Omaha daily bee., 1910-09-03
Grant Eugene Fisher, Pastor OF
Dundee Presbyterian Church.

there may be-" Existence is successful
only so far as existence means love,
1t helps us nightly to know that some
one has lived perfectly the love-life. There
Is inspiration from life In my early
school days, as a method of teaching us
to write. our teachers compelled us to copy
page after page from model machine made
copies. There was no inspiration in that
for me. Instinctively felt 1t was not life.
After some years l came under the lnstruc-
ton OF a teacher who used to take a piece
Of crayon and before my eyes place a
beautiful copy on the blackboard as
model. 1t thrilled me to see him do It.
l said to myself, If you can do that can
too; and the result was more progress
made in six months than in years with
the machine-made copies There is inspir-
alton from life. We want to see people
do things In looking upon Jesus our eyes
are turned away from the picture of the
love-life to the life itself We look upon
him as he moved amid the trying realities
of his life with perfect pose of spirit,
pouring out love upon those who would
have nothing of his love, and this gives
us courage to attempt that kind OF q life
with hope OF some measure OF success.
We say. That is life, and II Jesus could
live 1t we can live 1t too, with the help
of the same power that enabled him to
live 1t. Jesus led the way In the love-llfe
and we may give fresh impress to his foot
steps even IL following be but afar.
Our danger is that we miss the call Of
Jesus to follow Him in His love-life. The
world-voices about us are 80 deafening and
persistent that the voice OF Jesus reaches
us but too family through the din. Our
spirits are anything but too sensitive to the
divine voice. In Freyberg cathedral the
old organist was Jealous of his instru-
ment that he would not let anyone play
upon 1t but himself. One day a stranger
wandered into the cathedral and listened
with manifest interest while the old organ
list was playing on his beloved instrument,
thinking himself alone. Stepping into the
organ loft the stranger asked II he might
play on the great organ. He was at first
refused, but after further persuasion he
was permitted to touch the precious keys.
AS he played on and on the music filled the
great cathedral and rolled out wave upon
wave into the street The old organlst was
spell-bound. He had never heard such
melody before. When the music ceased he
eagerly inquired of the stranger his name.
Felix Mendessohn," was the quiet reply.
In after days, when telling this incident,
the old organist, with tears In his eyes,
would exclaim, ITO think how near
missed hearing Mendelssohn" How much
we miss of the sweetness and power and In
spiration OF Jesus love-life by failure to
hear His call, Follow me-" 1t is our
| danger.
| Our danger. too. is that we are afraid of
the ideal. We get nervous when brought
into the white light of the perfect life We
know it will cost us much to attain. We
know 1t will mean the giving UP OF some
| secretly cherished hope, the crushing down
Of some ambition for gold or place or
| power, the cutting off of an offending foot
or hand or the plucking out of a trouble
some eye. We know 1t will mean a merci-
less severity with ourselves in regard to
every part Of our nature which experience
has told us cannot be INDUCED In without