The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-11-07
Fostering the Elect.

Fostering the Elect.
Cedar Rapids Republican: "Secre-
tary Wilson says he, too, is church
man, and he seems to be inclined to-
ward the brewers section such is
one sneering comment on the man
who is at the present time, We be-
lfeye, the most distinguished citizen
of Iowa in public life. Mr.. Wilson
may be snarled at by any little news
paper, but he has carved a career and
achieved record that places him in
the forefront. Until he came there
was no agricultural department of the
government in Washington that was
worth mentioning. He made it and he
will leave it to a successor a fully
equipped department, competent to
carry on the great work of agricultur-
al promotion and development. Mr..
Wilson has been the genius Of 1t all
and when he is dead and gone, as
soon he will be in the course of ma
ture, many columns of eulogy will be
bestowed upon him and his labors.
AS to the sheer that he is not a
consistent churchman, that is the
smallest of all sneers. Mr.. Wilson has
grown gray in the church of his birth.
No man has a right to sit in judg
ment on his christian conceptions.
They say against him that he sat with
brewers, who are regarded as sinners,
in the course of what he conceived
fol
courtesy to the guests of the nation, in
one of its great international conyen-
tons. But Christ himself was ac-
cused of sitting at table with publicans
and sinners and he reproached the
self-righteous, the men who boasted
| ulously, saying that the publicans and
4 harlots go into the kingdom of God
before you
/ We have been discussing during the
past week in this city the reason why
more men do not find their ways into
1 the churches. We are not experts on
such subjects and we have no desire
to sit in judgment On others, but we
have often thought that one reason
why there are not more men in the
churches is the fact that. men have
set UP all sorts of standards in
churches, standards that Christ him
self never dreamed of. They have
not left men free enough. They have
not left enough to their own judg-
ment, their own sense of propriety.
They have set about them petty rules
and regulations and restrictions that
many men will not and cannot en-
dure. One church says you may not
play with cards, another that you may
not take drink of any liquors, an
other that you may not dance and
some are on the verge of saying that
you many not smoke. All these are
petty things, non-essentials, incense
quential, interferences with personal
consciences and private opinions and
they tend either to drive men out OF
the fold or to convert them into ar
rant hypocrites.
We fuss and fume and we dictate
and lecture and scold and somehow
the world gets the idea that the
churches are narrow and bigotted and
christianity is the loser thereby.
Christ himself when he called the lit
tie publican down from the tree and
sat at meat in his house afterwards,
admitted him to his church without
any such conditions, upon the simple
declaration that he intended to lead
an honest life and do right by all
men, and doing right by ones fell
low men means to love ones neigh
bors as ones self And the mo-
mentous question of what the Lord
requires of men is answered by the
scriptures by the love of mercy, the
doing of Justice and the walking
humbly with the Lord.
There is no spirituality in petty
prosecutions. The average man when
he gets what they call religion now
adays is apt to turn Immediately to
the work of regulating the conduct OF
others, instead of beating his own
breast and crying out his own un-
worthiness. The men and religion
forward movement will be failure
in influencing men unless 1t grasps
some of these ideas which the world
has of religion.