The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1913-11-20

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away opportunity for evil is not
, enough. Spirits were before systems
= were born, and if we keep looping of
J the systems that are bad in their ef
: fects, we shall still have the spirit
that has ever insisted on breaking out
in some form that was not good. The
thing that enacts law is the better
spirit, and the only thing under hea
ven that will enforce it and maintain
a changed system is the better spirit
at its best. Our own experience with
the enforcement Of our prohibition
law ought to have taught us long ago,
that law on the books can do moth
ing but record an aspiration and a
vision till the vision has become the
actuating ideal of the people of the
various units of society. When the
spirit of the people or enough of them
becomes different from that of those
who favor the thing the law condemns,
then something can be done. Our
hope in relation to all forms Of vice
lies in the development of a different
spirit in men in general. We have got
to tone men up along all lines. There
must be birth of new conscience,
and that Of the kind that does not con-
| ~ eSN, 1S1o
and participates in others The man
! who sells liquor in our midst must be
opposed and imprisoned if need be, as
deadly foe to all that is good
amongst lis; but every other man and
woman in our midst whose personal
laxness in relation to the moral law
and the Well-being of others, make it
easy for such a spirit to thrive, is OF
the same spirit, and technically and
morally, though the law does not say
it, is an accessory to this crime. We
need law and we need prohibition. but
we also must see as Jesus said about
those upon whom the tower Of Sloan
fell, that the men and women we 50
much despise as being connected with
the more Objectionable forms of evil,
are not offenders above all men that
dwell in Jerusalem" but are one in
spirit with larger host whose strong
holds the public conscience has not as
yet distributed, and except these re-
pent they" shall all likewise perish"
They have different forms Of evil to
which they consent, but the spirit out
of which all is borne is one and the
same.
Do you not see this morning, friends,
what the campaign against the more
fragrant sins of and against humanity
means? As see it. we are going to
be forced to recognize that the root of
sin is spiritual, and that every sinner
is brother to every brother, and
further if one'deserves to be barred out
all do. Yes! If one is successfully
eliminated all will have to be. There
will always be some men who will
need to be circumscribed by laws and
watched by the police. and all this
will help but to root up the source of
these things we have got to change
the heart Of the majority of men in
which such spirit can and does
dwell. After all our welfare is not
so much carnal one as it is a spirit
ual one and this contest must be wag-
ed in every soul that has not taken
the moral law or its relation to 9TH
ers seriously All such know not
what spirit they are Of.
What is all this but saying that
Christianity, born out of superstition
as some would like to say, has the
most perfect and scientific solution to
LIES woes conceivable to man. Jesus
likened himself to physician. He
was and is the Great Physician for hui
manities physical and moral ailments.
He calls for external applications in
the form of law and environment and
brotherliness, but he never stops here,
he searches by the white light of his
Spirit for the very bottom of the fes-
tering wound, and finds it in the spirit
that is in man. Wherever he is per-
mitted to diagnose the case he writes
On his prescription Eye know not what
spirit We are Of" Repent for the King
dom of God is at hand" Except a man
be born anew he can not see the King
dom Of Cod" 1t is the same cure for
every sin for all sinsfow out of the
same kind of spirit.
In conclusion, would not have you
let up in your effort to put legal bar
riers in the way of the liquor dispen-
ser, nor would move you to be less
attentive to the man who drinks. All
this calls for more watchfulness than
ever
Grand Forks has crazy niger"
who will be sent back to New York
where it is claimed he hailed from.