The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1903-07-16


changed! The father is not tasimaster
bat "a father. He takes the will for the
deed; He looks upon all our doings as tho
expression of hlial spirit and is satisfied
But II the work be done slavishly we have
no JOY in service and are dead loss to
God; for; looked upon merely as servants
after we have done all we are improbable
True, we look upon some things we have
accomplished and we pronounce them
great. We talk about our bringing in the
material kingdom of God-about our in
ventons-steam, the telegraph, the mighty
railroads and the steel monsters that
trample down the waves of the sea- If
these are done as works of sons; if they
show the wish of the sons to struggle up to
the immensely of the Fathers thought God
| must take supreme delight in them They
are creations of His children; they take
value. from the fact that the children's fin
gers have toiled lovingly upon them. God
values our doings because we are His chill
| dren. Ii we come, however claiming to be
servants and pointing to the great things
that we have done, the only response Is
that we are Improbable servants.
Ihe stay-at-home was lot so long as he
looked upon himself as servant The first
step towards recovery was for him to take
himself as son. The first step out of the
| lostness of the servant life is to take SON
| snip Tor granted and to act upon the as
| sumption.
Again, the lostness of the stav-at-home
| appears from his thought of service. and
l never transgressed a commandment OF
| thine these words are no more accidental
than the others. The Master is cutting
close. to the essential weaknesses in the
creed and practice Of Pharisaism. The two
weak words here ere never and ''com-
mandment." The elders sons thought Of
service was partly negative, and for tlx
rest consisted in keeping commandments
The Pharisee habitually thanked Cod that
he was not as other men, extortioners.
| unjust, aduiterers, or even as the publican,
but tasted twice in the week and gave
tlthes Of all that he possessed"
| First, the negative aspect of the Phari
sac creed. According to Pharisaism re-
| llglon consists largely in not doing.
Never IS the blessed word Adherence
| to the never" creed causes the inert and
passlonless ,worshiper to mistake the list
lessness of death for the peace that passeth
| understanding. Negative piety is often
| enough to break forth in sin; there is not
strength or spirit enough to make temp
tatlon possible. + w exasperatinc it is to
hear dry, withered soul declaim on the
follles of youth, or a mind sluggish with
stupidity boast its freedom from doubt!
There is a long-lived heresy to the effect
tnat the heart of religion is repression.
Drive out the devils, sweep the house, set
the furniture IN order, board up the win
dows, lock up the doors aod hide the
keys! This, as of old. overlooks some
thing-the skill of devils as key-fnders.
Back they come with others worse than
themselves; or, if they do not come back,
the mousse stands empty, which is about
dant life. The lifeless and inert seriously
starting toward redemption may possibly
make more mistakes in the first six months
OF activity than in all the previous wears
OF hstlessness, but they are better never
theless. One of the most disagreeable
features of this elder brother is limited at
in this word never" 1t suggests staid.
llifeless, p,oddingness beside Which the rol,
licking prodigality of the younger brother
seems almost relief It is almost a re-
lief, too, to find that the elder brother
becomes angry, for anger is sometimes
sign of awakening life
Ihe more of the merely "nevcr" there
IS IN mans religion, the more completely
lost the man is.
tb And dd then the other part Of the creed
Master, had in mind was the Pharisee's
living by rule. He is exposing the wood
enness and mechanicalness of Pharisaic
plety; He IS showing US the lostness of
living by rule. With the fharisee life
had become a round of ceremonial obser-
vances and Pharisaism was lost in the
who tries to, be good merely by rule. OF
course, many of the great principles of
the Christian religion can be brought
down to the compendious statement of
rules, but in these the principle is kept
IN mind. | am speaking of Pharisaism
as the system which slavishly learns the
rules and follows them. Such a course
leads inevitably to the wilderness. IF we
lose sight of the spirit and principle. we
must have a rule for everything. This
Pharlsalsm strove for and was lost in its
own cumbersomeness. If the system is
not complete, if there are spheres of con-
duct for which the Pharisee has no rule,
then IN those spheres he is apt to feel
free to do his worst.
Living the good life is the finest of the
fine arts. Fine, art is not a mechanical OBJ
servance of rules-it is an absorption of
spirit. In the religious life it is being
filled with the spirit; and he who has not
the spirit of life is lost.
Inc lostness Of the stay-at-home still
further appears from his unnatural heart
lessness. 'Thy son!" These words are
doubiy heartless. they repudate brother
hood with the returning prodigal and thew
reprcach the father for not looking upon
such son as his own. Reartlessness al
most inevitably follows mechanicalism.
u Is n6tufaI IHaC IL should be so. There
is no heart in a cumbersome set of COM
| mandments. Commandments having to deal
| simply with doings and not with feelings
are in the nature of the case wooden and
ifeless. If life be looked upon as some
thing to be fitted into scheme of COM
mandments, all the fragrance of fine feel
ing evaporates. This picture of The elder
brother is the perfect setting forth of the
heartlessness of developed Pharisaism.
The heartiessness came not out of DELHI
crate diabolism, but out of mechanical
legahsm. In the end, however, these two
are not far apart.
1t would seem quite the fashion in these
| matter of fact days to ridicule emotion
allsm. There is instead kind of emotion
alism that deserves ridicule The piety
that consists only in being happy is a poor
piety. But strike emotionalism out of re
ligion and religion is not religion. In
Johns wonderful epistle of love much is
said about the presence of God in the life,
and that presence manifests itself in vari-
Gus forms of feeling Do you love the
brethren? That is to say. do you feel
the force and power of friendship? A
part of the witness of Gods spirit is to be
found just here, in the quickening of those
fine feelings of friendship and love which
seem to come SO naturally as we relate
ourselves, to one another. Is the feeling
for brothers and sisters becoming more