The advocate., 1894-03-07

SO1OoUAAS PAAOSOpn6I 4IO1u SJdTNdG4Ous
Laughter and evidences of keen en-
jOyment by the "business men," Only
the fashionable lady who had encour-
aged John looked Vexed and a trifle in
dlgnant at this allusion to Tolstoi.
"Yet we all instinctively feel that,
literally taken, those sublime precepts
uttered in Judea so long ago, are right;
and that the world would be a great
deal happier than it has ever been if
only we could live thus. | doubt if
there is single person in this house,
however deeply immersed in practical
affairs, who does not often wish he
could act out the Sermon on the Mount.
But, alasl he must eheroic indeed who
can do so in the world of to-day"
"That's SOP said many, with some
feeling,
eve all expect men to live thus when
the millennium shall have come, other
wise the millennium would be far from
bringing happiness to the earth; but
unfortunately, as the able speaker re-
marked, the millennium has not yet
arrived. HoWeVer,~I must disagree
with the statement that Christ's pre-
CeptS are not to be taken literally. The
account the Book of Acts gives Of the
conduct of the very earliest Christians
in selling all they possessed and giving
to those in need, and OF their custom
from the very first of having all things
in common, cOmpels us, it seems to me,
to take those precepts literally. Then
Gibbon tells us that the early Christ
ians, like our modern Quakers, stood
entirely aloOf from government, would
have nothing to do with it; that they
would suffer death rather than consent
to bear arms, and that they would not,
under any circumstances, inflict pun
ishment upon criminal. They acted
upon the precept, Resist not evil, in
the precise literal sense in which Toll
stOi insists it should be acted upon to-
day. But who can live that way now
and not suffer contempt as well as
povertyp What then? Must we not
agree with Matthew ArnOld'S ObSerVa-
tiOn in one of his addresses? ASK
yourselves, said he If you do not some
times feel in yourself sense that, in
spite Of the strenuous efforts for good
Of so many excellent persons amongst
us, we begin somehow to founder and
to beat the air; that we seem to be find
ing ourselves stopped on this line Of
advance, and on that, and to be threat
ened with a sort of standstill? 1t is,
said he, that we are trying to live on
with social organization of which the
day is over "
The business mans handsome, fash
ionable wife again annoyed her hus-
band by smiling approval Of this San
archistic" sentiment. The sagacious
part of the audience began to be sus-
picious that the speaker they had heed
lessly encouraged was about to say
something radical.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, when
you go home, look up that Sermon on
the Mount, even if you are obliged to
borrow a Bible. You will find it in
Matthew, which is in the forepart of
the New Testament. L am specific be-
cause some of you may not have been
reading your Bibles lately as frequently
nor as carefully as you read the mar
ket reports
Laughter.
Hunt it up, and try to answer this
question: What did Christ say would
happen to us if his precepts were not
obeyed? You will see that he neither
promises heaven nor threatens perdi-
ton. He simply says that unless you
live as he proposes, 'ye shall in no wise
enter into the kingdom Of heaven A
very little investigation will show you
that the phrase, kingdom of heaven
meant in that day precisely what mil
lennium means now; and so the only
reason he gave why men should obey
his preceptS was that unless they didsO
they could never have the millennium.
Again, until the time Of Constantine,