Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1875-12-01

dulating yeast Of sanctimony? Where do
we find the men and women who welcome
the call, and never make virtue of duty,
or who never shirk behind substitute?
"By their fruits ye;shall know Them" Who
are the most peaeeable people in the world,
having their record in the divine beatitudes?
Do we find them in the gospel of Christ, or
do we find them in the gospel of men7C on
tentions and strifes and chickering's. Where
do we find the most charitable people, they
that think no evil? Where do we find the
that are spoken Of in contrast with the
spirit? Which gospel do we End them in?
Where the least disposition to cloak person.
al sins under the guise of an impersonal
substitute? Where do we find the fswsst
sins in the bank, counting room. on the ex-
change, in the neighborhood, the home, the
prayer-mssting or closet, had almost said?
Where do we find them, in the gospel
of Christ or that "other gospel"
What is it friend, that determines what .
man is? What he processes, or what be
practices? You would feel insulted If that
| question were put to you on East or West
Water streets Common sense would blush
if you had need Of asking such question
But in religion, the need comes up some
times. Christ preached and practiced Cos
Eel. According to mau, rites, profession,
faith, belief, creeds make gospel. Is the
question deter mined by how one believes,
| or how he lives? by his creed or his char
acter? Creed, friends, is only opinion, and
opinion is nothing but halfway house be-
tween ignorance and knowledge. Men
have. not got to the journeys end The Cos
| pei of men then, if you will look carefully
to it is gospel,of opinions. The gospel of
Christ is the gospel of life, inspiration and
character without any refe, ence to the halt
| way house. The Christian gospel, that is
Christ's, makes men aud women actually
better and better day by day The "other
gospel makes them srofessedly better, and
| they are called professors. One can be re-
| presented only by good men. The other
| can be espoused by the Devils, and be
Devils still, believing and trembling. The
gospel Of Christ creates righteousness, holi-
ness and true manhood. The gospel Of
men substitutes for personal righteousness
theoretical righteousness from some other
source.
| Did then-I repeat the first question
did Christ presch the gospel Of the schools,
that gospel that you find set down in the
standard societies of Chrseendom? For
fourteen or sixteen hundred years, did He
create the wrangling contentions of men
wherein they can do things in church mat
tiers with impunity, they would he expelled
| from chambers of commerce for doing?
Did He preach that as His gospeH II
Christ were here to-day woald He be found
with the self-righteous pharasees or pzofes =
ors? If he preached nothing now bat
hat He preached then; would He be ac-
knowledged as the preacher OF pure gospel
of men, if it was not known that He WAS
| Christ?
Behold then, friends, how this divine
teacher stood upon this ear tn once and pour
ed life and love, and divine inspirations
into the deep keart and nature of man. He
;oh
pare, exalted life. He came to lift the soul
to supernal planes. He was here, if there be
any thing peculiar in His gospel, to propa-
gate and breed the very character of God
the Father, in man the child. That is the
new Geaesis or the regeneration
Something therefore, I say must be
wrong, either Christ and His gospel, or the
sother gospel Men reject this gospel of
Christ which aims directly at making men
better and only that They reject it be-
cause they don't appreciate it. They are
not dishonest. They reject 1t and take the
other because they do not realize what it
is They have no internal sense of it, hav-
ing been trained all their days and in all
their senses to the "other gospel" They
have no real, live, radical, personal exper-
fence of what the popularity of this Christ
gospel is. They accept the human gospel,
the gospel of the ages, thought out and
framed together and set forth and contend.
ed for as the faith once delivered to the
saints They are honest, but they have
drifted away from the fresh primal words of
the great teacher Himself, having taken
the commentators words instead of sound
ing the depths of the original utte1ancss
themselves.
Earnest men, astute men, honest men
have gotten the helm which should always
lie only in Gods hands. The faith of men
has dritted off under the deluson that once
believing so and so, there is nothing else to
do. But faith must change as the hands on
the dial face change. If he be a live,