The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-09-21

| for no other reason than the reason of in
| appropriateness hold that party politics.
economic politics, monetary politics have no
| place whatever in the church of Jesus
| Christ They alien to this institution,
| and they should be forbidden entrance into
TINS place OF rest and calm. But there is
| yet one more important reason why poll
| tics should be inhibited the pulpit. and
why ministers should leave their political
predictions in their studies, and that rea-
son is this-that political craftsmanship. po-
Htical passion and political enthusiasm
contravene and oppose directly and fatty
the true function of the Christian church.
The church has its special function lust
as any other institution has.
There is a bank down town. and the
junction of that bank is banking; there
Is school, and the function of that school
IS teaching; there is store, and the func-
ton or that store is the distribution of
and commodities: there is a medical col
lege, and it's function is the preparation
ton Of doctors who shall go forth to heal;
there Is law school and the function of
the law school is TO prepare lawyers who
shall go forth to determine the rights and
the equities of men in their relations one
TO another | say every institution has its
special function. and it would be absurd
for a law school to be teaching medicine
as it would be absurd for the bank to be
selling merchandise, for each institution
ought to perform its special function. Now,
then. the special and peculiar function of
the Christian church is just this think.
1t is to build up the spiritual lives of
one side we are constituted of body and
bodily appetites; on one side we are ter
rene, VI the edfIn eafLhY ana unto the
earth we shall return, and by this body
we are related to what we call the ma
terial or secular world. The business
world speaks to us through senses,
the commercial world speaks to us through
our appetites the school world speaks to
US through our intellects and the political
world through our social passions These
are the mundane forces that play upon
the mundane man.
FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH.
But now, after you have made due al
lOw9npa NIT +bar
is yet in every human being a ray of the
infinite that is making its pilgrimage here
through terrestrial conditions for a little
while. And this infinite, this spiritual fac
ulty in us needs other satisfaction than
the terrestrial. Man needs instruction in
his spiritual being. Things are dark to
him here, and he fain would have them
clearer He is yearning toward God with
great intensity. and yet he does not know
God as he would know Him; and man has
warnings within him toward mora!
splendor that he does not attain to mere He
IS IN many ways bound and imprisoned in
ms iusts but still he sees manhood that
he feels rightly belonging to him; he sees
q heroism, nobility. an equity sub
Unity of spirit. a beauty of soul that he
feels to be his proper portion and the true
crown and contamination of his life. And,
subjected to many vicissitudes to many
trials to many oppositions, many weak
nesses and / expressions of spirit And
at times OF the clamor OF life, of its in
cessant motion that is going on every
where around us, of this strife and COM
petition that constitute so much of the
life of this world in which we live? Who
does not get just little cynical of spirit
as he looks out upon men contending with
one another for the loaves and fishes, be-
holding men everywhere impelled forward
and onward in their course by a harsh and
deSpotlc egotism: avarice everywhere; pas
sion and competition everywhere; greed
everywhere actuating and dominating the
minds and hearts of men, | say who does
not weary of all this and long for some
pleasant and secluded retreat where his
spirit can be brought into correspondence
with the everlasting calm and where his
soul may be lifted up into contemplation
of those great verities that make for
sweetness and repose?
Now it seems to me that is the true
function of the church. 1T is to overarch
life, it is to dome life with the sweet and
mild eternitieS; it is to bring the divine
down to the human and the human up
to the divine; it is to bring God into the
daily life of man and man into the abysses
of the life of God; it is to transfgure the
transfuse and to sublimate life with all
the beauty and the glory of the stellar
world.
the building up of the spiritual life in
man. Let the world take care of politics;
let the daily press take care of our eco
Monies; let our magazines and our trans
lent literature preach to us the merits of
the gospel of protective tariff or free
trade; LEI the monetary standards be set
and by the ballot, but let the house of
God be spared these sharp contentious,
ace its peace and work disaster and
schisms in its midst. Let it confine itself
to the gospel which Paul and all the great
masters of the faith have preached, the
sweet, simple tender, inspiring gospel of
the Nazarene. whose three great dom
inant notes are faith, and righteousness,