Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-01-20


complicated machinery is constructed anc
balanced for just that purpose. If you take
away the hour hand you might as well take
away the minute hand and the dial and
the wheels ana the case and the clock. II
is the hour hand which makes all thi:
machinery good for anything.
Take awav religion out of human life and
you have taken the hour-hand off the clock;
the pendulum may go on swinging, and the
wheels NAV go on wheeling, and the ticking
NAV sound as loud as ever, but all goes for
nothing. The busiest life without the
thought of God, without the spirit of re-
ligion, is only a tangle of noisy wheels rush.
ing around in a great hurry, for nothing.
The pleasures of society and the pursuit OF
sanctity, the world of business and the
world of prayer are just as harmoniously
adjusted in a right life as the bour-hand
balances the minute-hand in a good clock.
And so the question is not as its first
askers imagined, Which shall we serve,
God or Caesar? 1t is not, Shall we be good
business men, good housekeepers, or shall
we be good Christians? But, How may we
! do both, and be both?
/ Consider now, in this connection, how
helpful to genuine devotion is simple faith
/ fulneSs in work.
MY Father worketh," says our Lord,
''and l work" And so when we work, we
are following a divine example. God, hav-
ing become man, humbled himself to become
working man, and to labor daily at the
bench of carpenter, that this divine ex-
ample might be plain beyond mistake.
Think OF that when tasks multiply upon
you.
Moreover, all good work is work for God
really for God. This is His world; We
III L.
tools with which to work, and has set us
down where He would have us use them.
If you have a strong arm, if you have
quick brain, if you have a knowledge of
art, of trade, of finance,
HE GAVE IT TO YOU.
When you use these divinely given tools
ofyours, in this divinely appointed place of
yours, you are doing something for God.
"Who sweeps a room as for Gods laws,
makes'that, and the action fne." And so it
was right that Fra Angelica should pray
before he painted. He was Gods artist
So it was right that that great merchant
should inscribe "to Gods glorv," at the top
servant, doing his share of the work which
had been given him to do. When Hadyn
was composing 'the creation" he wrote
upon each leaf of his manuscript ITO the
sole glory of God;" AMI when at "let there
be light" the whole vast audience rose up
in uncomfortable applause, he waved them
down, with tears in his eyes, crying out, at
is not mine, it is Gods" 1t was Gods, but
no more than your own work is, if you do it
faithfully as Gods servant.
But there is work and work There is
the work which a horse does, and the work
which a man NAV do. A man NAV work
like horse, with no higher purpose than
horse has. Or he may work like man.
He works like a man, who does his work
consciously for God, doing the best he
knows how, because that is the kind of
work God wants. This kind of work needs
taithfulness in prayer.
Among the races at the Olympic games
was race which was run with torches. The
torch was lighted at an altar beside the
starting point, and the winner was he who
was not only first at the goal, but was the
first to get there with his torch still burn
ing. Swiftness went for nothing if the light |
went out.
The light is the light of God. Kindle the
torch at the altar of God. The busy man
and the busy woman, of all people, should |
begin this day with the petition that their |
words and acts and thoughts, may be to the |
praise and glory of Gods holy name, that |
they may be strengthened against tempta-
ton and delivered from evil.
Here are the ways, then, by which the |
busiest person may be helped to live relig- |
iously, by faithfulness in work, and by
in prayer. 1t remains to speak |
of
DEALING WITH HINDERANCEs.
If some busy people are asked why they 1
live so unreligiously, so unspiritually; why |
they look down so much to earth like the
and not up toward heaven as
men and angels may, they will say
that they have so many things to
think of and so little private time, and so
many peace-destroying and temper-spoiling
obstacles that devotion is impossible There
is proverb in French to the effect that
'Earnestness achieves the impossible.
And there is a maxim in English which is
even better, which counsels us to turn
stumbling-blocks' into stepping stones"
And anybody can do that, by Gods help,
if they only try hard enough.
There is a picture by Domenichino of
woman and an angel. The woman holds
tablet on which is written in golden letters
4 verse from psalm; the angel kneels be-
side her. The woman is the blessed St.
francesca. Francesca was noble lady,
-ich and beautiful, living in the midst Of
he gayest society of Rome. She was at her
prayers one day, the story goes, and was
,alled away six times while she was trying
o read single verse in the Psalter; and
very time went cheerfully and attended to
he duty or the pleasure and came back de-
Toutly. And the sixth time when she came
oack she found the whole verse shining in
bright gold, touched by an angels finger.
The beautiful old story is not true, but its
meaning is both true and helpful; that even
life which is busy with pleasures need not
'e undevout, need not be wholly given over
into Cesar, and that God blesses with an
special blessing worship and service
which costs something-some inconvenience,
ONE sacrifice, some patience, some selfre-
traint, some self-denial.
GEORGE HODGES.