The Newtown bee., 1896-01-24

1 HI Lildb CAiA LacS we see ibHulS cUu~
 miseration for the lot of man. There is
 the profound sense that human nature is
 beautiful and glorious thing. IF YOU WANT TO BE LIKE JESUS CHRIST,
 be simply full of admiration and delight l
 in life,-not simply because this wind
 blows pleasantly, and that sun shines
 bright; not simply because that friend | speaks smoothly, and this fortune rolls
 in at your open door. To live-the very 1 { being alive-that was the thing that was
 glorious to Jesus. And go, in spite of
 everything, He stood by His post; He
 accepted the privilege and the duty of life both together. There was no possi- 1
 bility in Jesus of the cowardice that
 makes man run away from his life the
 moment it grows distressing and dread |
 fUl in it's circumstances. The cOwardice |
 of suicide-the infinite cowardice of sui 1 cide-was not for Jesus. We ourselves
 know how cowardly it is, because we
 never dare say If any friend of ours that
 iD clear possession of his senses he took
 his own life. We know what coward
 ly thing that would be; and so we cover
 it with what veil Of disturbed condi-
 5ons'' we can imagine or know for him.
 But to stand at 0ne's post and live till
 God shall call us, to recognize the glory
 and the duty of standing there, and then
 to go from life to life, fulfilling this
 with that which lies beyond-that is the
 glory of the man who lives in the spirit
 of Jesus.
 Young men, keep out of your souls
 the taint of cynicism, and despise the so-
 ciety and the tone of life that makes cyncism and pessimism and the con- tempt of life seem for a moment glori- ous thing.
 As we see life becoming every day more expeditions and c0mfortab ble, we are in danger of forgetting that it is in , the inward life that the real vitality of the world abides. And SO it is
 ONLY BY THE PROGRESS OF THE SOUL r of man that the progress of the race is g measured. We ask ourselves some Q times, almost with sinking hearts, how E is it that, while man thus conquers Da- l ture, no man is conquering himself? ? ,. The real question of human progress, :. when you get to it's spiritual leaning, is g not how fast a man can talk from Cal r cutta to New York, nor how fast man 2 can travel to San Francisco, but what y messages he is sending, what errands e are carrying him across the continent 0 Are they the errands of diviner hu- e manity? Are they the messages of mo- e bier ministries of human life-of a deep.
 CT integrity and higher aspiration? se You remember how the poet, musing,
 years ago, on seeing return in the skies r, the combination of the planets whick
 had not been there for years, perces
 the whole question with his great in le quiry. sent forth into the midnight n heavens:
 f What dost thou see, bright star, pure ant . wise,
 Il More than in other times?-Christ's human D. story,
 ss Which makes our hearts more apt to sympa n thize
 With heaven. our souls more fit for future glory,
 When earth shall vanish from our fading Id eyes,
 a When we lie down in our last dormitory. u Wonderful and beautiful to me ap Ill pears this everlasting protest of the hu 's man soul against materialism. In every 'V birth, in every death, in every moving E of love in a young mans heart, in every e moving of indignation against any Is wrong by which man is surrounded, 1T J every lifting up of the nature with any u great spiritual impulse, this materialism Q is thrust into it's place, and is once more u the servant and not the master. Moth. : ing short of character can be the real
 glory of humanity. And so nothing T short of progress in character can mark ' the progress of our human life. You cannot dream of your surgeon becom. > ing so skilful with his knife, your law. a yer becoming 80 subtle with his argu- u ment, your minister becoming SC ripe in his theology and 80 accurate in his per. s f0rmance of ceremonies, that after all l. you shall not demand that behind and within each there shall be the man. Q MAN NEVER SHALL OUTGROW THE GREAT !. DEMAND FOR CHARACTER. [, And that is the universal and perpetual t testimony, that it is in the lifting up of f human character, and the realization of r it's capacities, that man shall come to be ? religious.and enter into the understand e ing of Christ, and know God.
 Wa aya eopoat;Ynaa tnl3 tbat r1a oro +o |, be this and that, and are sometimes pug. }. zled when Christian courses are indica- |, ted to us. What are those Christian
 course>? My friends, they are nothing - in the world except the fulfilment of the
 human Character by the grace of God.
 There may be wondrous qualities In God
 which our limited human nature never has been able to perceive. There may be depths of the divine life, which have never opened themselves to us, even in mind. But we must believe, we must remember, that those qualities in the divine nature which have been opened to us, and which bear the names with which we are familiar, are the same in ? God that they are in us. Justice in God is exactly what it is between you and
 your fellow merchant, infinitely re-
 fined, made infinitely loftier and higher
 in the things with which it deals, but the same simple, glorious fundamental
 virtue, between you and the Divine Life,
 that it is between you and the brother
 with whom you dwell. Love, when
 God stoops and with the hand of the 5 Christhood takes up nay life out of the