The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-27

uThe Devil of the Empty Room" wa
 Devils the Latter Kiud is the Mos
 DanRerous-It Marked tho sin O
 Jesus' Foes.
 "The Devil of the Empty Room" wal
 the theme of the sermon last night bI Rev. pr. H. Frank Rall at the Trinity Methodist Episcopal church. The ser mon was the third In the series on "Tht
 Hard Sayings of Jesus" His text was Luke xii, 24-26 "The unclean spirit when he is gone out of the man, pass
 eth through waterless places, seeking rest and, finding none, he saith, l will I turn back unto my house, whence
 came out And when he is come he
 hndeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh to him seven other spirits more evil than himself; and ! they enter in and dwell there; and the 1 last state of that man becometb worse l than the first" The speaker sport in l part as follows:
 | Alike in form and substance, we may class this story among the hard sayings of Jesus that we have been consider ing. Its form. first of all, repels us. The men of Jesus day found a cause for every i'll, both physical and spirit ual, in the demons in which they b2liev- ed Not only spiritual but physical ills
 were healed by the casting out of thess
 demons, The favorite dwelling place of
 these spirits, who peopled the earth,
 wes the human tenement, and, permit
 ted or 1npermitted they crept in when
 they could To us story like this
 sounds strange, for We find physical
 cause for physical ills, and see in a mans own evil nature the devil in him,
 And the story itself, in substance, is hard to understand, Why should the devils return where they had been cast out, and what had this man done to bring this greater evil upon him?
 Strange as the story seems to us, it is not with strange or untrue things that it deals, First of all, We need not let the form of the story shut our eyes to its great realities. We may not per sonify evil in demons as the men of Jesus time did. In the great fact of evil we must all believe. It is no i'm iginary conflict that we fight, and the foe is real foe, that comes from with out and not merely from within. There are devils enough to-day that are look ing for an entrance into the heart of men. Here is the spirit of materialism, the spirit of greed, impurity, sensuality, jealousy hatred and all the horrid brood. They come to us as real tempt A,h see them in the world about us, To each we may open our heart. And the devil once let in grows with the passing days until he sits firm in the heart of the man. becomes the real spirit of the man and rules his life.
 But among all these devils there are few more dangerous than the devil of the empty room, of whom I wish to speak Look at the story again. From put of the life of this man the evil that had held him had gone forth. I know not what it was physical or spiritual disease or evil habit. At any rate. the house of his soul was now free; he could do with his life what he wished. It stood there, swept and garpished. There are good spirits in the world as well as ayil and now they come and beg en- trance. Truth comes and bids him seek after her, Faith comes and bids him open the door to God. Love comes and asks that his fellow men may come in md be served by him, The evil. has been cast out but now ne will not let he good in. It shall be a clean we'll ordered room, of course, but he will keep it empty for himself. Fool, No fife, no heart can be kept empty; some spirit must dwell there and rule. The levil of the empty room was there while le spoke Already the devil of his for ner sin had learned to his amazement hat the place was still empty and was 'reeping back, and seven devils worse han himself were in his train,
 The devil of the empty room marked he sin of Jesus foes. Against them He spoke this parable. Ii was a gen ,ration of men well contented with themselves. Was not the room of the ] rouse well swept and garnished? Was lot the evil cast out? Who could point l O wrong in their life? Jesus could, md did; and put His finger upon it and | ound it no light sin. They wanted to | 1eep out the evil but they would not tl tHe SoOu III. IH9 Spl11I or good, the | ruth of God, the kingdom of God, had | 'ome nigh to them in Jesus. They | ould not deny His works, and yet they | 'efused Him. He did not charge them | with crime or immortality. But their 1 in was no less great. God had spoken O them and they would not hear. The ummons to surrender and service had | ome, and they had shut up the room f their hearts It was the sin of legatve life, a life that did not want to 'e evil yet would not render allegiance O the good; that did not want to serve he wrong, yet would not surrender it's fife and strength and itself to the bat le against it. Call it the negative life, he life of indifference, ease; or better all it selfishness, the heart of all sin,
 It seems harsh judgment that Jesus ronounces, that He picks out for con- not the man who was doing vii, but the man who refused to do ood. It was but in keeping with His tutude elsewhere, It was not so much hieves and robbers, harlots and pub
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