The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-25
THE HEALTHY RELIGION
REV. JOSEPH A. MILBURN's IDEA OF
WHAT CONSTITUTES THIS.
GOV ernor Mount Presides at "a Univer-
sal Peace Meeeting-A Sermon
by Rev. C. c. Lasby.


heard that, He said unto them. They that
be whole need not a physician, but they
that are sick /"
The pastor spoke of Jesus as being pre-
scented to US in the Scriptures, endowed with
many titles. He is called Savior, Shep-
herd, King, Prince of Priests. In the text
he is called Physician. All these titles
present different aspects of the character of
Christ in relation to the redemption of men.
Jesus in the character of the physician is
the health giver.. He comes to inspire
minds with healthy thoughts-lives with
healthy aims, bodies with healthy impulses
and passions.
Il want you to consider with me-" con-
tinued the pastor, some of the qualities
of religion that is healthy and wholesome
as distinguished from religion that is de-
bilitating and noxious And first l remark
that healthy religion should be robust.
That is, it must do justice to the facts of
life. 1t must have valiant heart and a
courageous spirit. 1t is the habit of our
day to look with a certain cold contempt
upon such a conception of the Christian re-
ligion as is embodied in the Paradise
Lost" of Milton, which incarnates the
brave and the rugged spirit of the Puritan
faith. And, no doubt In some respects
this faith of our fathers is little too hard,
too rigid, and too Indifferent to the finer
feelings of the human heart, and yet after
all, there is that which is admirable and
masculine in the old Puritan creed, and /
believe, also, that which is eternal and
that which can never die unless the Chris
tan religion dies. What l like about the
system of faith known under the name of
Ca1vfnism is its manly and loyal fidelity to
the actual facts of life 1t tells us right on
the threshold of our confession that we are
called to no easy service; it tells us that
God has not called US into a paradise, into
an Eden or into New Jerusalem but that
he has called US into a stern world, world
with many disappointments, many trials,
many temptations, many pitfalls, many
sorrows, many sufferings, many tragedies,
ana that we must meet these untoward
Facts IN no soft or whimpering mood, but
with a brave and mainly heart. 1t tells
that God is love. but 1t tells US, likewise,
that Coo is just; it tells us that life is
beautiful in its elimination If we live faith
fui but that its processes must always be
arduous; it tells US as Paul told u.s. that
We must work out our salvation with fear
and trembling; that the salvation of any
human soui is not a light matter, but
matter most serious and awful to contem-
plate.
Now this IS what 1 call a robust faith.
1t is a faith very willing to admit the beau
urul, the bright the benevolent. but also
that is honest enough 10 confound with
frank and open hand the darker facts of
life, and it is a faith slrong that it is
not upset when it comes to meet and TO
lace these darker facts. And this robust
faith, my friends, does not come of itself,
nor Is 1t likely to come from the soft and
anonymous teaching and preaching that we
are hearing in these latter days. 1t does
not come from the gentle songs and hymns
that sing to the praise of God on the
Sabbath 1t does not come from the mere
n lO nd oh fer
side of life. 1t can only come by feeding
our souls upon the many hard realities of
lie; Upon che spiritual verities, light and
dark. that offer themselves to4our contem-
plation in nature, in personal experie nee
and In the word of God The Bible speaks
to every part of u.s. It speaks most ten
derby TO our affections by portraying, as no
human words have ever done before or
since, the graciousness, the goodness, the
loving Kindness of the Eternal 1t speaks
inspiring words about the greatness of
man. about his Inheritance about the
transcendent destiny that awaits him over
there and about the sublimity Of the life
that he may live here when his life is lived
in the power OF God and upheld by u grace
that is divine.
But It speaks a word, also. not less dis
tinctly to our moral sense. 1t tells us that
we are responsible beings; that we are Tree
agents that our destiny IS to a very Sc
rious extent IN our own hands: that there
is an evil and good before us. and that
We must choose the evil or the good; that
this life here is determinative of The life
to be, and that the immortality of the
present molds and fashions and seals the
immortality of the future. 1t tells US that
God Is just and that whatsoever we SOW
that also must We reap.
DISEASED INTERSECTIONS
Further l observe that a healthy re-
ligion must give utterance to itself. Indeed,
this is the very definition of health-mo-
tion All healthy things are seeking to get
out of themselves and into the world On
the contrary, diseased things are always
tending to stay at home, to stay within
themselves and to settle towards their own
center An unhealthy mind is never OBJ
jective to itself; it never goes out; it is al
ways retrospective, moving in, dwelling
upon it's own woes, troubles, perplexities
bewilderments. And so with an unhealthy
soul 1t, too, is always bordering over its
own condition; it introverts and looks in
upon itself, takes stock of its own expert
ences and wonders whether it is endowed
with those experiences WhereWith a re-
deemed soul should be endowed. 1t is
gauging its own feelings all the while to
find out whether it is really religious or
not. You know such people and / know
such people, and you know, If you be re-
ligious yourself, that at times you are in
that mood; you are at times probing your
self, dragooning yourself taking your spir-
ituai temperature to find out how much of
religious feeling there is in you; repining
because you have not more fervent feelings
because you do not feel within yourself
those ecStatic emotions that you think
should reside in the religious spirit.
But, mark you, these introSpections are
not the sign of health, but of disease The
beautiful thing about every really sound
thing is its utter undergraduates, its self
decentralization, its yearning to get out of
itself and to go somewhere beyond its own
circumference. You take d strong, vital
man, throbbing, surgng with life. Well
that man simply cannot if he wanted to-
keep his strength to himself; his vitality
just flows out in waves to the world and
n DIn 11C Yam fasaal h fk.Isk
in his laugh, you feei It in the shake of his
hand, you see it streaming through his eye
you feel him intensely for he is out of
himself and coming towards you This is
magnetism. and every really healthy man
is magnetic.
TOO HASTY CHARACTERIZATION
Indeed, there are those who are so i'm
petuous in their zeal that they insist that
this world shall be converted to Christ and
redeemed within a generation; that all the
millions and millions of the world shall
have the gospel preached to them and be
brought into the kingdom of God within
the next twenty or thirty years. They
want everything so soon. so quickly; but
certainly that is not the lesson that Jesus
taught us. He was quite willing to abide
results; He was quite willing to preach and
teach and and labor and sow, and then to
wait Gods time for the reapng. He had
no doubt of the harvest. He had faith in
God and, therefore, He had perfect repose
in His labor And such should be the
of to-day is not too active-that ii can
n he. no caf