The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-02-16


ing they would condemn as horribly
bad on Sunday. do not mean the
doing OF things not appropriate to
Sunday, but principles of living that
would be ruled out on Sunday.
This notion allows in business, in
society, In politics, what 1t shrinks
from in horror in religion.
If we "use this world as not abus.
ing it," it is all friend to grace. Our
tolls. our pleasures, if in themselves
right and good, are religious.
There is great deal of confusion of
thought as we'll as cant in speech
among US. For example, one good
churchman denounces the theater for
its "worldliness," and drives hard
bargains all the week. He may be
right enough as to the worldliness of
devotees of pleasure. but he is blind
as night as to his own consuming
worldliness III his greedy reach for
money.
Christ's friends must take him with
them wherever they 60. Where he
cannot, they cannot go. If we can
not take MIN into our business, our
pleasures. as we'll as our devotion and
sacramental services. we are more of
his. 1t is no place, or time, or name.
or profession that makes sacredness
it is living. You can't make a
house sacred by calling a house a
shurch and dedicating it, but by
using it for lifting up aid saving
men, which is the true service and
worship of God. You can't make
man sacred ny calling him priest and
ordaining him he can be sacred only
by living in the spirit of Christ Jesus.
Heaven speed the day when we
will not only keep Sunday. but Mon
day too! When we will not only
worship God in our houses we call
churches, but in our houses we call
homes, and stores and shops. We
must do more than take care of the
ark of God we must take care of the
people of God also. and all people are
his. We must do more than contend
for the point delivered to apostolic
saints or Wesleyan Fathers. we must
live the gospel of the Son of God
We must do more than keep the
grass from our church doors. We
must SOW down all human society
with the wheat of the kingdom. Not
in one way only, but in ALWAYS not
according to the methods of tradi-
tion only, but according to the op-
portunities that come every day, we
must do good to men, not to their
souls only, but to their bodies also.
We are beginning to learn that men,
women, and children wasting in
squalid poverty. and fighting the
wolf day after day from the door,
need bread to eat and clothes to wear.
Tracts and prayers and exhortations
will fail here ; following the goodness
that relieves the pangs of hunger and
the Chill of nakedness, prayers will
be Christ-like. He fed hungry peo-
pie - having compassion on their
hunger.
We are beginning to see that igno-
rance is not the mother of devotion
that education is not in itself favor
able to vice. By and by we will see
that a high and noble Christian civil
ization is not compatible with ignor.
ance. and then we will not count it
religious to teach ignorant children
their letters.
The church is beginning to feel that
there is much work to be done in this
world that is not being done by any
of our Lords laborers. The church
is beginning to look over the wall
tradition and custom and ignorance
haye built around her. That we all
will come down by and by, and then
we will see the church religious week
days as we'll as Sabbath days,-a
church that, with both hands. takes
hold of the work of Christ in the
world, and does 1t to the good of men
and the honor of the King.
1t is difficult to have portable
homes, places of business. or even