Brookings weekly register. (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1898-1903, 1899-06-01
nor the people will forget the graves
of their chosen ones.
1t now remains to deal with the
last propositions:

OF tnelI CHOSEN ones.
1t now remains to deal with the
last propositions:
THE RELATION OF THE WAR TO THE
KINGDOM OF GOD.
The Kingdom OF God does not con-
sist In organizations or creeds but In
ideas and lives. These ideas are for
NATIVE, determinative principles; they
have their clearsst enunciation and
exemplification In the revelation Of
Jesus Christ, revelation through
word Of mouth and speech Of life.
The growth Of the Kingdom is the
growth of these ideas and can only bs
measured by their progress.
Chief among these ideas are free
dom, equity, love. Unless men are
free In intellectual activities and So
cial life they cannot be responsible
and therefore cease to be moral In any
practical sense. At best, q slave or
church or society or state or private
owner Is non-moral; he must do as ho
is compelled not as he would. Free
dom is the great prerequisite OF all de-
velopment, physical, intellectual and
spiritual.
In his first discourse Jesus dealt al
most wholly with this, indeed his
whole life was spent In knocking Of
the shackles Of physical disease, in
tellectual apathy. soul dispair and
ecclesiastical figments. But freedom
Is a condition Of action, gift to be
used and it must be governed In its
exercise by the second great idea of
EQUITY.
The free man must be the just man
which involves right thinking and
Impartial doing. In law equity is the
correction and qualifying Of too severe
or defective judgments; in philosophy
it is justice, the equal thing; in life 1t
has exactly the same meaning.
To be equitable as Jesus defines IL
one needs the aid of the third idea OF
the trio-love. Without that 'quual-
ity of mercy which is not strained, but
droppeth as the gentle dew from
heaven upon the place beneath" JUS
tice cannot be done.
He who loves truly is just. He who
loves not sslfishly but as Jesus taught
will always do the right to others; he
will always have the right for him
self.
The War was the last battle In
Christ's fight for freedom, not merely
as the privilege of the few or one, but
as the inalienable right Of all. Now
the fight for equity is beginning.
Relative to the Kingdom of God,
therefore, the War was q great mile
stone; the close Of period OF progress,
the ansecedent Of new expansions.
1t stands for development of Chrlst's
spirit In the world for the victory Of
a great Jesus principle.
The War Is one OF the strongest
evidences for the religion of Jesus.
Seeing the facts its critics Of un-
friendly spirit can say nothing az ainst
It; such evidence 10 not TO be ruled out
of court. There is the idea; IL has
created new life, overthrown ancient
and modern beliefs, religious and po-
litical, it has given to all men man
hood and space to grow, room to enter
into large, full rounded life for body
and spirit.
1t now remains for man to advance
from freedom to equity. All around
arises the cry for justice. Every free
man who will do his duty by his God
and country will be just, and he viii
most blessedly commemorate the past
who does his duty to his brother In the
present.
The War was rstribution OF God;
1t was national repentance; 10
opened the way for destiny grander
than 10 dreamed Of, but God has con-
ditioned it saying he who would enter
into Life must love God and love his
brothers also.
L ~nNRE zr A. -~~~-S S.~~~.>~