Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1903-04-03
LOOK FOR GOOD NOT EVIL.

An Inspiring and Helpful Sermon BY Rev. H.
R. Miles Of the Congregational Church
Printed by Req aest.
In the course of sermon upon the
text, "The lamp of thy body is thine
eye; when thy eye is single thy whole
body also is full of light; but when it
is evil, thy body also is full of dark
ness Rev. H. r. Miles said:
We are beginning to appreciate the
Importance of environment, and that
we must not expect much from those
who grow up in vicious surroundings.
Even more important than what is
about us is the standpoint we take
toward our surroundings We decide
upon what to center attention, over
what to brood. We dwell upon what
most interests us. The good and evil
in our surroundings are not simply re-
fected in our lives in the proportion IN
(which they exist about us. Though
both are round us, it is for us to say
which predominant in us. There are
good eyes and bad eyes. some that fill
us with light, and some with partial
ty for darkness and the predisposltion
of the look makes us better or worse
than our surroundings, according as
/ interest centers in the best or the worst
about us and leads to the storing up or
the one or the other 1t is not neces-
sary that the evil about should be much
for us to be filled with it, The evil
eve draws in what it bankers after, un-
/ til the storehouses to which it opens
are full of evil The organ designed to
flood life with light, has packed it with
evil. The line in the hymn, "There Is
life for look,' has deep meaning.
Our gaze, our attention, carries us af-
| ter it, to pure and to foul, to life and
| to death.
| There is no town so morally clean
but that the boy or man who is on the
outlook for evil will see it. If he does
not find it, he will make it, He VIII
cast impure looks at the innocent, and
| his look, as Christ says, defiles HIM.
Unfortunately respectable communl-
ties are invaded by unclean books,
newspapers. plays and bill boards, all
as bad as they dare to be. designed to
catch the evil eye, to attract the SIM
| ply curious eye, and lodge impure sug-
gestions in the minds OF the young.
Let all who are tempted be sure that IT
| is not possible to indulge the eye and
save the mind, and that the mind is we
ourselves. The mind is the soul OF US.
| One may forget wounded leg, rise
above physical pain: but his mind is
himself, that into which he retreats,
and if his retreat be filled with horrld
pictures, he has nowhere to go from 1T.
| The place at which to make stand. is
in keeping evil thoughts out. This
may require fight, the evil eye may
have fascinating power; but the issue
is so important that one had best fight
with desperation. Better be manned,
but have what life is left honest; than
be bound in foul imaginations that are
present hell, and lead to works OF
| darkness.
Older people owe debt to the young
in this matter. Every community has
those who go beyond accumulating the
indecent, and manufacture It, They
present under a foul aspect matters
I that in fact are pure, and their pol
soned minds contaminate every SUB
| iect that they touch. The pure In
heart see God, and they are also the only
ones that see the sanctity of life. 1t
] is sad fact that large proportion OF
our children gain their first ideas OF
side of life that comes with maturity
from those who look at it with an evil
eve and misrepresent it. 1t is shame
that we parents, by a false silence,
leave the children to suffer the embar-
rassment and perhaps infection of per
verted ideas, because they have not re-
ceived from us the true and the whole
some.
| have spoken of the fearful side OF
this fact that the eye determines the
life. 1t is however a truth as powerful
/ for good as for evil, for we become as
lurge and as good as that at which we
constantly look. The great need is to
keep our eyes open to things high, true
and inspiring. Then we shall not be
simply we'll behaved and methodically
dutiful: but be filled with Joy In
goodness, with delight in best things
that keeps life expanding and lends to
words and deeds that power which both
have when the speaker or doer is recog-
nized as larger than anything he does or
says. Work to keep mind and heart en-
lightened, to keep both young. There is
good enough in the surroundings OF
all of us to do this. 1t is expected that
we will be better han our surroundings,
because we accumulate their good, and
reject their evil.