Los Angeles herald., 1909-02-08
SPEAKS ON GLORY OF
LIES COMMON ACTS
DR.. LOCKE POINTS NEED OF
CHARACTER BUILDING
Great Opportunities Should Not Be
AWaited-Do Well the Ordinary
Duties as They Come
Along

DR.. Charles Edward Locke preached
yesterday at the First Methodist Epis
copal church to an audience that
crowded the edifice on 1.-THE Glorifica-
ton of Life's Common Things" His
text was: What is this that is come
unto the son of Kish?"-I Samuel,
1911. DR.. Locke said in part:
1.-THE only human prophet which con-
tinues to live in succeeding generations
is character. Colossal architecture
crumbles, but character hardens with
age Athens and Rome and Jerusalem
are in ruins, but Pericles and Cicero
and Solomon remain. Character tends
toward fiXedness. Character does not
grow old; Moses is as familiar as
Blackstone, Joshua as Wellington, De-
borah as Queen Victoria, Homer as
Dante, Ulysses as Bacon and Saul as
Edward the Eighth.
Saul seeking his fathers stray asses
found a kingdom. The pathway of duty
is the direct route to princeliness.
Character is doing uncommonly we'll
the common things of life. That which
makes the mothers character so divine
is that there is no task too loWly for
her dear, patient hands. There is some
drudgery on the way to a scepter. Car
lyle defines genius as an immense ca
pacity for taking trouble. If you would
used to say, you must go where no one
else will go, and do what no one else
will do. Ruskin found hidden jewels
in the mud of London streets. So in
life's humble tasks the most precious
treasures lie.
Call for Those Who Do
"God calls the people who can do
things. His work must be done by
the workers, not by the idlers Or the
leisure class. Napoleon insisted that,
though there were eighteen million
people in Italy, he had with difficulty
found three men.
"Saul, the son of Kish. was obedient
to the irksome task of finding the herd
of stray asses, and God gave him his
vision and a. new heart.
Lincoln got his vision when he was
faithfully discharging his duty as Il
deckhand on a Mississippi river fiat
boat. We must not wait for great op-
portunities. IF the prophet had bid
thee do some great thing, wouldst thou
not have done it% said a thoughtful
servant TO the enraged Naaman.
Whoever does the right thing at the
right time is hero. Saul, anOinted
to the throne of Israel, came from an
effort to do well the right thing. To
do uncOmmOnly we'll the common
God 'heartened' Saul A masterpiece
is the master expressing himself in the
marble or on the breathing canvas. So
character is God investing and ex-
pressing himself in man. When Cod
heartens a man he becomes a new
creature and hurries with the momen-
tum of victory to- his great work A
strong, beautiful and useful life is God
working in a life and looking out
through the windows of the soul in
which he is an invited guest.
A man now living in our city beau
tiful was a soldier boy in the great
Civil war Being seized with a fever
he was sent to a hospital tent When
he opened his eyes he found he was
lying under a beautiful quilt which
had been made by his own mothers
loving hands, and had been given by
her to the sanitary commission when
an appeal was made for comfortable
bed clothing for the sick and wounded
soldiers. The soldier boy recognized the
covering because he had slept beneath
it in his own northern home Thus
are life's common tasks glorified by
generous blessings to others, and in
variably service to others ministers 10
our own souls growth and comfort. -