New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1909-02-17
Sinful UnseIfishness.

$500
type of selfshness, writes Henry F..
Cope 10 one of his pointed sermons
for the readers Of the Chicago Tribune;
really it is the most refined and elu-
sive form OF self-love. In days not
altogether past it made a certain
caricature Of religion popular with
many It held up the pious ideal of
self-a bnegation and cultivated the
slothful pleasures of nonentity and
vacuity.
Many felt that they were pious be-
cause they purchased a future heaven
at the bargain price of foregoing some
present grosser pleasures. Unseifsh-
ness came to mean the emptying of
life Of all its powers and present val
ues, perhaps because an empty life
would more readily float to the skies.
Manhood protested against such
piety and a virile selishness asserted
itself. We asked could it be that our
faculties are ours only to suppress
them; that all life is but the long
mockery of a struggle With it's own
forces? So far as we could see, might
not red blooded sinners be better for
this world than anaemic saints?
Yet today many good and honest
people are greatly worried over their
irrepressible desire to make the most
of their lives. They never rejoice in
life in its richness and fullness, in
reaching out into further powers, with
out some qualms of conscience lest
they are sacrificing the spiritual to
the flesh and the future to the present.
Modern life has swung far away
from the mystic religious ideals; it has
rather become an onsurging rush for
the best, richest, deepest that life seems
to afford. In its search for pleasure,
knowledge, and power it is but seek
ing to make more of the self, to make
each life fuller and more complete,
and to satisfy in some measure our
common passion for more life.
Does this eager, search for more
life mean that we are becoming a
grossly selfish people?zDoes it lay
on each a compu]sion to live for his
own life alone? To some it seems to
signify the full life for the strong at
any cost to the weak; living becomes
a great battle and every mans bust
ness conquest and carnage.
Is the only alternative to such a
blood-thirsty philosophy the one of
the life of Remuneration, separation,
and voluntary atrophys of all one S
powers? Is there any way of satisfy
ing the dual demands felt at least by
the best natures, that the ..fullness of
life shall be found for the self, and
that somehow one may serve and help
others?
If we put these two motives together
do we not have the highest and rich
est life the world has yet conceived?
The life lived out to its own fullness,
yet so lived only with the motive OF
leading all lives out to their fullness,
is saved both from the paralysis OF
remuneration and the grossness OF
greed.
We ought to be the best we know;
there is a moral and spiritual obliga-
ton on every one of us to find the
furthest reaches of life, to bring per-
sonality and powers--to their perfec.
ton. Life is ours only to make it
larger. These years are..our opportu.
nifty to enrich allthe years. No power,
faculty or possibility is ours for
which we shall not have to.render &C.
count at the great assize Of the uni.
verse and by its laws Of life's obliga.
tions.
Then comes the saving motive ir
this process of seeking the full life;
it is desired not for itself, but for its
service. We would make the mos
of ourselves that we may have The
more TO give the friend, the neighbor
the city, the times, our world.
In the exercise Of our powers fol
others we secure their fullness forour
selves. No life finds its fullness until
it finds the work it can do. No pow
ers remain ours, save those we apply
in service. That selfshness which
grasps at power only for purposes O
personal profit brings upon itself thu
deepest loss.
/ The good life is the one that is grea
with goodness, enriched with ever.
resource, daily growing, becoming
more, enjoying more, and finding
such completion in the attempt t.
awaken dormant lives, to lift Tagging
lives and to lead its fellows into tn,
| life that is life indeed.