
until he has acquired those habits of daily
self-denial, of resistance to temptation, OF
kindness, gentleness, humility, sympathy,
active beneficence, which are to be acquired
only in daily contact with mankind. Tell
us not, then, that the man of business, the
bustling tradesman, the toil-worn laborer.
has little or no time to attend to religion
AS well tell us that the pilot, amid the
winds and storms has no leisure to attend
navigation, or the general on the field of bat
tic, to the art Of war. Where will he attend
to 1T! Religion is not perpetual mopinc
over good books, religion is not even prayer,
praise, holy ordinances; these are necessary
to religion-no nan can be religious without
them. But religion, | repeat, is, mainly and
chiefly the clarifying OF Go,l amid the duties
and trials of the woGd-tLe guiding our
course amid the adverse winds and currents
of temptation, by the starlight of duty and
the compass of divine truth-bearing us
manfully, wisely, coraceously, fer the hon
or of Christ, our great leader, in the conflict
of life. Away then with the notion that
ministers and ,icvotecs NAV lie religious, but
that religious and holy Life is impractical
bic in the rough a:lsi bysy worl1-nay rath-
er, believe me, that is the proper scene, tie
peculiar and appropriate field for religion
1.-THE place in which to prove that piety is not
"a dream of Sundays and solitary hours that
! Z. can bear the hight of day; that it can wear
tweli aHia the rough jostlincs, the hard
struggles; tie coarse contacts ofcomn on life
the place, III one word, to prove how pos