The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1869-05-13
From the Plymouth Pulpit, April 3.
Heecher on Practical Chris
tianity. ga We

r Peopleth think this the Christian VI no lies
back in his chair and has glorious visions
and experiences. Oh! such good time,
such joyful time as / have had ~ man
says. Well let me see him day OF two
afterward, and [ can tell better whether
it is Argentine Christian experience or not.
Here is a man that-has had "A quarrel
I He never has lost chance to say an ugly
thing, or have an ugly thing said against
him; and his wife and children have tax
en- it up and here is. a setsef families that
have warm times = They are spiteful as
cats and dogs, sand throw sparks like
blacksmith's forge, all the time. And
yet this man is roaring good Christian.
He goes to meeting. There is a revival;
and religious feelings are all aglow. And
| it is all right. He does feel Just as. he
says he does. There is no Hypocrisy in
his profession. He takes his hymn book,
and the fainistsrhappens to be fortunate,
and the hymn comes right home, and cir
cumstances concur, and the electric infiu-
ences are favorable, and-thealneeting is a
joyous one, and he wont 90 home till
/ twelve, O'clock He, has sung twenty
hymns, and he does fee" as though he
"a little more, Lord, and I Shall fly away
he says.
! Now [ want to see if tomorrow he will
go to that neighbor, and say, Cook here,
my dear fellow, we are wrong-at any
rate am whether you are or not. 1 have
been ugly. Forgive me. had such q
good time last night, That must clean my
/ heart. My pride must come down, and [
unjust be reconciled to you"
H He did have good time, and that is
the sign that the feeling which he has ex-
lperienced was genuine. That he reared
his hymns joyfully was a sign of it; but
that, having the elevation, he changed
lit to a moral purpose; that out gof that
4 feeling he wrought, garments of duty;
4 that out off, that experience he came back
I to his fellow menosypathetic more gentle,
\ more humble, more Christlike4ah, that
I was a sign that the feeling was genuine
one. Otherwise it would have been a sign
of elf-indulgence.B igs.t1A8 T7gs,
! A man that takes his excess of moral,
7 social and religious excitement, to raise
i the tone of his moral and emotive feel
i ings is just as dissipated as if he raised
4 the tone of his physical feelings by PHYS
4 cal stimulants. am not instituting a
! comparison as to which is the better and
Il which is the worse. I merely say that
one is intemperance Just as much as the
other, though one is grosser than the 9th
er, and is more disastrous IN undoing the
very structure of the body itself. And
men ought to be made to understand that
there is such thing as moral intoxica
ton, and that man can take religious
feeling, and that he can-shall | say it,
imbibe, and imbibe for no other reason
than that it feels good. 1t is selfindul
gence 1t is luXury-a higher luxury, tc
be sure. And he imbibes, and mblbes
and is more joyful. He is not better
man; but he is much happier man. And
he imbibes, and imbibes until by-and-by
; he swigs and swlgs; and the man is besot
!. ted. have, seen men that was literally
idebauched at the top Of their brain, and
Ilwho had gone into a sytematic self-indul-
gence. They never were happy except
under circumstances where they had this
peculiar form of enjoying themselves.
If [ found that the whole form of this
enjoyni ent was q mighty spring that was
pressing them toward self-denial for the
sake of their fellow-men; If I found that
it was multiplying the aveneus of their
usefulness; If | found that they were gen
tie and meek in following Christ, then l
should say there was no debauch there;
that there was no moral intemperance
there. Feeling which, beginning o. feel
} ing, has transmitted itself into life and
conduct and become wholesome-that is
genuine piety; thatGis true Christian char.
acter; the mere feeling without the trans
mutation is nothing of the kind, and it
is not desirable. If it is not going to be
!, trasmited into anythingbut emotion, it
4 is not only an undesirable thing, it is a
dangerous. thing. ~
i Path of the Just.