The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-09-01
(Reprinted by request.)


harmfully misconstrued as that por-
ton which likens sinners to the goats
and christians to the sheep; that
verse in James which says that re-
ligion, pure and undefiled, is to keep
ones self ''unspotted from the
world"
Separate yourself from the world"
is favorite theme with many preach
ers.
Why should we rail against this
world as if it were an enemy to man?
The things of this world, as if they
were in constant antagonism to God?
This world is the handiwork of God
All that in it is his even to the tiniest
spear of grass. There is not a thing
in 1t that was not foreordained and
fashioned by him. He made tree,
plant and flower He gave to the
rainbow its coloring; he painted the
lily; he tinted the skies; he filled
the woods with warbling songsters.
We awake in the morning and the
whole horizon is Illuminated with the
brilliant rays of the sun as he rises
in his splendor over the eastern hills.
There is reflected in the dew drop
beauty unexcelled by any Raphael.
AS he passes the meridian and sinks
to his slumber this glorious orb leaves
flush of coloring behind him that in
all ages has given inspiration to
poet, painter, idealist
Why should we separate ourselves
from a. world like this? With fresh
ness and beauty everywhere around
us, above us and beneath us, why
should we shut ourselves up in some
dark cloister, bruise our bodies,
scourge our backs, in order to obtain
favor in the eyes of the creator of
world so gorgeously beautiful as ours,
whose mysteries are only beginning
to be explored. and who has shown
his love of alteration in way alto
gether more sane and pleasing.
And what is the example of Christ?
Did he separate himself from the
world?
Not at all.
We find him visiting among all
classes and conditions of men.
His mission was to lift men up to
higher and nobler heights
How could he do this by separating
himself from the world and not COM
ing in contact with it?
The long distance telephone is
rarely used in the performance of
deeds of charity, mercy. benevolence,
valor, heroism, patriotism
To lift up men and women in their
stumbles and falls in life's meander-
ings We must be somewhere in the
vicinity of their temptations.
Doleful faces. long prayers, severe
lamentations, beating ones breast,
falling on ones face, do not count
for much in the line of benign adora-
ton.
Those forms of worship cannot be
the most pleasing to God because
they do not denote a high form of in
telligence.
In his dominion over every living
thing that walks or creeps the earth
what boots it to man if the beetles
and the bugs along his pathway. TO
show their alteration. fall prone upon
their faces or stand erect upon their
legs?
If the heart, the mind, the soul. the
conscience, are educated along right
lines, God will care nothing for out
ward forms, and all through his
earthly career Christ emphasized no
facts more than these.
God so loved the world" is what
the bible says, and those parts of it
where sin was foulest and snares and
pitfalls greatest, are the places Christ
thought most in need of his presence.
So much did Christ mingle with the
world, and the things of the world,
that he was called a "wine-bibber"
sabbath breaker"
Suppose that carrie Nation with
her Ratchet had been at the famous
marriage supper in Cana, what would
she have done with those six water
pots of stone after Christ had changed
the water in them into wine?
And suppose that some of the
Pharisees of our times had been pres
ent when on the Sabbath day Christ
went through the corn and began 10
pluck the ears and to eat, would not
they, like the Pharisees did then,
lodge complaint against him that he
had done things that were not lawful
to be done on the Sabbath day.
OF course they would.
AT no time in his ram no pr.a