The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-06-05

Billy Sunday one day outlined to
me a new sermon, which he meant to
call his "Jekyll and Hyde Sermon"
and he traced for me the growth
through famous fiction of this idea
of the dual personality. And it all
goes back" he concluded, Ito what
Paul said about the two natures which
he found in himself This topic
carries us straight to that subject.
Every one of us is two. We are all
of us perambulating battlefields. The
war above all other wars is that rag
ing within the consciousness of men
the lower nature. Character and des-
tiny are both determined by which
one of these two-fold elements wears
the laurel of victory When spirit
keeps body in subsection. then all the
graceS of the Christian life are pos
sible: but when body is on top-when
appetite drives conscience and indul-
gence spurns intellfgence-then all
the woes of INDUCED sin lie in wait.
letic circles nowadays. But Paul
would have none of it. In our les
son, with it's forceful figure from the
boxing arena, he cries: so box /, as
not beating the air: but 1 bruise my
body, and bring it into bondage" All
of which is only one way of saying
that the supremacy of the spirit is
so important that it is worth suffer-
ing for A price must be paid for
emancipation from the thraIldom of
the flesh. Spirituality comes not bv
mere aspiration, nor piety by pining;
stern work is needed. Self denial is
the route to soul-supremacy.
Our luxurious age speaks cynically
OF the nalr Shirt and penances of the
ascetics. Our sensual cultivation of
voluptuous tastes removes us as far
from the monastic type of religion as
Lucul1us was from Simeon Stylites.
swearing
true, but 1t is not far wrong to say
that our modern fashions hail from
decadent Rome rather than from
vigorous Sparta. The styles of ap-
parel which women have of late ac-
cepted certainly intimate that the
claims of spirituality and aesthetic
ism are subordinated to those of
sense and materialism God send us
prophets, women as well as men, who
will first practice, and then preach,
the holy urgency of the claims of a
life lived in the spirit. For the rocks
on which ancient Rome went to ship
ship of our modern life.
Christians should be among the
first to confess the sin and shame of
the recent action of British church.
men in refusing to endorse the gov
ernments suggestion of the prohibit
ton OF the sale of intoxicants. At
two ecclesiastical convocatiors, held
AZ E4uSldnu III April, the members
refused to abstain from alcohol. One
eminent eccleSiastic, fatty declared
that to do so impaired his health"
What a deadly parallel this MARIA
tive makes with the writing of the
Apostle Paul, who, for his brethren's
sake. was not only willing to forego
meat, but also to be accused. Are
the marks of the Lord Jesus-the
stigmata of the cross-no longer to
be found on the Church? When
Christian leaders put appetite above
spiritual duty, then we must with
bowed heads accept such structures
as this caustic comment from an edi-
torial in The Philadelphia North
American: 'Clergymen in a flutter of
agitation lest they be asked to stop
tipping, and a dignitary Of the church
putting the state of his precious
health against the safety of the en-
these spectacIes make |
one regret that Gilbert and Sullivan
have passed away
Only the reign of the spirit insures |
the refining of the appetites.
Heaven has no crowns for Wills |
surrendered to wishes.
Every day. in the gymnasiums of |
the great cities, one may find classes |
OF men busily engaged in trying to |
keep their bodies fit" They spend |
time and effort in the duty of pre- |
serving their health. Because of the |
fear that their muscles will grow soft |
and their arteries hard, they put |
themselves into the hands of physical |
trainers. Only in like manner can |
souls be kent in condition There l