St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-09-16

fOulneSS be the more a deyotee OF MS
gods. In our thinking the good man Is
the Christian man, and the Christian
man is the good man. The health OF
the Christian shows itself in the clear
ness of moral insight, in the sensitive
ness to divine voices, in the muscle of
mighty convictions, in the calmnesS OF
conscience, in the even walk in duty'S
path. in the full inspiration of Gods
helpfulness, in the steady and smooth
beating of the pulse of spiritual faith.
Christian life is manifest in every part.
One cannot abuse any one of
the vital organs of Christian charac-
ter without abusing every other
organ. If one deadens the nerves of
conscience, he weakens the muscles of
conviction. The Christian life is an at
mOsphere, constant. The Christian life
is life not of addition or subtraction of
any faculty, but the use of all present
faculties. 1t is not so much any new
function as the proper use of present
functions. As the English language en-
tiers INTO all our daily study, all our
speech, all our reading, and all our
hanging, so also the Christian life is to
enter into and possess every faculty and
function.
We lament the need of more ministers
the need is quite as genuine and more
imperative for more Christians and bet
ter. We need more Christian mer-
chants and more Christian mothers. We
are mining in theology, discovering new
truth, but the need of new truth is less
imperative than the need of new living.
The demand is not so much for old
truths in new lights as for old
truths in new lives. The chur ch
is calling for more money for
its work West and South, in Japan,
and India: but the church should call
more loudly than for money, for more
Christian men for service. The church
needs change of heart more than it
needs change of place; not a bet
ter opportunity to work our Chris
tianity, but a better Christi anity to
work; not larger field Of usefulness,
but larger usefulness in our present
field; not new theOIOgy, but new
life. The direst need is for more men
who, in Christian spirit, will stay in
their places, and in spirit of genuine
Christian chivalry do those duties which
do not seem to be chiyalric.
The Christian life means at once much
less and much more than we usually
think. 1t means much less. We often
think that in becoming Christians we
must change in every part, our faces,
our walk, our methods of intellectual
operation. The old man and the new
man are supposed to be two men as
different as beast and bird. We forget
that the Old man and the new man are
the same man. Two plus two equals
four is as true after you are Christian
as before. The jeweler does not make
an old watch new; he simply regulates
&c IN nh
atty, but to guide it. Christ helps each
man to keep time rather with the eter-
mites than with the times.
The Christian life means also much
more than we think. liam Christian, :"
says a man; II live in Christian cOun-
try; | am not heather; / believe there
is God; [ believe ChriSt'S teachings
are wise; l believe the Bible is good
book. Of course am Christian" But
the Christian life is as different from
| this conception as the depth of the
ocean is different from the shallowness
of the trout brook. The Christian life
is Christ lived for and lived by. The
| Christian life is lOve-love for Christ
and love through Christ for men. The
Christian life Is service-Service to
Christ and through Christ to the world.
The Christian life is life-life in body,
mind and spirit. La Cordaire wrote,
speaking of his own conversion: "Once
a real Christian, the world did not van
ish before my eyes. 1t rather assumed
nObler proportions, as l did myself. In
stead of great, fleeting, empty theater
of ambition, [ beg an to see therein the
suffering needing nelp, and cOmld mag
inc nothing comparable to the happi-
ness of ministering to it, with the help
of the cross of the Gospel of Christ"
SECULARISM AND SCHOOLS.
Rev. W. j. Lhamon Has Some
thing TO Say i'm Regard to Them.
Rev. WI. Lhamon preached yester-
day morning at the Disciples church on
"Secularism and the Public Schools"
Secularism, he said. proposes to pro-
hibit the use of the Bible in the public
schools. 1t would also prohibit all re-
ligiOus exercises. There is moderate
SeculariSm, and radical secularism,
but the tendency of the moderate is to
become radical. Radical secuIarism
would prohibit all reference to God
and in moral teaching. There
are schools where text books
have been refused because they
recognized the divine existence. In
France some SeculariStS demand that the
teaching of morals as a science be BAN
iShed from the school curriculum, and
to teach that there is higher existence
than man is counted blaSphemy. In
Victoria, Australia, according to the
London Spectator, literature is mutt
lated in order to get rid of religion A
case is cited. In Longfellow's Wreck
of the HesperuS' there are these verses:
Then the maiden clasped her hands and
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the
wave
On the lake Of Galilee
This was expunged from the school
books as having too much religion in it.
What would these people do with Bry-
ant. and Whittier, and Wordsworth,
and TennysOn, and the BrOwnings, and
Milton, and even Shakespeare? And
music! What will our children sing
when all poetry is Invested of religion?
Already schools have been known to
open their morning exercises with Co
ca-che-lunk-che-lunk che-la-lay." Sec
Goose" and the like for their poetry
and history and art, for there is nothing
dignif1ed or sensible but has God in it.
The people should be on their guard
| against the secularization of their
schools for the following reasons:
First-GOOd morals have no secure
basis other than the religious. Morality
without faith in some sort of God is a
body from which the head has been sew
! cred. The altruism of atheism and sec
ulariSm comes around presently to self
ishness. These people judge of what
is moral much as the pig or the bear
does. ChriSt's moral code is cOnfeSSedly
the loftiest in history, and how can it
be taught without its Author, and how
can He be named without His apostles,
and the books of their creation?
SecOnd-History cannot be taught
without teaching Christ. By far the
largest portion of the history of the last
1859 years gathers around Him? To
erase Christ and the New Testament
from this history would be to
erase the history. If history