The Newtown bee., 1906-05-04
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THE HOME CIRCLE.
 TRUTH RESTATED. A SERMON BY REV G. L. FORTE.

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 weigh its many issues, to relate then
 moro than appears on the surface, more
 than name implies. Must we say agair
 and again that religion includes nor
 als, morals politics, lpolitics business
 and business society? There can be
 no drawing of hard and fast lines, any. where. Things overlap. Simplicity is result or product of complexity, and cOmplexity often comes from sim. plicity. A vague and undefined desire may lead to habits uncomfortable, an act apparently insignificant may result of civilizations. A nation makes men, science has repudiated phrenology. No longer do we believe that there are bumps of reverence, combativeness, self esteem, ideality; the whole think ing mind thinks, desires, wills; the whole rational self is involved in every process, large or small.
 In the same way man lives EVER Y day his religion and brings to church Sunday morning his politics, his busi- ness methods, to be affected in his worship by all his habits good or bad, by his ideals, high or low. In the same way all that IS in the world acts and is reacted upon by every other influence cree, ,ali things work together for good, all things state the good. The history of the rocks and their formation, the history of the beginning and develop ment of the vegetable world, the law of natural selection among the animals which has killed of the weak and in- creased the strong, the law of ''sur- vivsl of the titteSt" among men-all these are Q proof of starting point and center, of an ideal, a purpose ex- pressed and re-expressed in all things animate and inanimate.
 THE BIBLE IS OUR BOOK OF AUTHORITY concerning the beginnings of Chris tianity, the beginning of Christianity. Christ, His life, His growth, His Binflu- ence. Once the Gospels proved, we have a starting point, dispensation begun, but we cannot stay au the year ONE, we cannot stay at the resurrec. tion, nor at the formation of the first Christian church, as seen in the second chapter of Acts. The whole universe of life and tendency invites! Now that we have the hint we see every. where Gods greatest book, the UNI VERSE, we read in 1t everywhere Gods greatest truths restated. Along side the Bible we may now place every phase of fact and life. The history of law, order, development; the philoso. phy of events and experience proves the Bible authentic, and the Bible proves real our existence. The essen- tial truths of origin in the Bible, that which Is revelation, is indeed from above, for 1t is of the same category with what the mind accepts as axiom. The instinctive convictions of our souls are indeed not without founda- ton for they are according to revela- tion which, though peculiar and mys- terious, is nevertheless PERSONA BILE, LOGICAL, REAL! In fact preaching again in full all the princi- ples first enunciated by Christianity. In all kinds of literature, good, bad and indifferent, we are reading the "ten commandments" the "Beati- tudes, ""the Sermon on the Mount" In all phases of life, public and private, the history of nations, in the records of towns, in the biographies of histor- ical men, in magazine and paper we read again all the ethical teachings of the first great teacher.
 Our newspapers are full every morn- ing and evening of news of accident, death, crime, arrest. They bring us concrete examples of SIN and its re- wards, proof that eternal things are real. Over and again do we read in our papers that the "way of the trans gressor is hard," that the "way of the righteous shall prosper.", The follies Of vice, ignorance, intemperance, av- arice, self-deception are heralded abroad by YELLOW journals as we'll as by sheets pink and white tint ed. News and editorial come from the hand of worldly men yet these men, no matter how lax their own lives, make comment and pass judg. ment according to the highest princi- ples. No matter how flippant the ar- ticle, no matter how coarse the treat ment, the truth is there and everyone came a hero to every boy living in the heroic age, yet every boy old enough to REASON read also of his miserable death in g cornfeld-shot down a criminal! Two or three days of law lessness in exchange for life! A Boston messenger boy ran away with S75,OOO four years ago that appealed to many and was an in- centive to crime, but five days after wards we read of his capture. Unable to sleep or to get moments relapse from the haunting fears, from misery of mind and body, he gladly gave him. self up to the police, ready to take the penalty of his crime.
 THE THEATER TEACHES STILL MORE
 FORCIRLY the Ten Commandments and higher law based upon them. There, too, we may not only read-we see acted out before us life in all its phases. Ordi- nary experience moves slowly, On the stage we see, in two hours, several lives enacted and fulfilled. Always here, too, as in actual life, treachery Is outdone, sin is punished. As no