Orange County observer., 1903-07-23

it points to "the life of the world to come"
best and the brightest, the largest and
most liberal. Whatever else they are, they
are not contracted or paltry but as CATH
ollc as God and as universal as man. In
deed, our religion is the only thing in the
world that processes to desire the allegiance
breadth and depth and height of the love
OF God in Jesus Christ our Lord. It does
not give us views or conjectures, but only
the commandment of God which is lex
ceedlng broad"
The clever pettifogger can make it diff
cult for us to defend anything, though we
N, may be 1nfalibly sure of its truthfulness.
Ihe cross-examlner may succeed as far as
to bring us to the verge of doubling the
testimony OF our own senses. Even SO are
doubts easily possible concerning the mat
ters of Christian belief. It is not the pur-
pose of this discourse, however, to discuss
the grounds Of skepticism except in so far
as they would impeach the breadth of
Christianity. Several forms of unbelief,
or OF indifference, which is in a sense the
same me thing logically, present sorry spec
tscle ia ta in the presence Of the, inclusiveness
of the Gospel. What are the truths for
which they, stand, and how real are these
truths? They talk perhaps of their intel
iectuallty, but they should remember that
the men who are responsible for the Nj
physicians, They refer to the liberty
Of which they are the champions, but the
liberty which they advocate is in essence
the very doctrine Of nihiists and anarch-
lists In society and politics. With blare
OF trumpet they herald their own broad
mindedness, but if they had their way, and
II they could sweep religion from the face
OF the earth, burn up the Bibles, dynamite
the churches, it requires no prophet to
foretell what dreadful situation would
ensue as the result of their havoc. The
man who puts agnosticism against the
what would make men more narrow than
| they are. and would speedily plunge them
into conditions first of civilized paganism
| a4d little later of rank barbarism. The
skeptic IS no more an apostle of iberality
| than IS the anarchist an apostle of liberty.
With great regret it must be confessed
| that there are and have been multitudes
| OF narrow-minded Christians Inasmuch
as human nature finds it difficult to attain
unto iberality, It is not to be wondered at
our holy religion. Christians have not
only been prosecuted, but they have ac-
tually prosecuted one another, because of
| differences of opinion. Only too frequently
have they failed to recognize the COM
prehensiveness of the Gospel, and they
prefer their confessions to the catholic
faith and their sects to the catholic
church. It is simply impossible to apollo
glze for them or to offer any argument in
| extenuatlon of their grievous offenses along
this line. They. have restricted their God
and their. Bible and their creed, and
mindedness Of their Lord. But this does
not; really affect the issue which we have
IN hand. It does not at all impair our
contention that the gospel of Christ itself
mot Professionalism or Puritanism or
Medievalism, but the gospel contains the
sad dP @aH and tie & desny and t6s
broadest working principle of thought and
of life.
Gods commandment is exceeding
broad. in its practical application to mans
which is mighty foundation for the in
tellectual life, and mans brotherhood,
which makes the scope of moral obligation.
Gods relation to us is most assuring, and
our relation to Him and to all our broth
ers makes the theatre of action and sets
forth the sphere of conscience, sympathy
and endeavor. One of the miseries of ir-
religion is thai it despoils humanity of all
this. The heart which cares not for the
doctrines of Christian belief is sadly inn
poverished and reduces this present exist
ence to a small affair, for it has nothing
to say Of the higher things or of an eternity
the enlargement of aspiration and the re-
enforcement of energy. Christ truly dis
covered the individual He argued that
mans soul was more important than the
gain of the whole world; He came ex-
pressly to lift human nature out of its
smallness and to place it in an environment
where the sons of God rightly belong; He
revealed the model which is nothing less
than the character of the King of kings.
and called all the sons Of men to a royal
life; He disclosed large meaning for du-
| ties and griefs, pleasures and possibilities;
| n how In or nd hn
Mount of the Ascension whence they can
see the present in it's perspective, and have
an expansive outlook for the study of them
selves and their lives. The broadminded
Lord has given broadminded religion for
men when they pray and work and suffer,
and He would inspire them to rise up
to the obligations and opportunities which
wait upon them every hour in the day.
How narrow is the average man! Mod
ern conditions are not an unmixed boon
to the masses. There have been many
, gains, but there have been many losses
also Among the losses in the world as we
know it to-day is the almost inevitable
tendency of our way of living and our
methods of business to curtail the individ-
} ual in the living of his life and the doing
) of his work. More and more are the peo-
pie of the workaday world hampered and
restricted by the demand for specialization.
| The individual is being called upon to do
, some one task and to do it over and over
again three hundred days in the year, all
of which is equivalent to shutting him
within confines where he can scarcely hope
5 to develop into his best self. This effect
; is one of the deplorable ills of the times.
The rules of Offices and factories and shops
which encourage experts, is ruinous to the
individual who indeed learns to do one
2 thing perfectly, but who is thus hindered
from knowing anything else outside Of his
) daily task. Then, too. the. spirit Of the
business man that makes him ambitious
, and satisfied to become a man of business
and thus reduce his life to the level of a
: mere money-maker, is likely to produce
the same direful result. No one should
willingly become machine. In spite Of
the advancement which is one of the won
ders of the age, the people Of the United
States are now face to face with situation
broadmindedness-a crusade that will ex-
hort the people, in spite of discourage
ments to the contrary, to find leisure for
considering topics and resorting to oecu-
pations in addition to those which belong
!, to their daily engagements. We must sim
, ply make time for thought and reading and
, | recreation; we must rise to the glorious