The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-03-13
ON CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY.
REV. MR. PERRY BREACHES
 TIMELY SERMON

Some People Look at City us Place of
 Opportunity for Fame, Money or
 PIeasure-Others Look at it as Giv-
 ing Chance for Church WOrk-The
 That They May Find it in Interests
 Around Them.
 At St. Paul's church Sunday morning the rector, Rev. James De Wolf Perry, Jr., preached on the Civic Responsibili- ty of Citizenship before a large congre- gation. He said in part:
 Matthew, 11:20-There began He to upbraid the cities wherein most of His mighty work were done because they repented not.
 On this second Sunday of Lent we turn our attention from the repentance of soul to the repentance of city. It is not accidental but in keeping with the great commission of the church. that this season turns so quickly from the thought of self discipline to civic responsibility. We shall altogether miss the real significance of Christ's in- fluence in the world until we have ap- preciated the capacity in civic life for spiritual character. Entirely aside from the utterances of her churches and beneath the spiritual attainments reached by her best men, there is in every city a certain indefnable though unmistakaIble religious quality which gives her a marked personality.
 Christianity may make us either good individuals or good citizens. There are plenty of men of high Christian princi- pie whose homes are beautiful in puri ty, whose lives are free from all dis honor and defilement, yet from whom the city gets no moral help nor infu- | ence. They have never lost their life that they may find it in the larger in terests around them. They have not learned to find their happiness in the welfare of the city, their delight in her | beauty nor their glory in her untar- nished character. How can a Christian man of clean mind and fine feeling go through his city's streets and see, with out any feeling of protest and indigna- tion, the shameless evidences of inde- cency and impurity exposed as in open defiance of Gods law if not of statute I law, unless he lacks the first instincts of true citizenship? How can he watch the work of poverty and vice and ignorance sowing the seeds of the slum broadcast through certain DOT tions of the city and not care unless he care not for the fate of Chrlst's reli zion? I am sure that more harm is done the city by the indifference of one man of cultivation and position thar by thousand who are working tc support evil influences. When he has given them his silent sanction they be come his secret agents.
 As never in the past new ideal hal possessed the Christian church to-day a purpose forced upon us by hard, un- welcome facts in industrial and social life. The salvation of the city is a task that will put Christian principles and institutions to q final test. The churcl will gain the city for Christ only wheI she finds the city in the hearts o Christian men and women.
 In certain minds the city would bt nothing but means to personal ambi tion, an opportunity for wealth, fam' or position. Tn others it would seem tt be a convenient field of pleasure ant amusement, with never a thought 0 the influences which may result Among a few, a growing few We ma! hope, we should find a love of the cit, because of its opportunities for Chris tian service in the street, the tenement the church. But there are some, on such has passed this week from his la bors for the city, who present a stfl loftier ideal than this last. They ar those to whom the city's life and the own life are completely welded Tn, city lives in them and they in her In their work the city finds her frees exercise. Their moral force makes u the very fibre of the city's character In their gifts the city's heart leap forth in generous love, and when the.
 worship the city bows her head i prayer. These are the saviors of city.