The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1860-05-26
first letter of the spirit Of enlightened

| first letter of the spirit of enlightened
Christianity.
In the end, if all good men.practiced such
course, it would defeat the design of God
in this world. For the right development
OF life and society furnish those very means
| By which we are tosbe trained for another
state of existence. Some men reason as i
there were no such things as good houses,
good ships. good implements. They ar
| que that if man would have leisure to give
| their thoughts to Divine things. But the
more people give their thoughts to such
things as houses and ships and implements.
the more do they give their thoughts &c
Divine things. The fact is. paradoxical as
| it may seem, the more you multiply the
physical comforts of people. the more dc
i you make them spiritual; and the more you
reduce their physical comforts. the more dc
you make them animal. Anything that
multiplies a mans capacity in material
things, has tendency to carry him lighter
up toward God. 1t does not do it in every
case: but it may do it, and usually does dc
it. Although, so far as individual men are
concerned, a man may be Christian. and
be poor man, an illiterate man, an indus
trious man, and uningenious man; yet, sc
4
cannot make nation or a race wise and
skilful in spiritual things, if they are igno-
rant and unskillful in the things of this
world. And for this reason the world is
grindstone, and races are axes which are
to get their cutting edges by being ground
on it! The very object for which God
thinks it worth while to turn and roll this
round globe, is that by its very attrition
and working men may be made men in ev.
cry sense of the term.
The family; the school; the church; reg
ulated and virtuous civil society; whole
some and normal occupation, which in
creases physical comforts-all these make
the number Of children reared to high NOR
al character greater, and the training Of
such children easier. Therefore, the very
way to train our children for heaven, Is to
surround them by such conditions of hu-
man society as will have powerful. though
indirect, influence upon their moral amel-
ioration and up-building. I would rather
undertake to bring up my child to virtue
and morality and piety in the city, bad as il
is, than on the desert of Sahara, or on a
fiat rock where there was nothing but him,
me, and the rock. You could bring up a
toad stool there, but not man. A man
must have something to feed on, something
to think about, something to inspire him
What kind of battle could man fight
alone? A man to fight, and to be victo-
rious, courageous man, must have some
thing to fight. =,
An opposite view, carried out, would
make this world desert, and the receipts
of heaven from this world not worth the
appointing of a registering angel.
The men that gather wealth, that take
wholesome pleasure in its achievement, that
have nthusiasm in the events and changes
of the day in which they live, are not any
the less strangers and pilgrims. They are
just as much good; or, if not, it is their
own fault, and not because they have taken
wrong course. The world may be used
or abused. 1t certainly is abused when We
do not use it. It may be an instrument ol
benefit and benevolence, or of selGshness
and lust. But to use tie world is tie in
dispensable condition of progress in normal
| life
| This declaration is not meant, then, to
make men despise Gods comprehensive or
dinance of time and the world, nor to make
them neglect and underrate daily duties
The road to heaven is just as short, and
may be just as sure, from Wall street, as
| from Trinity church, that stands at the
head of it, holding up the cross in eveT-liv-
| ing light. And man may go as straight
from the store, shop, or deck, to heaven, as
if he kept weary watch in cloister. or had
shivered himself to death in cave. 1t is
man dying with his harness on that an
gels love to take. I hope those old water
logged saints that died soaking in damp
stone cells were taken to heaven. They had
hell enough on earth, and it would be pity
| for them to have continuation of it in the
other world; but i think they were the poor
est of human commodities ever taken in
When God wanted sponges and oysters,
he made them, and put one on a rock, and
| the other in the mud. When he made man,
/ he did not make him to be a sponge or an
| oyster; he made him with feet, and hands,
| and head, and heart, and vital blood, and a
place to use them, and said to him, $50
work l' And the man that does not go
and work is not man in the end; while
the man that puts the vigor and enthusiasm
which God inspires into the life that now is,
! becomes man indeed.
| Therefore, our being attracted to things
| in life, our having a zeal in society opera
tons, is normal. It is not something wrong
stealing in on our characters; it is only our
characters working out in right directions.
It is not unmanly or unchristian to do
things; but not to do them is to be less than
man and Christian.
| God thanks no man for despising the uni
versal ordinance of work. The greatest
abuse of the world has nothing to do with
its legitimate using, any more than abusing
the mind itself is an argument against the
nobeness of the divinely created human soul.
Let US dismiss, then, all these monkish
notions. Let US set aside our going out of
the world for sake of sanctity. No
man who regards this life as end can ever
be happy in it. Men were made to be hap
py Never was musical box so exquisite
~ arranged for the playing of sweet tunes.
as the human organism is for the produc-
ton of the music of happiness. The trou5-
lie is, we wind it up the wrong way. The
instrument slides out of measure. and we
play three or four tunes wrong. and mixed
together. A most discordant thing, there