The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1903-04-09
"PLEA FOR SIMPLE LIFE"
Sunday Sermon By the Rev. Dr. Donald
S. Mackay.
n Is the Duly Of The Pulpit to Sound Warn.
Ing Note Ia Regard to Modern
E,travagance In Liv'ny.

Il
Life" The text was from Matthew vi:
9l.32: "Take no thought saying, What
shall We eat? or What shall we drink? or
Wherewithal shall we be clothedy For
your heavenly Father knoweth." DR..
Mackny said: ..,,,
Wordsworth, the great English poet, then
q Young man and comparatively unknown.
wrote a sonnet entitled 'Plain Living and
High Thinking" 1t is so significant that |
quote it in full:
80 friend, know not which way 1 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
brook
In the open sunshine, or we are unblest!
The weaIthiest man among us is the best!
No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us. Rapine. avarice, expense
This is idolatry, and these we adore.
Plain living and high thinking are no
Hhe 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
to the conditions of life to-day. What
Wordsworth criticised so forcefuily in 1903
is still prevalent in 1903. In spite of the
Wanted progress of the nineteenth cen.
tury, notwithstanding the enormous ad-
vance in every sphere of human activity,
it is a sad commentary on our civilization
that to-day we are Just as much the slaves
of vulgar ostentation as our fathers were
when the last century still was young.
! need scarcely. remind you how power.
fully this same criticism of our over-elabor.
ated life has been set forth in that remark
able little book by Charles Wagner, "Thc
Simple Life" Everybody is reading it and
ready to accept its teaching. Wagner is a
Protestant pastor in Paris, a man of keen
sensibility, a prose poet. a shrewd phioso-
pher and trenchant critic. In this latest
book of his. ''The Simple Life he has put
forward pea TO his fellow Parisians pre-
cise.ly as Wordsworth did to his contempo
Iraries century ago. Like Wordsworth.
Wagner sees in the elaboration and COM
plexity of modern life not merely menace
to the stability of the state but to the in
tellectual and spiritual life of the individ-
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 lun-
ming wild. When the stoppage will come,
as come 1t must, or how it will come, no
one can tell, but that this career of cxtrav-
agance in living. which New York has been
following, especially for the past five years.
is bound to end in catastrophe moral and
social unless sanctified common sense in
terposes, 1t needs no prophet to predict
Already the shrewd, hard headed men in
wall Street are scenting the approaching
danger from the commercial standpoint.
ne hat fla 1,,,,,t &C .A.1.
zation and headstrong speculation is
reached, and the reaction, unless it comes
gradually and under proper control will,
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 moral
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
seer to recognize them.
-, 1t is in the face of such conditions that
the pulpit OF today; if it be brave and true
to ITS duty, is called upon to sound forth
warning note. 1t is indeed thankless task
for the preacher. He must say things, es.
pecially 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, l venture this Lenten Sunday
morning, in the name of Jesus Christ, to
bring before you this plea for plain living
and high thinking"
My 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 vugarities of luxury.
Thought, which is the life of the soul, not
only deteriorates, 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
to 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 to the earth when we
ought to be breathing the pure air OF
ting an, undue emphasis upon the merely
outward life. We are celebrating the mere
framework OF the picture, ornamenting the
gilded trappings, Indifferent to the essen
usls tlals which alone give lasting beauty to
NE and character.
What are some OF the causes of this over
rfimarlly, there is the passion for luxury
ltseif. We are to-day essentially luxuri-
Gus race: The pitiful thing is that we are
proud OF it. We boast about our luxury
az something that lifts us above other ma
tiohs. You meet people, for example, who
20 ABROAD, and when they return what is
t tne burden of their conversation? Not to
.en you oil beautiful scenes of nature which
tney nave visited, but to complain that,
,hn'i uhavihE gone abroad confessedly for change,
.ney eld not Ind anything exactly the same
S Ssau Just ,s as comfortable. as at their own
nLes,ue. Ihey criticise the temperature of
sne houses and wildly describe to you the
norrors OF shivering in temperature lit
We DeIow the fever heat in which they live
az nome. They denounce the cooking and
complain because at an altitude OF 5000 feet
IN the Alps they did not find the delicacies
whleh they were able to enjoy six months
pelore the season in their own New York
noniss, we may smile at such things, and
ses Is TINS craving for luxury that is de-
sesutslye naas.r Of high thinking. 1t produces
nra men.al imbecility which is unable to APP
Hsseelals those truths which give dignity to
hie and add strength TO character.
What Is luxury! 1t may be defined as
" n;s.eVer ;', Is costly and superhuous. And it
yuse TINS craving for what is costly and
ssupsrnuous that is making this city a hot
ped OF extravaganza.
~ course. not everything is supernuous
whlin Is costly. Luxury Is to be distin-
guisned from good taste, and it is certainly
not 10 be counfounded with high art. There
sense IN which things once regarded as
naiss naoa;s are Today rightly looked upon as
necessities This is so because life has adj.
yanced nationally and its outward wants
nave so lar become more varied. An Eng.
iish writer, for example. in I57T danarnoees