Charlevoix county herald., 1904-05-28
The Lusts of other Things.

Are men as bad as the theologian
and the preacher make them out to
be? Not in the uniform and technical
way in which they are called bad, but
by the side of the standards OF the
Gospel and by the measure OF their
own awakened conscience they are
as bad, as far from good, as any
preaching puts them. Everyday Lille
is constantly choking out the spiritual
nature.
What does it matter if a mans
spiritual nature is being choked? He
is honest, good to his family, a re-
spectacle citizen. He has other
things in hand; what matter that he
loses his religious life? Let his neigh
bors all initiate him. Let genera
ton grow up without any of the re-
ligion which he had in his youth. Let
there be among men only material in
terests, without any spiritual ideals
behind them. Weeds are ready to
grow in every garden. A Goddess,
Christless, churchless world would be
a world of beasts, though they were
twentieth century beasts, educated,
refined, ingenious. A material mas
terry, gained at the expense of spiri-
tual earnestness, would turn it's in
genuity to devising the quickest end
ing for life. The loss of spiritual
equality from human life is the loss
in the long run of humanity's one
reason for being.
The lusts OF other things put that
spiritual quality most in peril. These
"other things" that men desire. lust
even necessary for the lower ranges
of human life. They are allowed to
become absorbing. They use up all
the vitality of the man; he has moth
ing to spare for the higher. The
peril to religion, the loss from church
worship and church conservation are
due not so much to hardness of heart,
to vicious living, as to materia, pre-
occupation.
What, in the large. are these 10Th
er things" that choke out religion?
There is, first, ones occupation, that
which it is ones business to do in the
world. The seed of religion once
sown and rooted, we go to our work,
the school, the home, the store. To
that q man owes his best. Yet all
material work should be from a rec
ognized spiritual background. Bread
is earned, the house is ordered, the
lesson is mastered not merely to sat
isfy the craving of appetite, to enjoy
ones ease, to know one more lam
guage and die. An ideal vision turks
within all such material activity, even
in the grossest nature. of service to
the world, of bringing in the kingdom,
CT ripening on to the divine. All
work, in the profession, the home, the
study, gets at once inspiration and
value from the spiritual purpose in
the life Of man. To choke the spiri-
tual nature with material occupation
is as the sin Of the glutton who de-
stroys the body with the body's own
sustenance.
Comprehensive are a second lust
of other things that choke religion.
Companionship is as essential to a
man as work. 1t may debase or it
may ennoble him. We make 1t our
first concern to secure for our chill
dren companions we can trust. We
leave the spiritual light in our own
matured lives to be dimmed in the
attractive company of the careless,
the cynical and the irreligious.
1t is not the openly defiant trans
gressors of law that occasion CUES
tioning anxiety in the hearts of re-
ligious people to-day. 1t is rather
those who, with good seed sown and
taking promising start, are failing
to bear fruit because of the lusts of
other things. If the well-born and
privileged sons and daughters of the
church are irreligious, where can we
look for the church's support? Are
we letting "other things" use up the
spiritual capacity in cur lives, and SO
for ourselves and our fell
lows the purpose and the beauty of
Z. Nichols.