Willmar tribune., 1908-07-22
.sBLESSED TO BE
A BLESSING >
Sermon Delivered By Rev C. Buell. Pastor the First Presby
teran Church Of Wlmar, Before The Christian Endeavor
Union State Convention Last Sunday Morning.

vention Of young people like this
a hundred years, yes, even fifty
years ago?
Who ever heard at that time of
great Convention like that in Sc
attic in 1907 which many of you
were privileged to attend, Con-
vention that enthused and inspired
and uplifted and as by the very
breath of God? Who ever heard,
until within the last few decades,
Of young people taking a leading
part in all kinds of good work, in
mission work, in Christian citizen
ship work, in social settlement
work, in all the varied activities of
the Church and Sabbath School and
Endeavor Society?
There was time when there
seemed very little in the Church
life that really appealed to those
who were young in years. There
was, of course, the Sabbath School
where young people were to learn
but not teach, and the Prayer Meet
ing where young people were to be
seen and not heard, and the Cate
chetical Class where young people
were indoctrinated in the creed Of
the Church, but who will say that
these things, as they were conduct
ed then, appealed to the young
heart even tho it was possessed of
a religious yearning?
But now all has changed. The
religious life of our churches has
been adapted to meet the young
peoples temperament. Young peo-
pie are found in the ranks of the
Sabbath School teaching force.
Young people are given right of
way in the church prayer meeting.
Young people have the society of
Endeavor which they can call pecu-
liarly their own. Young men are
chosen as deacons and elders and
trustees in our churches, and young
women have their sewing circles
and their mission bands.
1t is marvellous, the change that
has taken place with reference to
the added opportunities that the
closing years of the nineteenth CEN
tury and the beginning years Of the
goth century have brought to the
young people Of this and other
lands. We have certainly been
blessed, as young people, and we
can change the tense of the ancient
promise, making it read: II have
blessed thee"
That young man or that young
woman who does not realize that
Gods abundant blessing has rested
upon his life, and that his privi-
leges and opportunities have been
such as should call forth grateful
praise to their Author certainly has
an unresponsive and a calloused
heart.
Let one purpose of this Conven-
tion be to count our blessings as
young people living in the greatest
and best century that the world has
ever seen. Let US realize that
"We are living, we are dwelling
In grand and awful time,
In an age on ages telling,
To be living is sublime.
But there is another part of this
message. God did not stop with
Abraham when He said: 81 will
bless thee" And He does not stop
there with US. He adds: "Be
thou a blessing."
Why does He add that command?
Because He knows that that life is
a failure which is always taking
blessings in without giving bless
ings out. God does not want US to
be sponges. He wants us to be
channels. He wants to bestow
blessings upon us, not to consume
upon ourselves but to communicate
to others.
What we are is determined not
by what we take in but in what we
give out.
We say, as we look upon an ob-
ject: How beautiful it's color !
And what is it's color? Its color,
it's beauty, is that which is given
out, that which is reflected of the
solar spectrum. A thing is golden
when it keeps to itself all the green
rays and gives out the yellow rays.
A thing is white which reflects all
the rays and keeps none. A thing
is black which absorbs all of the
light rays and gives forth none.
So a man is seen and known not
by what he receives and keeps, but
by what he receives and gives.
Measure thy life by loss instead
of gain,
Not by wine drunk but by wine
poured forth: