Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-11-08
ENTHUSIASM.
THE ELEMENT OF FERvoR IN TIE
BUSINESS OF LIFE.
Rev. C. p. Massey Delivers q Sermon on
This Subject Before the Uni
tartan Society.

----~~NJ ~0N>~ 80
mon on Sunday last Romans Xii, IL: mot
slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serv-
ing the Lord" The thought of the dig
course was to counteract the too general
idea that proper manhood and useful citi-
zenship can be illustrated by life almost
exclusively devoted to the acquisition of
material possession, provided that one is
outwardly moral, q respecter of the laws,
q prompt and perhaps cheerful contributor
of his quota of governmental expense and
q generous supporter OF those who, as
members of his immediate family, ma
turally come under his personal charge.
The speaker said the truth is, however, q
man has not fulfilled his entire duty in
life when, in however respectable q man.
ner. he simply prosecutes his private inter-
ests, obeys the laws, contributes his assess
ment to the public exchequer and proves
himself kind and amiabls in his domestic
and social relations. I do not under
value the character of such a one; there
Is an element of proud respectable
ity in it. As one refusing to have
his mind diverted from what he considers
the serious business Of life. although that
business may be of purely selfish inter-
est, we may expect to find in him many
sterling qualities, personal independence,
honesty, truthfulness, industry, sobriety,
intelligence and broad common sense. He
COMFORTS himself discreetly, without the
agency of the police; he pays his debts
without the enginery of the courts; he
educates and supports his family without
throwing them upon the wardship of the
State, and in various ways proves his good
citizenship and eminent responsibility in
the eyes of an observing world.
The argument very frequently is, when
man elects to live life in which the
element OF enthusiasm is entirely absent,
and prides himself upon an attention to
business which is particularly his own,
that the trade or calling or profession in
which he has engaged himself, is his by
adoption and education; that he knows no
other, and consequently does not propose
to be dabbler in that which he does not
understand. The State should be well
governed, but as he has not made him
self a proficient in statecraft, he is
altogether willing that those who,
through study and experience, know how
to pilot the ship Of State, should be
stationed at the helm. Great social and
economical problems call for solution, but
conscious of possessing no adequate knowl-
edge here. and not DESTROYS of being re-
garded as tyro in the business of reform,
he is also willing to leave all such things
as these IN what he is pleased to consider
more competent hands. And l am per-
fectly willing to acknowledge that such
ones determination seems a discreet one
sometimes, when the abuses attending
upon so much social and political and re-
ligious activity are comprehensively
studied. Everywhere men and women are
observed delivering what they would fain
have US believe are ex-cathedra opinions
upon subjects about which they know alb
solutely nothing. In all movements for
reform we find those of undisciplined
minds, crude men and women,
intrusive, meddling. fsnatical, and in re-
spect to whom integrity and solvency are
not by any means the corollaries of life
so obtrusiyely devoted to moral ends. And |
SO many worthy movements fall into dis
repute because of the indiscreet conduct of
their supporters. The advocates of tenn
perance seem sometimes to really forward
the evil they are DESTROYS to check; the
solution of many another social problem
is hindered because Of the prejudice, the
ignorance and the fanaticism of those who
would speed a propaganda of reform,
duu Iu6 CuuICu Is VI IT'S pOWcI
for the reason many times that those
who stand most prominently for relig-
ious interest are not the men and
women whom we think we can implicitly
trust to carry themselves honorably in
affairs where q mutual recognition of
rights is imperatively demanded. But all
those qualifications stated, if it was not for
those who are willing to sacrifice much of
comfort and means for the we'll being OF
others not necessarily connected with them
by ties of friendship or family, if what has
been termed as the enthusiasm of human
ity was not active In them, desire 10 see
better social order established in the
world, civilization would stop in its pro-
gress, apathy would settle upon the hearts
of the people, and an era OF selfishness be
inaugurated in which purely physical con-
ditions would dominate, and the fittest to
survive be those who would be most IN
scrupulous in the use Of strength and cum
ming and fraud. II all men were patterned
after the type of those whose position l
have been considering, an unimpas-
stoned responsibility would become the
vogue, enthusiasm of every description
would expire, and civilization gradually
fail to distribute its blessings as the i'm
petus which moral impulse has lent to it
in the past shall become an ever. lessening
quantity. 1t is folly for one to consider
that conditions are such that he can afford
to abate any portion of his interest in the
general veal. He prides himself, perhaps,
upon his experience and the experience of
others, that wrong doing does not pay; that
honesty is the best policy; that temperance
is becoming virtue; that mutual recog
milton of right is the only basis upon
which society can stand; but let me tell
him that if all through the ages there had
not been the acknowledgment OF some
thing more potent that mere utility gov
erning in these things; that If men did not
practice virtue, and temperance and
mutual forbearance, from some higher mo-
tive than that contained in the protection
of worldly interest, il would not be long
before every monument of our Christian
civilization would be in deplorable ruin,
and the battle Of the ages be again waiting
the issue.
And this brings me naturally to the con-
sideration of the Christian church rs an
object of mans respectful attention, and 1t
is because of the marked neglect which the
church, with the things for which
it stands, receives at the hands of
the men whose thinking is of
the type that have instanced, that have
felt impelled to say what have this morn
ing. There is too much such thinking in
this community, and in every community
at this time. Because some once sacredly
regarded datum of faith has fallen into dis
repute and men feel that they cannot con-
scientiously work on old lines of religious
pract c., they begin to manifest supreme
Indifference for the only institution that
all through our era has exerted CONTROL.
ing influence upon the World. Doubles;
the church has become incrusted with
abuses; it has exhibited, and still exhibits
many errors of practice, many crudities Of
belief, but as something ever standing for
the highest ideal that the people were
capable of entertaining, it presents itself as
an institution worthy of our highest re-
gard. 1t is the church to-day which stands
for moral purpose, from which enthusi-
asm is not altogether eliminated through
making our morality an expediency rather