The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1913-05-16
Address Delivered at the Annual
Meeting Of Y. N. c. A. Last Night
BY Rev. W. R. Keesey, Pastor Of
Centenary Church

generous view of every question and
situation.
And here, again, the Y. M. C. A.
comes to minister to the mental man,
with its system of night classes. This
line of work is not carried very far
in our local association, but it is con,
Quoted with great effect in the larg-
err cities. But, again: The glory OF
young man is his moral and spir-
itual strength. This is the cap-stone
of human life. The soul needs care
just as the body, and culture, just as
the mind. Physical, mental, and
spiritual, these three; but the great.
est of these is the spiritual. A man
who has physique without mind is an
animal. A man may have a strong
body and mind, and still be moral
pigmy. | would not emphasize the
physical and mental less, but the
moral and spiritual more. Indeed
we need all three to the development
of the full-rounded man.
What we need today is more young
men with moral backbone; men who
can say, NO." to every temptation
of vice and sin. We need young
men who have fixed principles OF
right; who will not enervate their
bodies with vicious habits; who
will not poison their minds with bad
reading; who will not weaken their
moral beings by profanity, vulgarity,
and debauchery. We need such men
as these in these times of social dis,
order, of business deception, of po-
litical corruption And here again
comes the Y. NJ. c. A. to minister
to the moral and spiritual man, with
its Bible study classes, it's classes in
life problems, and its religious serv-
ices.
And for all these many opportuni-
ties for Improvement in their three
fold nature our young men should
be grateful and appreciative.
But what about the duty of the
church toward the Y. NJ. C. A? The
problem concerning men and the
church has always been more or less
veXing. The notion is more or less
prevalent among men that to be
very closely or actively related to
the church is a sign of weakness for
a man. We know this notion is
false. Yet it remains with men and
affects their attitude to religion and
the church. Many reasons have been
given for this attitude of the men.
1t is said that men are not natural
ly as religious as women. This is
and sentimental as women. But re-
ligion is not all emotion and senti-
ment. 1t is reasonable and appeals
to mans reason. 1t has been said
that modern business methods are SO
hard and exacting that a man can
not be religious and succeed If that
is true, then it is high time we rev.
some of our business
methods.
1t has been said that Jesus is
more attractive to women than to
men. But little thought will re-
veal to you that the reverse was true
when He was in the flesh. 1t has
also been said that the church is
too Indifferent to human problems,
and that ministers do not mingle
enough with the men of the commu-
nifty. But all these reasons
fall far short of the mark, for we
know that men are just as responsive
to the Gospel appeal as women,
when properly approached.
Be all this as it may. there are
an increasingly large number of men
who attend the church and are. IN
terested. What do they come for?
They come because of what the
church means to them personally. And
because of what the. church does for
other men, and for society. A man
writing to the Public Ledger of Phil
adelphia says that to go to church
and get no sense of God is to feel
that one has been tricked So then,
the duty of the church is to minister
to the three-fold needs of man.
A good deal has been said about
institutional churches. But we need
no institutional churches in Mankato.
Why not make the Y. NJ. c. A. the
Institutional factor in each of our
churches? Here is cooperative
plant ready for our use. Let us util-
re it. Let us boost it. Let us bring
t to its highest point of usefulness,
md make it the means through
which we shall minister to the three
old nature of the men of Mankato.
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