Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1915-05-17


human cost. They weave specious ex-
cuscs 10 justify the protection of profit
able sin and vice. And sometimes Dri-
vatc greed organizes itself into gen
erai policy. Legislation is shaped-or
prcvcnted-in the interest of the spe-
cial privilege which betrays the public
good; and the sordid interests Of
few outweigh the rights of a poo
rle.
When a city slores In it's great
mills and factories and the dividends
they earn and boasts of its han!: ac-
counts, and its balance in trade. and
is blind TO the broken lives on which
these hinges are bult-blind TO the
men and women imprisoned body ana
mind, in eHhausting toll, blind to tho
children taken from the school and
from Gods out of doors TO grow
shrunken and pallid in the somber
mills, blind to the weary wrctched-
ness OF It's tcncmcnts and the sordid
alleys where its workers herd. then
that city is dead to much that ought
TO constitute its lifc-dead to SYM
pathH. to pity. and to that high sacri-
fec which might Elorify it's soul. When
a community Is content to encourage
vice because CT the trade II thinks the
lure OF II brings, tolerant of the sort
OF wide open town through whose doors
run roads to death, ready to make
terms with shame, because OF its
money bribe-then that community,
TOO. is dead where conscience and
honor ought 10 be alive
"lf this is true OF communities, it is
true no less OF nations. Certainly one
OF the deep roots-if not the deepest
root--of the bitter fruitagc of this hid
eous war Is the fact that among the
nations there has been so much of the
false belief that great people could
see material things selfshly and there
by ruin life.
GREATER THAN ALL
THINGS 1T LIVES on
a. Life is much greater than all
the things it lives 1t is greater
than plenty, greater than comfort.
greater than any ideal of society which
is content with It's economic adjust
mcnt. We assume sometimes in these
days of striving for social justice that
If only We could make the conditions
OF existence fair for ali people the
goal of our endeavors would he
reached. II we could abolish poverty,
and control disease. and stop the
springs of dcgencracy, and reform all
the prisons. and make all the social
machinery what it ought To he: and
ii all men and women got the due re-
ward of their labor and had enough for
all their nceds--would the fullncss OF
human living not have come? No. it
would be ready to begin. The founda
ton would have been laid for the
walls and towers to rest on. but these
need finer and more soaring elements
out of which to rise. For a peoples
life must climb up above earth's level
into the fair sunlight of the eternal
! things. 1t must be lofty enough for
wide vision and ample enough 10 shell
ter the striving OF heroic souls.
Where shall we find it?
II know no other to whom we can go
for answer conGdcDtlv n Him
whose words we have made our text
to- day. He said: 1 am come that they
might have life, and that they might
have it more abundantly,' and the life
He meant is the thing we want-full-
ness of inspired energies set free. Ills
! life was not made up of pleasure, nor
possessions. nor any material gain. 1t
consisted in the divine power which
burned in His soul for the accom-
plishment of a divine plan. In His vast
sympathics. He was alive TO all the
needs of men: and in the upreach of
| His soul. He was alive to the Will of
the living God.
The life He offered to those who
looked to Him was a life like His own.
1t meant the possession of that pur
pose and that power which He first
had made plain. He called His purpose
| the establishment of the kingdom of
God; and the power behind Him was
His Father and Lord of heaven and
earth.
But the plea which 7 would make
| to-day is that we should continually
| make more clear and conscious our
sympathy with that deepest thing of
all which Jesus felt to be essential in
human life and social order as these
ought to be. He wanted men and
women to live-and their brethren to
shape conditions so as to help the
hard-pressed ones to live-as become
the children of God He set upon every
human soul q divine and immortal
worth. He made the thought Of God,
and of every individuals personal re-
lationship to God. the reason and the
inspiration for all human hclpfulness.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God He
said in the first commandment; and
in the light and power Of that. comes
the second. to love thy neighbor MS
myself When social service is APP
preached thus. the whole meaning Of 1t