The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-25

me a short time ago. had been preaching in country village. After dinner two others and myself were in a barn talking over affairs of public interest and discussing the men and 1 policies Of the hour.
 Suddenly one of the gentlemen re- called the fact that it was Sunday and that I was clergyman, for he said: Perhaps we ought not to be talking | about such secular things to-day" l Whereupon I replied that we had been discussing questions of importance to mankind and that anything of value to men was sacred.
 My conception of Jesus is that he took the broad view of the world. I know full well that he attended to the formal aspects of religion. He prayed, he read the Scriptures, he attended the synagogue. But he took a broad view of history, reminding the Pharisees that the blessings of God were not for Jews alone but that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham"
 He was liberal toward the Scriptures and made such a broad application of the prophecy of Isaiah that he was forced to leave Nazareth.
 He was broad toward life and taught men to break the Sabbath to save a sheep. But nowhere do. we see the wide range of His vision better than in the words of the text, uttered first as they were by some ancient prophet in Israel, cited by the lawyer in the story told by Luke, and confirmed by Jesus as the method of gaining eternal life.
 If these words are to have any mean ing for modern life it seems to me 1t is simply this: Do not narrow your re- ligion down to any one phase of life. No one activity can claim a monopoly of your attention. You can serve God in variety of ways.
 Consider this commandment in its parts:
 First-"With all thy strength"
 We have so long thought of mans religious life as being concerned only With spiritually that 1t comes with a shock to us to be told that it is con cerned also with mhsoularity. Too long we have linked religion with the man with the book, the mitre and the keys, and too little with the man with the hoe, Too long we have overlooked the dignity and the value of mere labor. But glance at our civilization re- minds us that it is really fundamental. Trace our blessings back to their source and we see that they depend upon the free gifts of nature and the labor that men have expended upon these gifts. How would life be possible without the men who fell the. trees, who blow the fields, who reap the har- vest? Or how would civilization be pos sihle without the men who build the cities and construct the avenues of communication? Paul's preaching is not more religious than Paups tent making. Peter, the evangelist, Is not to overshadow Peter the fisherman
 There is an interesting picture pre- scented to us just now in France Right ly or wrongly 1 know not but at any rate the French government has turn ed the Roman Catholic clergy out up- on the mercies of the world That their spiritual and religious life has other roots than the formal and cere- monial alone Is seen in the fact that they are most heroically meeting the new situation. They have turned to farming, to business and to manufac- turing in great numbers, wonshippng for the time being not with prayer and praise but with muscle and strength.
 We are well acquainted with the fact that sometimes too much is claimed for labor. It is primal and fundamen- tai, no doubt but it is not all It must take it's place among many other activities that are also imporant, for note in the second place.
 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart"
 Who would care to live in 8 world of mere strength?