Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1906-1908, 1906-09-21
ORTHODOXY.
By Henry F. Cope.

By Henry F. Cope.
Except We be converted and become
as little children, We shall not enter
into the kingdom of heaven. Matt.
Xviii, 8.
Nowhere do the regulators abound
more than in religion. Ecclesiasticism
seems to breed the worm of criticism.
When religion becomes only profes-
sion its followers feel their first duty
to be the discovery of abnormaIities in
others of their craft. Those to whom
religion means certain formal state
ments generally are convinced that, if
the church should be reduced to those
who absolutely were orthodox, there
would be but one member, and they
know who that would be.
The narrow heart always feels call
ed upon to gauge the things that are in
finite. 1t is the shrift of laziness to set
I'D mechanical standards for things
that are moral and spiritual. The caste
spirit that cannot base itself on blood
or breeding proceeds to create its little
CLIQUE on lines of belief or ceremoni-
ais.
He is his disciple who learns of him,
who takes the child's attitude toward
this new life He is not a philosopher
who carefully would set out logical
statement of what this way of life
means he is not a mechanicwho would
set up enginery by which its purposes
should be accomplished; he is a child,
learning, living approximately to its
ideals unconsciously.
The essential thing about the child
is that he is growing, developing,
Things with him are not set, determin-
ed, formal There only Is one thing
that always is the same about the
child; that is the trend of his life, its
upward, outward, enlarging movement
A child lives not by rules but by I'M
conscious forces, not by efforts at GER
tain results but by the OUTLYING of the
life within Vitality is the chief vir-
tue; the others take care of themselves
because he is too busy growing even to
think of the vices that are but forms Of
death
So is the life of the true child of the
most High. 1t is marked only by one
steady, unvarying characteristic, its
general trend toward larger life and
into the Fathers likeness. No certain
set of features prevails here, no set cut
of garments, no undertaking routine of
conduct and formal acts, no forms of
| p1,f thvo,1rh +hair r,1oy nd
! their tears, their schooling and their
toll, the children grow into larger life.
Christianity is a trend rather than a
/ type. 1t is the life that goes toward
the things infinite, wholly good and
true; it's ideals move higher as the ages
go by. Life enlarges before its chill
dren. 1t comes back to God. It is a
life, not a philosophy; ifeeternal and
therefore amending in its development.
This, then, is the only possible test of
my religion, a vital test, a deep test 3:
am I growing? am 1 moving toward
larger life? are my sympathies broad
er, finer? compositions deeper? knowl-
edge and humility, power and pity
growing side by side?
Gone are the days when a man could
reach his ideal in a single moment ;
when he was saved in Il second to stay
at that point. To stand still IS to die,
even though one be standing on amount
Of TRANSPORTATION. Alas for the still
born Christians in the world Gone the
old ideal of a type to which one might
by niceties and oddities of speech. garb
and custom speedily conform. \ life is
not made thus mechanically.
Religion is larger and deeper than
that, it is the learning of life's great,
unsearchable lesson as Il child by living
is learning the laws of life The larger
the life in all the things that are noble,
sweet, and benefcent the more truly is
it religious, and only as it ever, unceas-
ingly moves toward higher things is it
religious at all. Begin to learn to live.
take a child's place before the great
Master. and you shall find the way of
life. Not by their buttons or their
badges shall men enter the kingdom,
but by their being and becoming like
the best