The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-11-12
Sunday Sermon.
CHILDISH THINGS.

But when | became man. put away
childish things.-I. Corinthians, xiii, /
One day during the last summer | was
walking along the strand listening to the
regular and rhythmic pounding Of the
waves, when my attention was attracted
to a couple of children ON a dune close
Mt hand. As / approached them / saw
that they each had a little tin pail and
n wooden spade. They would dig deep
hole in the sand or pile il up in fantastic
shapes, and all the while would chirp
like young birds in the sunshine. They
were perfectly happy, and they needed
only plenty of sand a wooden spade and
tin pail to make them so.
AS j looked at the picture l envied
those children their capacity for pleasure
and sighed as | said to myself Il wish
| could be as happy as they are. They
live in the present; the day is bright and
cloudless, and with that much they are
entirely satisfied. The quality of char
acter which anticipates the possible
troubles of the future has not yet been
developed. 1t is enough for them to be
alive, and their enjoyment is complete
and continuous"
Then something within me answered in
this wise: There is no reason why
you should not be far happier than those
children, but YOU must learn how to be.
You must be taught the secret of hap
piness, and if you apply that secret to the
circumstances in which you live you will
have a serener and profounder happiness
than childhood can ever know Line
furnishes pleasures for the man also, but
they are not to be found with IL wooden
spade and a tin pail They are the
pleasures which come from work well
done, from an aim in life which kindles
all our powers into activity. from the
faith which makes us noble and builds
our years into a temple in which the
everlasting God visits our souls while
we worship and reveals to us the duty
of today and the hopes of tomorrow.
So went back to my little cottage not
wishing to be child agaim, hut resolved
20 be man, to live a mans life, cherish
a mans thoughts and find in each passing
hour a mans pleasures, that kind of
pleasure the remembrance of which viii
bring no regret when | stand on the
further shore and look back
To do all that one must lay the fOun-
dation of character in those principles
which we call religious, because religion
unites time TO eternity and teaches us
to make an honorable, a high minded,
the best possible use of all changeful ex-
periences of life. If you think religion
is intended to deprive you of any real
pleasure or to shroud your weeks and
months in gloom, you are seriously ms
taken Its only object is to make you
satisfied with yourself and to make the
angels satisfied with you. There is no
sorrow in religion, for it hghtens every
burden and hides a hope under every
tear.
Give a child a sand dune to play ON
and he asks no more: give a man pile
Of gold and. alas he thinks he is SUI
premely happy But he is still in swad
ding clothes and has only a wooden spade
and tin pail to play with. 1t is not
your money, but your ideas, which make
the home of your soul. In the last
analysis of life You discover, to your
surprise. that there is more enjoyment
in giving than i'll grasping. The heart
of a man is his sovereign, not his purse.
To spend an anxious life in trying to
make your golden dreams come true; to
thrust aside the simple pleasures which
ought to make every day enjoyable in
your hot eagerness to add to- what is
already enough to create and cultivate
the appetite which hungers for more, is
to waste precious time and to lose all
chance of genuine happiness. The wrong
we have done ourselves is in having
made money rather than character the
standard of excellence. Seek for gold
if you will, but in the name of good
government, of wholesome society and
of the best interests of mankind, put
virtue. honesty. national and individual
honor in the first rank. Having done
that YOU may in all other respects do
as you please. Nothing can go wrong
if you begin with what is right and in
sist upon it, Start with a lofty man
hood, preserve that manhood intact
against adj temptations, and it makes no
difference in what direction YOU travel,
or what church creed YOU may adopt,
you are on the road to heaven and VIII
reach your destination at last.
Put it down in your note book that
no one can reap the highest benefits OF
life, no one can enjoy what God DEGREES
for daily experience, no one can be hap
by in any but the narrowest sense, no
one can brayely meet the universities
which are SIRE to come or die with a
smile ON his lips and leave a sweet and
precious memory behind unless he is
governed by moral principle as the yes
sea is guided by the compass, and unless
his honor, his integrity has been guarded
rs his most precious possession. There is
nothing i'm this wide world worth quite sol
much as the consciousness THAT you have
done what is right I'M spite of fate, anu
nothing which SO fully repays man for
all tine sacrifices which are necessary IN
order to keep it.
The words of Christ in respect to this
matter are as refreshing as cool north
west wind ON a hot day and as bracing
and invgorting as a,frosty morning III
December. Christianity is another word
for manliness The true Christian uses
this life as the carpenter uses his chest
of tools, to build something which time
cannot destroy and which eternity will
strengthen.
GEORGE II. HEPWORTH.