The Newtown bee., 1904-01-15

It is always serious question as to how much it IS best for us to help one another to bear any of the necessary burdens of life, whether they are ma terial burdens, or moral; temporal, or spiritual; personal or social. It is of- ten hard to decide whether we may not work more harm than good in our zeal to do for others, even what we feel or think we should like to have others do for us.
 The law of Christ is that we should love one another as He loves us. But the question is how did Christ love men? What did He mean? What was his example? How does the Lord love us? What is He doing for us? That He does all that He can that is best for us we cannot doubt. But even God cannot do for us that which we must do for ourselves. Christ as- sures us of the love of the Almighty; but he cannot love God for us. He vindicates the righteousness of the Father; but He cannot be righteous for us, against our wills. He has taught us the way of the eternal life, and He is the way, the truth, and the life to us; but He does not, and can = not, morally speaking, force us to fol- low him.
 Indeed there can be no spiritual life except6y our own freedom of choice. He has provided the way of salvation for all men, but all men have the lib- erty to refuse to go in that way. We must believe, hope, and love with our own hearts, and no one can do it for us. We are sure of forgiveness if we repent: but one cannot repent for his neighbor however glad he would be to do it. The Lord helps us to help our. selves, and that is all that the Father Almighty can do for us. He has given us the opportunity, and supplied every means of grace to convince and per- suade us to love Him and to do His
 us to do it.
 And this, it seems to me, must be our rule in the church in all that we may endeavor to do for others, in the name of Christ. We must do by others as He did, and does. We should help others to help themselves. We should try to give them the opportunity they need to lay hold on eternal life. If any are weak, unfortunate, ignorant of their own best good, tempted, fallen, we should do our best to help them to bear the burdens which are too heavy for them, and lift them up. But we must not carry them; we cannot carry them in any moral or | spiritual sense, "For'' as St Paul says leach man shall bear his own burden" What is it the Lord wants of us above all else? Is it not that we should have the divine life of the spirit in ourselves, and strength of character to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil? The promises of the life to come are all conditioned on our capaci- ty and power to overcome evil with good. Tbere is no promise of anything good to those who are overcome of. evil. The course of this present world is so ordered in everything, temporal andO spiritual, that we must fight the good flight of faith and strive with all our might to win the victory of life over death.
 It is best for us then, that so far as possible we should bear our own bur- dens. There is no other way in which to become strong in the Lord, and in the power of His Spirit. So sure as some one does for us that which we can and ought to do for ourselves :it is bad for us, because it robs us of the motive and the means of our own strength and usefulness. And this is just as true in religion as in social science. The weakest, most depend ent characters in the world are always those who have never been allowed to go alone, on their own responsibility, but have, at every step, been led, guided, and braced up. They have