The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-01-19


bulletins of the Weather Bureau, but how
many of you know what IL means? have
modest conceit that / do. To ma out L
had to go out to the bare plains of western
Kansas in winter a theater for the wind
that was all stage. where you had to be
fellow-actor whether you would or no. Inc
ranchhOuse was set On.a hill. While that
gale was on IL took two of us TO shut the
north door of the kitchen. once IL was
opened. The cattle covered In the lee OF
stacks which were weighted down with
landscape; every road and every plowed
field smoked like the chimney of fur
mace Finally grew tired of ina ction, and
rode three miles in the teeth OF the wind
for the mail. When We went across the
blast my horse and L leaned up against IL
as If II had been a wall IL searched my
very bones. The temperature was absurd
ly mild for cold weather-15 degrees above
zero. / believe-and yet l froZe an ear,
though | had passed through twenty Wis
consin winters unscathed And then the
constant buffeting. the lack of all let-up,
the booming, bewildering confusion OF 1t!
Forty miles an hOur Ii is more than
tiation into reality. 1t was through ex-
perience.
''It is true in the world of books. Modern
education has learned this. Not talk about
literature, but literature itself brings Gull
ture. Here is the difference
SYMPATHY FIRST NEEDED.
The preacher said there ought TO be a
constant striving for the something
more that immediate relationship with
Christ begets. First of these" he con-
tinued. Il would instance sympathy. SYM
pathy is the practical evidence of vitality
in the realm of feeling. In so far
man is alive he responds to the things
which surround him. The cruelty, the sus-
piciOn, the pride, the indifference, the UNI
evidences of the lack OF that spiritual vi
tally that makes man respond generous
ly to the like forces outside himself;
physically to outside physical forces, in
tellectually TO outside intellectual forces
in his affections to forces in the world of
feeling. Jesus Christ made a response to
all the longinss. the aspirations, the con-
tritions, the hungers and the thirStS in the
souls around Him because of the sheer life
power of His soul. He could afford to love
and to inspire. to comfort and TO sympa-
thize, no other had ever done, because
of the deep well out of which He dipped
No wonder His spirit won the victory over
the world; he was the Invest life in It. Now
If we are His followers our lives ought
TO show the same Wilderness OF sympathy
We ought TO be sensitive TO all the good in
the lives about us. We ought to respond
instinctively to the aspirations of the men
and women we see and know. Those who
are doing things which must live by un-
sefishness, by philanthropy, by the love
of the highest If they live at all. ought
TO find in the Christian their sure and nat
ural ally.
Second, the immediate power of Christ
ought TO speak through a Christian life
through a different sense of values You
can bride three-year-Old child TO do al
most anything by means of candy, but at
eighteen years this is impossible. Not that
the love of candy is any less, but so many
other and greater motives have come upon
the scene that the candy motive has lost its
old pre-eminence. The coming in of a new
motive that takes the lead I'm a life means
a change in the relative position of every
other motive, just as the coming in of "A
new scholar at the head of the class means
a change of rank of every other scholar
i'm the class. Now Christianity means the
opening of mans soul to new forces
which. If real, will be by reason of sheer
power. the dominant factors in his life;
the something more that is put into a
man by reason OF his relation TO Christ Is
something which among the things that
move him ought to stand at the head of
the class. / believe that the thing that
most shakes the confidence of the ire
ligious man in Christianity is not some
conspicuous instance of hypocrisy or moral
Obliquity, for a sensible man he rec
ogniZes that there are veneers and shams
when he probes down 10 the bottom of the
action of a so-called Christian man, with
out finding trace of any higher motive
than his own, and says, That fellow is
just like me. His talk of the higher duties
and opportunities is all rot. AT the bot
tom he and l are after exactly the same
things And there is nothing in all the
realm of evidence that is more stubborn
and memorable than the life that does not
respond to the lesser motive, because Ii
swings from the center of the greater af-
lection. Contact with this constitutes an
/ immediate experience of the power OF
Christ.
HIGH MORAL CLEANLINESS.
"And from this altitude of motive ought
to result a greater moral cleanness. Here
let us go carefully, and pray to be saved
from cant. The highest morals are not
ground out of the institution called the
church, as from a machine; they are the
product of the contact of the lives of in
dividuals, face to face with duty. The most
scrupulous and generous business honesty
| know anything about is found, not III
ecclesiastical finance, but in the operations
of the best mercantile houses. The most
| scrupulous regard for truth telling L ever
| came across is manifested In the work OF
| the best newspaper men. The most real
| and effective rebuke to crooked indirectness
| of policy / have ever heard was uttered
| in the days work of a lawyer. All trace
| able directly to the power of Jesus Christ
| but none the immediate product of church
| machinery. The real manufacture OF
morality goes wherever men make
choices; very little of 1t is therefore made
there. Not the church, but the immediat &c
presence of the power OF Christ in the life
| determines the morality of Christians. But
| just because this power, when real, is sc
great, the world expects Christians to be
| cleaner men because of their Christianity
They are expected to carry farther the
| principle of regard for the power of ex-
/ ample, of self-denial for the sake of the
| weak--yes, even at times for the sake OF
the stupid and prejudiced, which is a dea
! harder-because of their Christianity. AS
/ the engineer cleans the bearings he knows
that dirt means loss of power. So in the
/ moral life Girt means loss of power. Let us
as Christians, not only try to be ordinarily
| clean; let us try also TO rid ourselves OF
/ those more impalpable dust particles tha
cut the bearings of the moral life, that
1 we may add TO the world immediate eX-
| perience of the power of Christ.
| FINALLY Christian ought TO be mar
| of more robust anticipation because of his
| Christianity. He ought TO be harder t
/ satisfy than the man who does not know
1 Christ: he ought to demand more from
| life. He ought TO live in real anticipation
| of the coming in of the kingdom of Christ
/ The glacial geologist visits the glacier. To
/ the people around ii, ii stands still; bu
| the geologist sets stakes i'm the ice, anC
| on the rock al the side of the valley. In q
/ twelvemonth he comes back and measures
/ the great mass has moved nine feet during
/ the year. / believe that there is an age
| drift of the world toward the Christ.
| have just been going with care through
| the two books of the year that have tn,
/ most meaning for religious thought of al
| the seasons output of the buzzing presses
| There has been movement; last years
| stakes are not in line. The great glacier i:
| marching toward the sea.
| But there is more than this: there Is