The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-05-30
CONSTANT SEARCH FOR NEW
FEVERISH AND UNNATURAL
Rev. 0. D. Odell Says Men Should
Go Back to Eternal SanitieS
Now Ignored.
THE SIMPLE LIFE is BEST

An appeal for the simple life which all
the prophets and great teachers held up to
men as the solution of right living was
made by the Rev. Owen Davies Odell in his
sermon at the Second Presbyterian Church
yesterday morning. The ever new char
acter of old truths was emphasized, and
the feversh unrest of life as it is to-day
was condemned. The speaker said in part;
"A modern critic has given to US really
Christening appreciation of Savonaroa, the
noble FIorintine preacher and reformer'
who in that far off century brought about
a true reformation, yet fell a martyr 10 a
bloody reaction. Among other things he
says: 'Savonarola was more profound than
many a modern moralist. He saw that the
actual crimes not the only evils. He
made war against Goddess and thankiess
quiescence. against getting used to happi-
ness. The civilization which surrounded
Savonarola on every side was one which
had already taken the wrong turn. the
turn that leads 70 endless inventions and
no discoveries In which things grow old
with confounding rapidity and in which
no old things ever grow new
1--WE, too, need TO listen to this prophetic
voice as it echoes down the corridors of
time calling us back to the eternal sim
plicties and sanities which we have
learned to ignore. The Athenians spent
their time in nothing else but to tell and
to hear some new thing, and no doubt the
day came when they spent their time say
ing and hearing that there was no new
thing.
Everywhere we see the signs OF an
overdone civilization. in that restless crav
ing for the new, the sensational the ap-
paling. 1t does not take long TO satiate
and sink such a mind. The mind that
strains for ever-brightening effects will
soon become dissatisfied with even light
ning-streaked and thunder-riveD results.
Novelty after all is ephemeral and, as
Wagner says, in that sane and beautiful
book the Simple Life Nothing endures
who is able TO reclaim himself, who finds
the way back TO simplicity
According to the Master, who is even
now the master of all true joy, the man
who is instructed in the kingdom of heaven
bringeth out OF the treasure house things
new and old. The meaning is that he
brings out things that are, at once, both
old and new. There is no necessary an
taeoniSm between what is old and what is
new. There are many things born in the
far-on yesterdays which never lose their
freshness and fertility. The world is
very old TO us, and the scientists never
seem able to make it old enough. 1t is
so old they lose count. But when walk
amongst the trees, and catch the fragrance
of the early flowers and drink in the wine
of the air of the spring days, inn
pressed with the youthfulneSs, the newneSs,
the wealth of resource of this old world
And the best things in life the things
which are increasingly and perpetudlly
both old and new The Bible is an old
book, hoary and hallowed by age. There
are not many books quite as old and there
is no book quite as new as the Bible. 1t
is the newest book. Old like the sun, yet
new as the sunlight The still waters and
the green pastures of the twenty third
days of the Hebrew shepherd-singer The
best evidence of the inspiration of the
Bible is in the lives it never ceases to in
spre. and with an inspiration that is un-
approachable
I'VE tire of many books and sometimes
or all books, but we return to this Book
and find 1t to be new and old with perennial
| truth. The gospel of Christ, the good news
| of Gods unresting, far-rea ching love, is
| old. 1t is as old as the SIN il came to cure.
| Our fathers talked of the council chamber
| of eternity, where God announced His
purpose in sending forth the Son of His
Love. 1t is suggestive phrase, suggestive
OF an old and tried gospel. We cannot
| think of a really modern gospel. The one
we preach, to be of God, must be as old as
| humanity nay, as old and as new as the
love OF God. We are not ashamed of the
history of the gospel. We may be ashamed
| of some things done in its name but with
| out its lofty and lovely sanctions. 1t is a
Detter ana WOrtnler gOSpel TO us because
| II comes to us laden with the innumerable
| lives IL has sweetened. hoary with the I'M
counted souls ii has saved.
| THE environs of religion may be inse-
| cure, but we have this for a strong city:
God so loved the world that He gave His
| only begotten Son. Many hymns have
J been revised, but one remains touched with
eternal poetry: Rock of Ages, cleft for
| ME, Let me hide myself in Thee And the
| true Christian knows something of the
undecaying vitality which belongs to tina {
which is old, yet ever new. We are not
| bold enough in our thinking concerning
| spiritual realities. Christ lives When He
comes to our aid He brings the ages with
| Him. When He comes He gives everlast-
| ing life, He gives perpetual youth Have
! you never seen the Christ spirit conouering
/ the narrowing works of age, changing the
| time which might be given over quite nat
| urally to loneliness, enlightenment and de-
| spair into time of mellowness beauty
and hopefulness. 1t is Christ's divine
youth defying mans old age.
The gospel is the only true elixir of life
| Let us turn from the merely man-made
| ways OF satisfaction TO the eternal verities
| to the ageless culture and the ageless
| cross, to the ageless Christ, the never
fading. never-decaying light and life OF
| men,