The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-10-30

Los Angeles, Cal, October 29.-To give
eongratulation to the successful and SYM
pathy with tie sorrowing and the dis
tressed is urged y the preacher in this
sermon. The text IS Romans xii, 10. Re
joise with them that do rejoice, and weep
with them nat weep"
Perpetual segregation. isolation separ-
alton. seclusion, voluntary exile, were
considered by many of the ancients as
necessary adjuncts to the attainment of
the highest earthly development of Chris
tiah perfection. Because Christ tasted
and prayed in the wilderness for forty
long days many disciples of old believed
that to be lie Christ they must con-
tinually 1--we in a wilderness wear sack
cloth and ashes and do nothing but pray
and starve and starve and pray. They
tried to walk with God. to be like Enoch,
by refusing to walk with their fellow
men. They tried to live with Christ by
sleeping on stone touches and SILVER
ing in damp cells and clothing themselves
in coarse woolens, by trampling through
SHOWS with naked feet and by mumbing
daily prayers with sepulchral counten-
ances, while they refused to smile an en-
coura cement to the little children playing
In the street or to help carry a heavy
pack under which a poor. tired peasant
was stagger ng on his way to town;
hence the monasteries and the nunneries
and the eloisters and the abbeys and the
prlories, which are only a few of the
,Lany names given to the ancient build
ings within which the monks and nuns
immured themselves for separation from
sinful men, CT whom they did not wish
to be a part. But away back in the time
of creation God said, 1T is not good for
man to be alone" And what God spake
to Adam, our first ancestor, God is
speaking to us now.
Not Good to Be Alone.
mot good for man to be alone" Yes,
we know it. We know it in spite of the
fact that the cloister has segregated some
good men from contact with the busy
was good man. Within the gloomy
walls of the Augustinian convent of
Zwelle, in the dark recesses of an as
cetic's cell, he wrote the wonderful pages
of DE Imitatione Christi" But, though
his book is a wonderful guide to Christ
ly life, Thomas a Kempis' cell is a poor
place in which a modern Christian could
practice the gospel truth. By all odds the
best place to translate the teachings OF
Thomas a Kempis is not in an ascetic's
cell, but in Gods sweet. pure, golden
sunlight, among just such rough. horny
handed men as the fishermen with whom
Jesus Christ associated.
San Marco convent of Florence Is a
poor nursery for spiritual life. There
Fra Angelica has drawn the students or
art to come and study his figures of
Christ which he painted upon the cold
walls nearly GOO years ago. But the best
place to be a modern Fra Angelica and
to paint Christ in the hearts of living
men is to 10 as Paul did on his mission
airy tours 1t is to do as Christ did when
talking to men. 1t is to do as your moth
er and father did in the parental SYM
patty of a Christian home. 1t is to do as
we ourselves can do by being Christ's dis
ciples and rejoicing with other people in
their true JOYS and worshIing with
them in their true sorrows.
My text teaches the same kind of a
consecrated active existence as did
brother minister who lived a few years
ago in a great Chicago center. I speak
thus about him because he is now far
across the seas, working as a mission
airy in foreign fields. After the Rev.
George William Wright had been for
some months in the Philippines the super
intendent of his old Sabbath school Of
Bethlehem church was trying to draw
a verbal picture of Jesus Christ. The
only being he had in mind at the time
was our Saviour. During his talk the
superintendent practically said these
words: Children, who am l now talk
ing about? Who has always been will
ing to join with you in your fun and be
happy with you when you had right to
be happy? Who has always been friend,
loving, corgiving friend, when you
have done wrong? Who has for years
gone in and out among us as gentle,
kind example-one who never did wrong.
who never spoke harshly against any one.
who was always ready to lead us and to
love SPIEL me, children, who is hep
With mighty chorus the little children
began to call: 81 know sir. I know. 1t
is Mr. Wright 1t is our old pastor, Mr..
Wright" That encomium of these little
Sunday school children is the best Illus
tration l know of what my text means.
Value of Christian Sympathy.
Christian sympathy is necessary gos-
pei attribute, in the first place because
no human power on earth does so much
to make good man or even bad man
try to live better as to know that other
lives are wrapped up in his life. Sym