Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1907-06-06

All the world knows the history of this
devotee of the beautiful. His sensual,
filthy life bears forever the world
reprobation.
Men are so constituted that they may
respond to the beautiful and yet their
deeper nature remain untouched. The
beautiful in itself has no reality, it is
only form in which the true and the
good are to find manifestation. Beauty
sought for it's own sake does not
strengthen but enervates manhood. 1t
thrills man with the sensuous and
leads him through vice and sensuality
to degradation.
Without the moral ideal, the beautiful
has no real worth; it becomes the fasci-
nation Of the sensuous, which intoxi-
Gates, enervates and rains. The tropics
are beautiful, but the beauty of the
tropics is incompetent to create man.
hood qualified to lead new world.
The soul Of every true man meets the
insidious temptation of the sensuous
and pleasurable in the guise of the
beautiful, for this is the crucial temp
tation Of this age. If he would save
his manhood he must meet this tempta-
ton with the relentless moral idealism
Of Jesus, which demands that the beau
tiful and pleasurable shall be permeat-
ed, yea, TRANSPORTED by the moral real
ity as seen and lived in the personality
of Jesus Christ.
II.
1t is proper that an inventory be TAX
en- Of the resources of manhood.
l. How shall we estimate our man
hood? If the definition of manhood is
to find its compass within the sensuous
and the material, the question of Jesus,
"How much, then, is man better than
a sheep " would have to be answered
in favor of the sheep, for the sheep is
untroubled by the vain dreams of moral
responsibility and future retribution.
On the basis Of merely material def
milton Of human life, mans future will
be won by the gradual elimination of
intellect and conscience, which, being
no longer necessary to the performing
of the functions Of life, will be dis
pensed with, and the final goal of hu-
mainly will be universal idiocy.
Against such a conception of life we
most earnestly protest. We declare
that the mind is endowed with the eter-
nal principles of reason, existence,
cause and effect, in the use of which,
from time immemorial, the mind has
moulded material things into new crea-
lions; mind has been the creator of
matter, not matter the generative pow
err of mind.
The history of the world plainly
shows that in the terms of intellect
alone man is supreme. Intellectually
he is the master of all contingencies,
and can adapt himself to all conditions
so as to survive all catastrophes.
2. In the temptation of Jesus there is
revealed the moral wealth of manhood.
'Man shall not live by bread alone"
defines the reality of life to be not in
the satisfaction of material needs, but
in the answer of the human soul to the
NOR ideal. In this vision of the I'M
changing moral, men pass out of the
region of the temporal and changeable
into the immutable and universal and
become Indifferent to the appeals of
political prudence and demands of local
custom.
This vision of the moral means the
enduement of power. The moral ideal
of freedom for the negro given by
Abraham Lincoln to the defeated arm
les of the north turned them into VIC
tOrious hosts. In the realm of the NOR
al men experience the strength of ON
Impotence.
8. Jesus reveals that in our manhood
exist the potentialities of a world vic
tory. He enunciates this great truth in
eff a grain of wheat does not fall into
the ground and die it perishes. - The
of life is in dying. Jesus
knew that the universe rested on this
as an eternal fact. He lived in respon-
siye sympathy with this fact of all
facts. Therefore he was at peace with
the eternal forces that were shifting
and destroying the men whose lives
were unreal and artificial in the vain
effort to be self-centered in world
whose law is love. The man willing to
die in royal obedience to this law of
love becomes the conqueror of the
and it are at one.
The legend of Constantine, ''By this
sign conquer" comes not as a legend
but as a reality to every true life. The
cross is planted in the heart of the
world. If men plant it in their own
hearts, then they are at peace with the
great law of being, and all things be-
come theirs. If men reject the cross
they are at war with the great reality
that is behind and in all being, they
cease to be real, become artificial in the
vain effort to live self-centered lives in
a world whose very law smites and
brushes the self-centered lives of hui
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