The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-10-08
THE SIXTH BLESSING
ABLE SERMON BY REV. STEWART
 MCQUEEN.
Exemn publication of the Benencent Ef- feet of Purity of Heart and it's
 Reward.


 Rev. Stewart Mcqueen, rector of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Com forter, preached an able and interest ing sermon yesterday morning on the sixth blessing, the promise to the pure in heart.
 The text of Mir Mcqueen was se- lected from St. Matthew v:S: Blessed are the pure in heart, Tor they shall see God"
 Sermon on the Mount" said MT. Mo- Queen, 'our Lord gives us His sixth blessing to the Christian life. You observe, it is not based upon mere outward virtue. The world is satis- fled with that. But not so Christ, He goes far deeper The purity He de- mands is not purity of conduct only. but purity of heart. In a word, we must be pure in thought and feeling. If we are to receive His blessing. While we fully realize how extreme ly difficult 1t is to have such purity. yet we know we should have 1t. More- over, we hunger and thirst for it. how ever much we may lack It. And we confess to ourselves, though we may appear altogether self-satisfied to others. and bear bold front to the world. that we are anything but really pure.
 True, we may be moral. but moral- ity is by no means necessarily the same as purity. We may be moral without being pure. though we can- not be pure without being moral.
 The attractive force of purity bears down upon us all through life. unless. indeed, we are utterly given over to vice. We long to make purity our very own. We yearn to weave 1t in- to the deepest recesses of our being. To do SO we need first to realize what purity itself is. To this end we must rcognize and appreciate the two ele- ments necessary to purity. One Is divine. the other is human. Looking at 1t from the divine side, we cannot fail to see that purity Is the most precious gift of God. His supreme desire and purpose Is to make us pure, and He bestows purity even up- on our sinful nature. For we are born pure you know. There is the purity of childhood. We call it innocence. Christ tells us. you remember. we must become as little children before we can enter into the Kingdom or Heaven. This is the standard He gives us Certainly we cannot suppose He would fix an impure standard for Ills followers. Through Gods grace we childhood, and through Gods grace we regain it If lost. The enemies which so continuously assail our purity and seek to bring us under fhei- own vile bondage, can be driven out of our hearts by the aid of the Holy Spirit alone.
 Now, while our Heavenly Father. of His bounteous mercy, provides means for attaining purity. let us be careful lest we overlook the fact We must use those means. This is an obligation and dire necessity resting upon us from which there Is no pos sible exemption All through life there are countless influences from countless sources, which tend to im- purity. We should not yield to them without even struggle. as we are so often tempted to do. They must be resisted with all our might. They must be grappled with and strangled at the outset. Our only hope for vic- tory lies in this. It is hard, yes, tre- mendously hard For 1t means cruci- fixion. And crucifixion is no light and easy thing. It is moro than self-de nial. difficult as that is It calls TOT real and genuine suffering amid se- were and incessant trials. It involves keen sorrow and the bitte. bangs of repentance In a word, 1t means g never ceasing battle for amendment of life which is so grim and torturins to our spirits. And 1t is battle which is not confined to outward things. Far from it, for 1t has its field of operation in the inner man also.
 The secret springs of the soul must be cleaned! Nay. more. there must be in us an utter abhorrence of impur. ity in all its forms We must loathe and hate 1t az thing abnormal and unnatural to us who are Gods children love for the beautiful is one of the many helps to this end. I do not mean love for material and artistic beauty