Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1897-05-06
FORGETTING GOD.
Danger In the internally or Life or
Present Are.

Danger In the internally OF Life OF
Present Age.
The very intensity of life in this pres
ent age is at once it's protection and it's
peril. There is such thing as being
too busy to sin certain kinds of sin. The
very pressure of life displaces and ex-
cludes much mischief" which "idle
hands" might otherwise find to do. He
who drives fast may run into other
difficulties, but at least he will not loiter
in various forbidden paths along the
way.
There is another side to this question,
however, and serious aspect it is. II
busy people are less prone to various
overt sins of lesser type, they
are perhaps more liable to the
greater sin of neglecting TO keep
the thought of God ever before
them. If they find little time to
hate one another, it may be that they
take as little time to love their Creator;
if their personal life is somewhat purer
by simple reason of it's preoccupation
with intellectual interests or mechan-
ical efforts, it is not impossible that
meanwhile the deeper spiritual life has
lacked for careful cultivation by the
old familiar methods of meditation and
prayer.
We are not, of course, to commit the
mistake of supposing that the strength
of the religious life is to be measured
by just the amount of time spent on
ones knees or with devotional book in
hand. The counting room more than
the cloister is the means and measure
of the religious activity of the present
day. Times change and conditions
alter. The manifestations of religious
sentiment and of spiritual sensibility
are not and cannot be for us precisely
what they were for our fathers. If we
are cody our goodness must show it
self under somewhat different forms of
expression. The old leisurely medita-
tive type of religionist has gone, and
the busybody style of believer who
makes haste (the ancient prophecy to
the contrary Notwithstanding has
largely taken his place.
This change of conditions has not
been altogether loss; it has been partly
gain. The practical instinct is neces-
sary. Martha can, or at any rate, does,
do things better than Mary Martha,
however, must not crowd out Mary al
together. 1t will not do to serve the
Lord so absorbedly as to forget the
Lord Himself. The personal element
in service is it's chief charm, it's main
raison d'etre. The final plaudit of the
great day of account taking will not in
the last analysis be found on the doing
of good deeds by men to men, but on the
fact implied in the Masters declara-
ton: "Inasmuch as we have done it I'M
TO one of the least of these, my breth-
rem, We have done it unto me-"
And so the thought of the God who is
servable by the various activities of
life must be kept in the foreground.
AS materialists multiply and all man
ner of new discoveries, enterprises and
social evolutions increasingly engross
attention, there is danger lest, amid
all this bewildering maze of criss-cross-
ing temporal and even religious inter-
est,
'In the various round Of thought
The one thing needful be forgot"
Humanity always needs to think OF
God. 1t can never safely leave him out
of account. And certain amount of
time spent in religious meditation and
in prayer is requisite to the obtaining
of any real sense or impression of God.
Too much of hurry and rush, even in
religious work." practically, if uncon-
sciously obliterates the sensibility of
the Divine presence. When a noted
philanthropist was once asked: "How
is it with your soul?" his quick reply
was: 81 have no time to think about my
SOUL" No absorption in good works.
however, excuses an individual from
consideration of his own spiritual
needs. Every man has time to think
about his soul. The Creator desires to
have His name and attributes kept in
memory. Even in a rushing age there
can be no excuse for forgetting Cod