The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1903-04-10
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AsTRoHc AND UPLIFTING DISCOURSE
eY TIE Rsv. cONALD S. HAcKkY.
Subject "a Plea For the simple Life"-
Duty OF the Pulpit TO sound a Warn
ing Note In Regard To Modern Exirsya-
gance IN Living.

tnurcns flftn avenue ana fOrty-elghtn
streeS, Sunday morning. the minister, the
strong sermon on a Plea for the Simple
Life" The text was from Matthew Vi:
3l-22: Take no thought saying, What
shall we eat; or What shall we drink: or
Wherewithal shall We be clothed! For
your heavenly Father knoweth." DR..
Mackay said:
Just 100 years ago, in 1903 William
Wordsworth, the great English poet, then
young man and comparatively unknown.
wrote a sonnet entitled plain Living AMI
High Thinking" 1t Is so significant that !
quote 4 IN full:
20 friend, know not which way | must
look
For comfort, being as ! am opprest
To think that now our life is only drest
For show; mean handiwork OF craftsman.
cook,
Or groom We must run glittering like a
brook
In the open sunshine, or we are unb.est!
The wealthlest man among us Is the best,
No grandeur now IN nature or in book
Delights US. Rapine. avarice, expense
This is ido!atry, and these we adore.
Plain living and high thinking are no
more
lIhe homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gOne-our peace, our simple innocence,
And pure religion, breathing household
laws"
The remarkable thing about these lines
IS that although describing the follies OF
100 years ago, they are exactly applicable
- the conditions of life today. What
Wordsworth criticised so forcefuly in 1903
Is still prevalent in 1903. In spite of the
vaunted progress Of the nineteenth cen.
tury, notwithstanding the enormous ad-
vance IN every sphere Of human activity,
II Is sad commentary on our civilization
hat 70 Il L A
OF vulgar ostentatlon as our fathers were
when the last century still was young.
! need scarcely remind you how power
fully this same criticism of our over-eiabor-
ated life has been set forth in that remark
able little book by Charles Wagner, The
Simple Life" Everybody is reading it and
admiring it, but not every one. fear, is
ready to accept its teaching Wagner is
Protestant pastor in Paris, a man of keen
senslbiIity, prose poet, a shrewd philoso-
pher and trenchant critic. In this latest
book Of his, The Simple Life" he has put
forward plea TO MS fellow Parisans pre-
clseiy as Wordsworth did 10 his contempo-
TTaries century ago. Like Wordsworth,
Wagner sees in the elaboration and COM
pleXlty of modern life not merely menace
20 the stability OF the state, but to the in
tellectual and spiritual life of the indivd-
uals who compose the state. Nowhere,
surely, Is this complex life of luxurious
pleasure seeking extravaganza so visible
as in this metropolis OF the New World
Everywhere the drags are off, and the
wheels OF commerce and society are run
ming wild. When the stoppage viii come,
as come IL must or how 1t will come no
one can tell, but that this career of eXtrav-
agancc in living, which New York has been
following, especially for the past FIVE years.
Is bound to end in catastrophe. moral and
social, unless sanctiiied common sense in.
fCTnnEpa 1 moods tn Inf
Already the shrewd, hard-headed men in
wall Street are scentlng the approaching
danger from the commercial standpoint.
They tell us that the limit of over-capitali.
cation and headstrong speculation is
reached, and the reaction, unless il comes
spell panic from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
How true that may be as a commercial pre-.
diction | do not know; but from the stand
point OF religion, in the interests of mora
ity, the evil results of this over-elaborated
mode OF living, common even among the
poor as well as the rich, are already with
us. One does not require the vision of a
seer TO recognize them.
II is in the face OF such conditions that
the pulpit of to-day: If it be brave and true
to its duty. is called upon to sound forth n
warning note IL is indeed thanlless task
for the preacher. He must say things, es.
pecally in pulpit such as this, that will
cut sharply the feelings, If not the con-
sciences, OF those whom he addresses. New
ertheless, because there is still a residuum
OF good sense even in the most eXtrava-
CANT of us, | venture this Lenten Sunday
morning IN the name of Jesus Christ TO
bring before YOU this plea for plain living
and high thinking"
Ny first remark is an obvious inference.
Plain living is an absolute condition of high
thinking. Strenuous thinking cannot come
from pampered living. There can be no
life OF worthy thought where existence is
loaded down with the vulgarities Of luxury.
Thought, which is the life of the soul, not
only deterlorates, it dies when we make
the cares of the body the be-all and the
end-all of our days The two most litter
ate classes in society to-day are the abject
poor, who by necessity must think of the
needs of the body, and. therefore, can
think of nothing else. and the idle rich.
who by choice devote every hour of the day
20 the trivial problem OF what they shall
eat and what they shall drink and where
withal they shall be clothed. The body it
Is, says BoSsuet, the great French preach
er, in one of his sermons, which drags us
down from the loftier Levels of thought.
which chains us 10 the earth when we
ought TO be breathing the pure air of
heaven So il is that to-day we are put
ting an undue emphasis upon the merely
outward life. We are celebrating the mere
II
gllded trappngs, Indifferent to the essen
tials which alone give lasting beauty TO
life and character.
What are some of the causes OF this over
elaboration i'm the material comforts of life?
Primarily, there Is the passion for luxury
Itself. We are to-day essentially n luxuri-
ous race The pitiful thing is that we are
proud of it. We boast about our luxury
as something that lifts US above other ma
tions. You meet people, for example. VINO
90 abroad, and when they return what is
the burden of their conversation? Not 10
tell YOU of beautiful scenes of nature which
they have visited. but to complain that
having gone abroad confessedly for change,
they did not find anything exactly the same
and lust as comfortable as at their own
freside. They crticise the temperature of
the houses and vividly describe to you the
horrors of shivering in temperature lit
tie below the fever heat IN which they live
at home. They denounce the cooking and
complain because at an altitude OF 5000 feet
in the Alps they did not find the delicacies
which they were able TO enjoy six months
before the season in their own New York
homes We may smile at such things, and
yet u rs this craving for luxury that rs de-
structive of high thinking. 1t produces a
mental imbeCility which is unable TO ap-
precate those truths which give dignity to
life and add strength 20 character.
What is luxury? Ii may be defined as
whatever is costly and superfluous. And II
Is Just this craving for what is costly aud
supsrtiuous that Is making this city hot
bed of extravaganza.
OF course, not everything Is super1uous
whi"n Is costly. Luxury Is 10 be distin.
guished from good taste. and II u certainly
not 10 be counfounded with high art. There
Is a sense in which things once regarded as