Newport weekly independent., 1902-03-21

the shop, away to the factory! Do something that will enlist all the en- ergies of your body, mind and soul!" Diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord," while upon the bare back of the .idler and the drone comes down the sharp lash of the apostle as he says: "lf any man will not work, neither shall he eat"
 Oh, how important in this day, when so much is said about anatomy and physiology and therapeutics and some new style of medicine is ever and anon springing upon the world, that you should understand that the highest school of medicine is the school of Christ, which declares that ''godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is as we'll as of that which is to come." So if you start out two men in the world with equal physical health, and then one of them shall get the religion of Christ in his heart and the other shall not get it, the one who becomes son of the Lord Almighty will live the longer. With long life will I satisfy lilIl S1loW ullu lily SdlN lloI'
 Again I remark that godliness is good for the intellect. l know some have supposed that just as soon as a man enters into Christian life his in tellect goes into bedwarfing process. So far from that, religion will give new brilliancy to the intellect, new strength to the imagination, new force to the will and wider swing to all the intel lectual faculties. Christianity is the great central fire at which philosophy has lighted it's brightest torch. The re- ligion of Christ is the fountain out of which learning has dipped it's clearest draft. The Helicon poured forth no such inspiring waters as those which flow from under the throne of God clear as crystal Religion has given new energy to poesy, weeping in Dr. Young's Night Thoughts" teaching in Cowper's Task" flaming in Charles Wesley's hymns and rushing with archangelic splendor through Milton's Paradise Lost"
 Now. 1 commend godliness as the best mental discipline, better than belles lettres to purify the taste, bet ter than mathematics to harness the mind to all intricacy and elaboration, better than logic to marshal the intel lectual forces for onset and victory. It will go with Hugh Miller and show him the footprints of the Creator in the red sandstone. It will go with the botanist and show him celestial glories encamped under the curtain of a water lily. It will go with the astronomer on the great heights where God shepherds the great flock of worlds that wander on the hills of Heaven answering His voice as he calls them all by their names.
 Again I remark that godliness is profitable for ones disposition. Lord Ashley, before he went into a great battle, was heard to offer this prayer: 70 Lord, I shall be very busy to-day! If I forget Thee, for get me not" With such Christian disposition as that a man is inde- picty will have a tinge of our natural mperament. If a man be cross and sour and fretful naturally, after he becomes Christian he will always have to be armed against the rebel lion of those evil inclinations. But religion has tanned the widest na- lures. It has turned fretfulness into gratitude. despondency into good cheer. and those who were hard and ungovernable and uncompromising have been made pliable and consilia- tory. Good resolution, reformatory effort, will not effect the change. It takes mightier arm and mightier hand to bend evil habits than the hand that bent the bow of Ulysses, and it takes a stronger lasso than ever held the buffalo on the prairie.
 A man cannot go forth with any human weapons and contend suc- cessfully against these Titans armed with uptorn mountains. But you have known men into whose spirit the influence of the Gospel of Christ came until their disposition was en- tirely changed. So it was with two merchants in New York. They were very antagonistic. They had done all | they could to iniure each other. They were in the same line of busi- ness. One of the merchants was con- verted to God. Having been convert ed, he asked the Lord to teach him how to bear himself toward that business antagonist, and he was inn pressed with the fact that it was his duty when customer asked for cer- tain kinds of goods which he had not, but which he knew his opponent had to recommend him to go to that store. I suppose that is about the