St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1910-03-05

ed TO common ENDS, capable
enthusiasts expended on
trivial accomplishments and avoca-
tons that are commensurate only with
the animal part of being, Christians
concerned with the same things that
are the great concern of the world.
1t was this pathetic irrelevancy be-
tween human capacities and human
use of them that led Jesus to remark
that one who followed him should
leave the dead to bury their own dead
and go and do the things the dead
could not do. A Christian has passed
out of death into life. and should be
accomplishing things worthy of living
souls, leaving the commonplace people
TO expend their energies on the COM
monplace things. Great tasks for great
souls, deeds for living men, worthy
work for followers of the living Lord.
1t has been this impossibility to keep
the living away from the work of the
dead that has sometimes hindered the
conquest of the world by Christianity
more than the antagonizing evil of evil
who Jesus always thought of as the
dead, those who were living simply
In the world of things, in whom spirit
ual impulses and aspirations had not
been born, whose manhood had not
passed beyond that of physical being
into the exercise of the faculties of the
soul. Now, life is simply capacity to
respond to environment 1t is not ex-
pected that the life of the world will
concern itself with anything except
things-for it is dead to anything
above. But enc who has life-that is,
real life of manhood touched of heav.
en-has capacity to respond to all
that environment that lies above the
world of things And it is meant TO
respond to these. The economy of the
kingdom of heaven is highest use of
highest powers. High powers put to
low uses fail and fade. The law of
life is constant contact with the things
commensurate with that life. Chris
tians come and choose life, then ask
to be allowed to go back and spend
their time doing what the dead can
do-burying the dead. We were say
ing this absorption of the living in the
things belonging to the dead has been
one of the great hindrances to the
growth of the kingdom. Macaulay has
called attention to the fact that one
of the things that lay back of the
Puritan movement in England was the
fact that the Christians spent their
time dancing and feasting with the
rest of the court, so that often it was
hard to tell who was Christian and
who was not. 1t was not so much that
the dancing md feasting seemed aw-
full sins, but that Christians, those
who had accepted the call to follow
Christ and go and preach, should be
defeating their souls to these dead
things-living souls spending their
strength on what dead souls were do
ing, and ought naturally to be doing.
Meantime great and glorious tasks,
great tasks for great souls, Christian
tasks for living souls, were every
where awaiting accomplishment in
England. Those who are familiar
with the history of the Reformation
will remember that this was one of
the complaints that Luther made also
of the churchmen of his time-that
a great church, capable of being pro-
phetic and doing superb things, should
be inert and complacent as the world;
that living followers of Jesus Christ
should be spending all their lives in
the commonplaces and inanities of
daily life. Luther's call was a call
for the living Christian soul to leave
the dead world to go on concerning
itself with its dead things, and to
come On with him to undertake living
emprize worthy of living men.
Fault of Christians To-day.
One could find that this absorption
of Christians, living souls, with the |
dead things Of the dead world, lay
back of most of the revivals and re-
formatory movements of history fully |
as much as the vulgar and barefaced |
sin and shame. 1t is this that has
been the despair of the leaders and
as it was of the church.
Father Lactantius began to despair
of Christianity when he saw followers
Of Jesus Christ seeking immortality
by killing their brothers on battle
fields, as did the common soldiers of
the world
Perhaps it is this one thing that
makes the chief despair of those who
to-day would like to see the coming
of the kingdom Of the Lord. 1t is not
that the evil of the world is invinci-
BILE or so firmly intrenched that it is
eternal. Neither is it, on the other
hand, that there are so few Christians
on the church rolls, or so few church
es. The census is just out, and shows
us the churches are growing faster
than the population. The despair is
that SO many Christians, living souls
made alive in Jesus Christ, who have
come and said, Lord, | will follow
thee whithersoever thou goest," who
have great souls for great tasks, d.
vine powers for glorious undertakings.
arge sympathies fit for the living SER
vice of the kingdom, run back with
he dead to bury the dead, become en-
crossed in the things in which the
crowd moves and lives and has its
physical being. finds it's delights in
small things worthy of small souls.
md the kingdom awaits it's rightful
in the earth. It is all
light for dead man to spend his
life running an automobile up and
Town the earth in races and endur-
lnce tests, but think OF Christian
levoting his life to thai thing! 1t is
veil enough for the world to go crazy |
,ver football and baseball and other
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