Morning journal and courier., 1893-02-13
consequences. In view of the principali-

consequences. In view of the prinoipali- ties and powers a man ought to take him. self seriously. Over against the com this conception of it as @ play of the eternal powers. By the side of the thoroughly worldly conception of life as good time, place this grander view of 1t as wrestling with the powers. One trouble with us nowadays is that we do not take ourselves seriously. Many influences from different quarters combine to empty our
 life of real seriousness. It seems easy for us to form the habit of taking almost everything, either as an entertaining speet- acle or as good joke. There Is want ot
 honest seriousness in everythipg-in our
 policies, in OUT intellectually, and some
 times even in our religion. An overiowing
 soourge of worldliness, to sptak after of the temple Yet let us not in any false alarm mistake the real evil.
 For the harm is often not in the mere outward things in which we are inclined
 to put 1t; the evil thing that hurts us does
 not lie necessarily in the mere incidents or
 accidents of our fashions and frivolities.
 The worldliness is not always in our m1rth,
 our recreations, our dinings out, our card
 playing (exoept indeed the playing in first
 class families of little poker occasionally
 for small sums of money, which is gam bling all the same, although no one Is i'm
 mediately ruined by iD The real moral
 poison, i am saying, does not usually turk
 in the mere customs of society; what is
 perilous to manhood and womanhood lies
 deeper than any of these things, and
 Is evil more subtle; the peril of it would
 not be removed although many of these outward things of our lives should be abandoned. Centuries ago men fled from the voluptuousness of Alexandria, from the organism of Rome, in order to escape from the world; but the saint i'll the desert found in the visions of his narrow cell the temptations he had sought to fly from. A soul moping in lonely vapidness, or dron
 ing idle prayers in empty righteousness may
 be just as worldly, just as frivolous, just ss worthless as is a life running to shsl-
 lows in the glare of fashion and folly. The real evil is the lack alike in work or play
 of sincerely serious, purposeful, master
 ful thought of one's life. It Is failure to
 think of it in terms of power, in terms of
 the eternal powers. We many question,
 indeed, any of our outward fashions or habits if we find them waste
 full of the reserved powers, either
 of body or soul; yet the real thing
 to be avoided ia not the ripple and the
 
 sunshine; it is the lack of increasing vol
 tune and movement of life with an ever deepening purpose through it's appointed course To make our lives serious in their strength 1t may not be necessary that 1e should seek to tic them up to forms of godliness with which other days were familiar; it is not necessary that there should be less joy and sky and blossoming in them and over them; but it is indis- pensable that there should be moral earnestness at the heart of them and moral purpose still to consecrate them and mak- them worthy of their place and part in the vast conflict of the powers amid which the destlnies are wrought cut It is neoes sary in short that life in eur thought and joy ill it should cease to Do merely ~pecta; nlar and become religious
 Thus am led to one other appliya,i in1, of the apostles thought of the soul wrestling with the powers, to which only among many that mig b. Indicated no " have time to refer. It is the idea of nau as himealf a force; iJ is tue idea of a mans | life in the world as conceived Ill terms of moral and spiritual power. But just al 1 this point be cautious moment, for there | is temptation as well as virtue in this very | idea of one's life as possible power. | Who of us would not like to make himself ! A DOWST III tuS "oIlu! no WOulO nOl like to see his life b. coming force il human afairsa All the sins as we'll ss virtue of ambition lie latent in this idea which you are holding up. Perhaps more men l have lost their souls from the lust of power l than from the lust of the eye. The earth has been ravaged hy the demonisc lust of ! power. The church has mooksd the Christ ! falling under this sore temptation of the l love of power. All of which, let me admit | is entirely true Moreover, it Is equally l true that among the generality Of mer they who seek for thrones of power usual ! ly end not amonk those that reign, bu among the common tnropg of the soured the disappointed and the disa9reeable.
 The young man who starts to make him l self great power in the world usually ends by making himself great fool | there Is one gift which heaven never gives l to the proud, the selfish, tha vain -glorious
 1t is this gift of abiding power among men The power of God was given to tn, 1 Christ in the way of the cross. He made l himself Of no reputation-such is tht secret of the highest power. There is ! way by which, an apostle puts it, Goo | calls every true man, calls you and me, by his own virtue and glory. But only thos' who seek to be servants of all can find it. There is way of Godlike power for man Il ! sequsntly, while psrceiving the danger O
 a seiiah coveting of power, ons may speak l never theless of mans duty of entering I into something of Gods secret of power | in his life; one may speak of every mans | obligation to be force among the conflict | ing forces, power among the powers, ot ! which our human life is constituted.
 l And further, it may be said that the sir of our present day Christianity Is just thi
 failure of consecrated power in it. I an
 sometimes inclined, perhaps uncharitaoly
 to think that there is no Christian duty more easily and more often neglected by
 Christian men than just this duty of riah personal power, this personal obligation o | counting one every time among the power
 on the right side. A msn who fails t, count on the right side of the univere really counts two on the wrong side oi 1 things-one for ths lack of the poaitiv l force he might hsve added, and anothe l for the force of evil which his failure t, ! withstand 1t let's loose, 70 t%li against som, | other force of good ness Ind1ed there ST, three forces always s.t work t0 make tbi, world the devils world, and to keep i from becoming more quickly all around \ it's suulit circumference Gods owr world; three powers of evil, firstly the devt l himself, secondly the bad ness uf the really I touB nh1 thiloiJ 1hO Oo"aTulCs tl the good; and which of these three ia to
 day most in the way of tie coming ~f th, kingdom, God only knows, certainIy W, do not! While 1 am speaking there ooms, to me a memory from ths war times ~hicl ! illustrates what I would say. It was the day of the battle of Five Forks. I hap 1 pened to be in charge of a part of suppl,
 train some four or five miles from Fiv,
 Forks. It had been raining hard
 the wagons were mired over tn
 hubs in the Virginia mud; many We're say
 ing I've think Grant will have to go bacl
 to camp this tima." We knew that on line had met with some repuiss the evening
 before. And we heard through the wood
 the sound of heavy firing; We listened ca gerly to judge whether 1t was advancing 0
 falling back. And then the strag
 glers began to come by saying, "rh
 lines are broken, the battle is lost
 But all the time the battle wa
 won in Sheridan's imperious will, an,
 the brave men at the front who followe
 their oolors over the breastworks never fo
 one moment doubted whether the bsttl
 was going to be won. Only the cowardl
 stragglers who fled from the fight knew o l defeat. And when nov days I hear mel
 saying, It is impossible to achieve any goo
 thing in city politics; you are sure to b beaten if you try to carry moral caus forward that ought to bs born on to vic tory; when hear men say of somethin I needed for the public good, or of som I righteous cause, i've are glad someone