The copper era., 1909-08-05
What is a Christian |?

IS d Hdu IO WuOm JGSuS CHTlSI cH- trusts all His fellowmen." If any one ever lived Christian life it was Henry Drummond. Let us listen to him. "There is only one great char draw out all that is best in men. He is so far above all others in inhuenc- ing men that He really stands alone. That man was the founder of Christ ianity. To be Christian man or woman is to have that character for our ideal in life, to live under it's in- influence, to do what he would wish us to do, to live the kind of life He would have lived in our house. It would not alter the form of our lives, perhaps, but it would alter the spirit"
 On the other hand, some of us have read a book called "The Christiau," or perhaps seen it displayed at a five-cent show; but we wonder all the time where the Christian is. John Storm may have lived a Christian life but it was at ''poor dying ate" John Bunyan in Pilgrims Progress has described a Christian as tearing himself away from this world and leading a miserable journey toward heaven where he hoped to find hap piness. And likewise many of us have been singing:
 "This worlds wilderness of woe,
 This world is not my home."
 IT. was Iohp Milton and nOt JesuS IUho told us, in Paradise Lost, of that ter rible war in heaven at the end of which Satan was cast headlong to this earth which he has polluted ever since with his wickedness. And sometimes think that the church has taken more of it's theology from Mil ton and Bunyau than from the New Testament and as a result has gone around with bad taste in its mouth. How much different is the teaching of Jesus when He prayed for His dis ciples, "Holy Father, pray not that thou skouldst take them out of the world but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one." And again l kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as in Belyen." His motto was not flee away from, but overcome the world. I feel very much like the lit tie boy whose Sunday school teacher asked him if he did not want to go to Heaven and he answered "Not yet. !" Better is it to make Heaven here as Christ taught us.
 If we turn to the New Testament, Acts 11:26, we will read, "The dis ciples were called Christians first at Antioch" This cultured city, the Boston ot the Orient, was the second capital of Christianity. Indeed, it may well be called the first. Judea had been its cradle and Jerusalem had we'll nigh been it's grave. It was here that Christ was mocked and tried for blasphemy; it was here that Pilot convicted him; and they cruel the city wall" Here the church called itself "the way" and the peo- pie took the name of "saints" or "be- lievers;" but after the revival down at Antioch, when each one gave ot his substance "according to his abil- ity" to those famine-starved people throughout Judea, then they were called Christians because they acted like Christ. When a person does something worth while he soon gets a name. And it was all the better be- cause it was the outside people who named them. The outside people have been naming the church ever since that day, and we can depend on them to name it right. When Miss Reside came as the first missionary to the Kiowa Indians in Oklahoma, they called her Aim-day-co. And Chief Big Tree explained it thus: He said, "Whenever one of us sees a friend going on the wrong road we say 'aim-day-co' which means come this way When Miss Reside came here from far country, she saw us all on the wrong road and said aim day-co' and showed us the Jesus road. May God bless Aim-day CO.," Alex ander the Great used to let the brav- est of his soldiers take his own name Whenever he saw one of these hesi- tating to follow him into the thickest battle, he would say, "Change your name or mend your manners" Like wise no person has right to be called Christian who is not willing to stay in this world and follow the lowly Jesus wherever He may lead.
 To be a Christian, then, is to have a new master. But one says, CT could not follow Christ because I don't understand Him. I can't un- derstand the Virgin Birth or the Divinity of Jesus" How foolish These are not questions for begin ners: these are questions for post graduates. The child, to be a scholar in the public school, is not asked to explain to the teacher. We worship and follow in the things we do not understand, that we may know Therefore, the child is asked, Are you willing to let the teacher guide