The Indianapolis journal., 1903-09-21
REAL men ARE TOO FEW
MIR. SMITH THINKS THERE Is MUCH
LACKING IN AMERICAN LIFE.
The Nation Is Only Half Way I'D the
Staircase of Civilization, He Says
Autumn Suggestions.

subject of the Rev j. Cumming Smith
at the Tabernacle yesterday morning. The
text, ''The harvest is past, the summer is
ended ana we are not saved" was particu-
larly appropriate. Mr.. Smith said:
I'VE have watched the struggling
with difficulty through rocks and sand
bars and narrow inlet to send its grand
tides rolling into the bay, and at best only
breaker waves were able to push In ana
were poor interpretations of the mighty
mountain rolls on oceans open expanses;
The thoughts of eternity may strive 10 nnu
some utterance, enough at least for the
practical purposes OF redemption, but be-
hind them all is the unutterable, the un-
Vocable. No language is versatile enough
to voice the wind of God, and no heart Is
capricious enough to follow or fathom the
submarine depths of the purposes OF love-
This verse from jeremiah has been con-
strued to prove the theory of probation
limited at death. This misses the scope
altogether. There can be no artificial
boundary lines in the spiritual world. no
chronology in the subtle history of souls
upward. Fancy a suitor taking out his
watch and saying to his sweetheart: AT
half-post nine exactly In the evening OF
statesman pointing to calendar and say
ing: In October, 1883, / experienced my
first thrill of patriotism
HUMAN PROBATION.
"The doctrine of human probation finds
its only foundation deep In the structure OF
our moral being. The probation of an
artist ceases when his soul is utterly i'm
pervious to the appeal of art, and the pro-
baton of a soul expires when the spiritual
sense is so benumbed as to be incapable
of response to God.
Another Interpretation, therefore, is
necessary. Autumn is not funereal sea-
son, it means the crowning time of the
year. Nature has completed once more
her busy circuit. The harvests are garn-
cred. The orchards are relieved of their
burden of fruit and when your eyes rest
on the Sombre scenerieS and the trees
seem steel the riied boughS shine
in the sun and the long streams roll like
lead by banks with brown leaves fringing
the edges, the prevailing idea is not
Sepulchral, but reStful. October means that
huge enterprise has been gloriously. con-
Summated and nature lies down for a we'll
earned repose.
$50 the prophet glances away from the
denuded woods and CLEANED fields TO survey
the spiritual developments of the race and
painful contrast oppresses his soul.
Progress lags. When ought to be in
October we are back in April. The velocity
OF natures operations is apparently a re-
bul<e to the hardness of spiritual adj
vancement. Plant rosebush and in few
months 1T reaches its flower Plant soul
and how slow-footed its march! How long
il takes to mature,
"The text. therefore, does not touch pro-
baton. 1t simply reveals one of the many
I pOllltS Oh divergence between pro-
cesses on the lower planes and His methods
on the higher levels. lower life always
and everywhere in the organic world OBJ
tains the summit of its possibility infinitely
faster than the higher forms of Sentient
life.
TwO-FOLD AT LEAST
Consider first that rose or a wheat
grain is very simple composite alongside
of a human being. We are two-fold at
least, bivalves, dualistic in our structure.
When man commences Christian he
bargains to obey God, obey his best in
stincts. But there is a lower nature that
refuses bit or. bride. Animalism within
him clamorously rises like a furious mob
and bombards the newly awakened con-
science and in mass meeting passes
motion after motion in protest against any
infringement of it's animal rights. So war
| is declared. The flesh must be mortified:
| a hundred crucifixions of the baser riotous
| elements must be enacted. Is il any WON
| der that men move up circuitousy and
hestatingly?
Would any sensible man launch out on
| the Christian career If he had an actual
| presence of the naked meaning of the Bit
| ter warfare, the self-renunciations, the
between the imperial commands of the new
| born life and the old-time carnal passions
| All, but they do not have vivid or ac-
curate forecast. They begin blindfolded.
| No preacher can picture to a man resolving
, to embark upon the religious voyage how
many storms may sink the ship. Besides,
blindness is partly means of grace and a
| factor of growth. We all blind when
we are born. No man is given any option
| as to whether he will hazard the struggle
| of life or remain i'm the miirky realms of
nothingness We come and we have no
choice We go on in the evolution with our
| eyes shut mostly and the future shrouded
| from our gaze. Life is half sight and half
| trust in the case of the most intelligent
class. We must take our chances. To sup
pose that a man forfeits his intelligence
| by commencing the Christian life without
financing IL and counting the costs is an
| absurdity contrary to the teachings of
| Jesus and of everyday common sense.
| Jesus told John and James when their
/ ambitious mother became a wineseller and
| spoke for lofty political places for her sons
| that if they chose to follow Him they must
/ not count on brilliant offices fat jobs
or any other beguiling hopes, but on a bap-
| tism of fire. Then the curtain dropped
| Jesus would not unveil the drama item
| ize any further They must remain ignorant
| of derails and develop confidence in God.
| Ignorance is secret of progress. The
| Christian life therefore proceeds laborious-
| ly because of the nature of the contest
| the mutinous self must be subdued, the
| blazing passions must be eXtinguished, the
| inbred cruelties must be throttled. Hence
| the graduaness of all moral elevation.
| THROE AND TRAVAIL.
| National life carries out the same sug-
| gestion of throe and travail. America is
| not civilized yet, or, at best only half civ
| ilized. Washington is semi -barbarous The
| fearful inhumanties that still remain like
| crouching tigers in the jungle around US
| the fierce riots, the savage rivalries full OF
| tooth and claw-the tyranny of the saloon
| these show that with all our glorious at.
| tainments we are still carrying the germs
| of our early brutaIisms. America is only
half way up the staircase. Look at the
/ tragic situation of our municipal matters
| Decent citizens pretend to be shocked al
| the carnival and outburst of unblushine
1 lawlessness and yet when they are asked
| to do a plain piece OF business in the shape
| of ejecting bad rulers they dodge the issue
and drag in the most irrelevant questions
4 of national politics. Such a course is as
illogical as men dragging White river fol
| lost bodies and forgetting their work in
| hot discussion about the gulf stream OIL
/ arctic currents. America is only half way
| up the staircase of civilization and super
| stition is still despotic over the most iIiimi.
| mated minds. Look, too, at the church,
| After these toiling centuries much of its
| aspiration is still below zero. Where are
| the magnificent Christians? Where the
| heroes grand in soul? To make a show OF
1 zeal we run To organizations. They are
! illimitable in number committee or
| statistics would need to sit up nights tc
4 count them. But beneath the frenzy ot
| conventions and the mosquitoes of hum
| ming committees there is very slow edu.
cation or real humanity upward toward
| God. Real men of God are scarce The
| law OF evolution is more rapid on the lower
/ levels of organic life than on the higher
| NATURES CELEBRITY.
THE voice OF jeremiah has a plaintive
| music as he refers To the picture of nature
| dispatching her business with such sharr
| economical celerity, and the Iounging