Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1906-02-02
ESSENCE OF REAL RELIGION.
By Rev. Henry F. Con,

What doth the Lord require of thee
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
Micah Wis.
There must be some good reason for
the fact that many men feel chagrined
If they are charged with being re-
ligiOus. Often these men possess the
keenest sense of right and make the
strongest insstence on reality. The
truth is that they object to the unreal
ity of that which they have learned to
call religion; often their protests
against spurious types of religion are
but declarations of the true kind.
Every honest hearted man turns with
loathing from the cant, meanness and
selfishness that wear the guise of
piety. 1t has led the world to think
that religious man is the one who
goes to church, uses certain phrases,
and generally cuts the cloth of his life
to the pattern prescribed by the clergy.
Thus easily the good is made to serve
the bad
1t is a blessing that there always
have been men who repudiated that
kind of piety. But to the true man re-
ligion is simply the effort to find the
right life. He is most religious who
lives best. Faiths must be judged by
their fruits; mans religion and his
righteousness by his living That is
the best religion which best teaches
men to live. If any book beside the
bible can do more for us,
if any faith beside Christianity can
give the world a nObler life, let us
find and follow it,
To the question, what is religion? the
bible gives surprisingly simple an
broad principles; it lifts aloft noble
ideals and denounces baseness. 1t
brea thes of righteousness. that is, right
thoughts. words, deeds, relations. 1t is
the text book on the fine art of living.
All other thoughts and teachings but
serve this and have value only on ac-
count of their service
Every man is religious in proportion
as he seeks the right Every act is
holy, an act of worship, as it serves
the good and the true. You can no
more contne religion to a church than
you can imprison knowledge in
schoolroom. 1t belongs on the street,
In the home, the Office, the shop, wher-
ever men are seeking to do right and
make life right. Many man Is re-
ligious who would resent the imputa-
ton of piety.
Right seeking and right doing in JUS
tice and mercy-these make the life of
righteousness. There never has been
and there never will be any real diff
ference of opinion as to these virtues.
He who is ashamed of them has no
place amongst men; he who neither
seeks them nor endeavors to realize
them is not religious, no matter what
his professions and protestations may
be. And the man who seeks them with
all his heart is religious whatever he
or others may think.
The time will come when we shall
brand as heretical and impious every
mOckery in forms and words and pro-
scriptions that has so long paraded
as the true and only expression of god
lineSS Then the test of a mans re-
ligion will be the measure in which
his life makes for justice, mercy, and
humility. Then, instead of asking,
What does ecclesiastical etiquette re-
quire me to do? we shall inquire, What
is right, nobest, best for man in a
world of men?
This makes the religious man, then,
that he seeks the life that deals justly,
that walks uprightly, that loves mercy,
that does good and serves and blesses
men, that seeks not high things for re-
ward but seeks them in character. This
makes the religious man whether he be
in sympathy with existing religious in
stitutions or not; these virtues have no
substitutes. neither names, ceremonies.
nor creeds can take their place.
But when once the life has entered
on the passionate search for rightness,
when once the love Of justice, mercy,
and humility has laid hold on u.s. there
will be little time or energy to give
to foolish problems Of angels or his
tory, there will be no care whether
men think we are religious or not.
We shall come to see that our desire in
living is the desire of the Lord of all
life, that our goal is a divine and glo-
rlous one and nothing will turn us
from it. Above all will be a sense of
harmony with the Infinite, too deep
for words too sacred for expression.
By Rev. DR.. G. Ellis Stevens.
So run that We may obtain.-I. Corin-
thans ix:24.