The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-09-07

| of some defeat save with the wound-sear 1 of some failure--the words of the great apostle suggest no superfuity of anxiety on his part for his Christian friends in Rome. but rather his profound perception i of things as they are in the hot field of | human struggle and responsibility.
 The Nero Age.
 Looking backward, and regarding with utter abhorrence the crimes and vices of a Nero age, we may perhaps think to ourselves, how easy 1t would have been i for us to have hated those crimes and l vices with a true Christly hate: how 1 easy for us to have declined all com- promise with the deeds and purposes of such awful iniquity; how easy for us, 1 led by the Christ. to have lived through it all, and suffered no stain of thought no degredation of sentiment.
 The reflection is misleading It Is all ways easy to condemn iniquity, stand l ing on the outside of 1t, apart from it. 1 It is always natural to think of any I temptation as not hard to overcome. | contemplating it from afar, shut off from 1 the eomplexity, the subtlety, of sur rounding circumstance. which make the temptation what 1t Is.
 But the Christians of the time of Nero could not contemplate their age from 1 the vantage-ground of another nor con- sider their temptations from afar They were born amid certain conditions: they grew from infancy familiar with the popular sentiments and master ideals of the time: they were used to their en- vironment. the very flores of their being 1 had passed through the loom of it's spirit: and for them to follow Christ was to renounce vastly much of what they were used to. to live in daily protest against much that had become almost. if not quite, a part of themselves They had not only to make inward protest against the monstrous wrongs and crimes of the time; that was easy enough for even the respectfully good pagan. They had 1 in loyalty to the vision of the Great Master to save themselves from spiritual | compromise with innumerahle small vices and small wrongs, which were quite tolerable to the good pagans and were likely to be overlooked by reason 1 of their relative smallness but were nevertheless, in eternal conflict with the ideal of Jesus Christ. Aye. those early Roman Christians might very easily have been tragically enough conformed to the age in which they lived, even though 1 they failed not to be repeled and horri- fled by it's most fragrant breaches of the moral law Their daily temptation--and l St. Paul knew it-was not to grow call lous. indifferent, to deeds that even then sought some darkness to hide them from
 
 tation was. to hold to their heroic faith along the line of least resistance: to re- concile it's spiritual ideal with a thou- sand and one unideal conditions: to agree, in short to some comfortable, un- heroic compromise between their ex- perience of what was and their vision of I what ought to be.
 And so the apostles advice was not l supertluous was no pious patftude eighteen centuries ago. It was needed then for the warning and strengthening of tempted struggling Christ-led ht- man souls; and it has, I say, spoken to the deeper need, 1t has appealed to the eternal conscience of every generation since.
 Since Gospel Was Declared.
 For no age. has dawned upon this earth since St. Paul sent his letter to the Romans that any Christian could con- form himself to and yet remain a Christ ian 1t Is but simple fiattery of the cen- | turies past and the century present to call them Christian; there has never been a Christian century, or one Christian year, or month, or week. or day. in any land, since the regeneratve gospel was declared from Olivet and from Calvary. There has never been a time when the strong sure voice of some apostle was 1 not needed to call to the Christian men
 
 this time, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may l prove what is that good, and acceptable. l and perfect will of Godl, The gospel of Jesus-it has shone through all the cen 1 turfes steady, white, uniuue light lpon l the highest mountain-top of human as- plration; and steadily has 1t been seen 1 by the eyes of the nobest of the race and faithfully approached by their up- ward-cimbing feet; but there have been lesser low lights innumerable, shining, | llickering, sputtering here and there in the valley lands of human desire, and human passion, and human weakness: | and these have lighted the level. unas- cending pathways of most men and wom- en in every age. Always the spirit os l the time in which they lived has attack . 1 ed, and overpowered. and undone the l Christianity of most Christians by subt- | ly, gradually, indirectly confronting l them to it's less than Christly vision, its less than Chrlstly aim.
 | It were, perhaps, an excess of optm- ism, or lack of true spiritual perception, which should lead us to suppose that in our age the apostles appeal has lost any of It's original timeliness. The church which scarcely existed as an organized | institution in St. Paul's day, and in it's 1 feeble strength was menaced with de- l struetion by the black hosts of pagan 1 ism-that church We know now as a mighty recognized factor in the thought and life of the race; and because this is so, we are likely to assume that the sov- ereign spirit of the age in which we live, the age in which the church plays so notable a part, is necessarily the spir- | it of Christ. The church and some por- 1 ton of the world outside it. we are &C., ] customed to think of as severe opposites We contrast the one with the other. and l imagine that the Christ-ideal. already dominant. as we say, by reason of the chureh's work and influence will be ev- 1 anywhere fully adopted and everywhere entirely loved, as that work Is continued and exteuded; as. day by day, some pro- vince. some territory is claimed and pos- sessed by the church. where formerly was raised the standard of the world.
 The World and the Church.
 So we think and say But we forget that while the church Is engaged in con quering the world, the world may be en- gagged in conquering the church; we for- 1 get that while the church's purpose is | felt as an unlifting force in the world. the worlds purpose may be working as a downward-pulling force in the church; we forget that the spirit of the world. 1 the spirit un-Christly Is not thing pas | sive and quescent. while the spirit of the church aims and does. nav. but is at All