Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1903-04-09
"PLEA FOR SIMPLE LlFE''
Sunday Sermon By the Rev. DR.. Donald
S. Mackay.
II is tn, Day of III. Pulpit to SoInl Warn
Ing Note in Regard to Modern
E t..yag1rc. In Iivn;.

New York CITY. At the Collegiate
Church, Fifth avenue and Forty eighth
street, Sunday morning. the minister, the
Rev. DR.. Donald Sage Mackay, presented a
strong sermon on "a Plea for the Simple
Life" The text was from Matthew vi:
1892: "Takc no thought saying, What
shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or
Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For
your heavenly Father knoweth." DR..
Mackay said
Just 100 years ago, in 1909, William
Wordsworth the great English poet, then
a young man and comparatively unknown.
wrote sonnet entitled "Plain Living and
High Thinking" 1t is so significant that
quote it in full:
20 friend. l know not which way must
look
For comfort, being as | am opprest
To think that now our life is only drcst
For show; mean handiwork of craftsman,
cook,
Or groom! We must run glittcring like a
brook
In the open sunshine, or we are unb,est.
The wealthiest man among us is the hest.
No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us. Rapine, avarlca, expense
This is idolatry, and these we adore.
Plain living and high thinking are nc
Tfhc 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 forcefully in 1907
is still prevalent in 1908. In spite of the
vaunted progress of the nineteenth cen
tury, notwithstanding the enormous ad-
vance in every sphere of human activity
1t is sad commentary on our civilization
that to-day we are Just as much the slaves
or 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
atcd life has been set forth in that remark
able lite book by Charles Wagner, THE
Simple Life" Everybody is reading it and
admn,ng it, but not every one. | fear. is
ready TO accept it's teaching. Wagner is a
Protestant pastor in Paris, man of keen
sensibihtv, prose poet, a shrewd phlloso'
book Of his, The Simp,e Life he has put
forward a pea to his fellow Parisians pre-.
ciSely as Wordsworth did to his contempt.
raries n century ago. Like Wordsworth
Wagner sees in the elaboration and com
plcxity Of modern life not merely menace
to the stability of the state. but to the in
tellcctual 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 Word
Everywhere the drags are off. and the
wheels OF commerce and society are run.
ming wild. When the stoppage will come
as come It must. or how it will come. no
one can tell, but that this career of extrav.
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 sanctihed common sense in.
terposes, it needs no proDhet to predict
Already the shrewd, hard-headed men in
Wall Street are sctnting the approaching
danger from the commercial standpoint
They tell us that the iimit of over-capta)i
zation and headStrorg speculation is
reached and the reaction, unless it comes
gradually and under prorcr control, will
spell panic from the Atanti, to the Pacific
How true that may be as a commercial pre-
diction do not know: but fire. NJ the stand
point of religion, in the interests OF mora
ity. the evil results of this ver-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 a
seer TO recognize them.
1t is in the face of such conditions that
the pulpit of to-day. If it be brave and frye
to it's duty. is called upon to sound forth q
warning note. 1t is indeed a thanllless tast
for the preacher. He must say things, ca
pecially in pulpit such as this, that will
cut sharply the feelings, if not the con
sciences. of those whom he addresses. New
erthGless, because there is still residuun
of good sense even in the most extraya
CANT of us, ] 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 Nc
life OF worthy thought where existence is
loaded down with the vulgaritics of luxury
Thought, which is the life of the soul, not
only deteriorates. it dies when we ma ke
the cares of the body the be-al and the
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 shal
eat and what they shall drink and where
withal they shall be clothed. "rhc body il
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
heaven" So it is that to-day we are put
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
tials which alone give lasting beauty to
life and character.
What are some of the causes Of this over
elaboration in the material comforts of life!
Primarily, there is the passion for luxury
itself. We are to-day essentially luXuri
Gus race The pitiful thing is that we are
proud of it, We boast about our luxury
as something that lifts us above other ma
tons. You meet people, for example, who
go abroad, and when they return what is
the burden of their conversation! Not to
tell you of beautiful scenes OF nature which
they have visited, but to complain that,
having gone abroad confessedly for change
and lust as comfortable as at their. own
freside They criticisc the temperature OF
the houses and wildly describe to you the
horrors of shivering in temperature Ut
tie below the fever heat in which they live
at home They denounce the cooking and
complain because at an altitude of 5000 feet
in the Alps they did not find the deiicacies
which they were able to enjoy six months
before the season in their own New Iorl,
homes. We may smile at such things, and
yet it is this craving for luxury that Is de-
structive Of high thinking, 1t produces a
mental imbecilty which is unable to APP
preclate those truths which give dignity to
life and add strength to character.
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