Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1916-04-09
The SUPREME GIFT
OF BURDEN-BEARlNC
The By-Products in Life a
Most Precious Asset to
Bank Upon.
THE TIDE OF POWER
A Strong Argument for the
Christie Ideal of
Brotherhood.

In day of excessive tolerance and
loose beliefs, il is refreshing to find a
man holding fast to the practical and
enduring ideals as embodied in the
lie and teachings of the Great PrOph-
ct of Galilee. Jesus, the Christ
Having the courage of his convic-
tions, even believing and rejoicing
where many poor modern preachers
only doubt and tremble, Doctor Stur-
gis does not hesitete to assert the
need for an enduring and positive
ideal, which he declares is to be found
not in the Christ of dogma but in the
historic Christ, in him who himself
declared, II am the way, the truth,
and the life" In this one vital par
ticular however liberal his tendencies
may appear in other directions, Doc
tor Sturgis is sanely conservative. His
idealism Is grounded and rooted in the
historic facts of the Christian religion.
That is to say he accepts the whole
cycle of Christie truth because to him
IL Is the only coherent religion and,
in its practical relation to the human
SOUL is living teacher, not a dead
one. Ii we miss that phase in his
sermons We miss his whole meaning
and message.
This much by way of introduction
to Doctor Sturgis' sermon on The
Great Problem of Burden Bearing"
as published herewith, and in which
he champions the cause of the by
product as "a magnificent asset in its
relation to the burden-bea TAX
ing as his main text the words of that
1strenuous apostle, Paul. Bear ye one
another's burdens and so fulfill the
law of Christ" Doctor Sturgis said:
| know of no subject of greater i'm
portance-not only to those outside
the breastworks of the church, but
within the church itself-than that
upon which / am to speak tonight,
The Supreme Gift of Burden Bear
ing" l am not, however, going to
speak so much of the burdens them
selves, for you know them very well
better than L; but have learned,
through years of experience in touch
ing elbows with the world. that many
man in passing through a crisis be-
comes, oftentimes, so discouraged
that life has no meaning for him, and
he is willing that it should cease in
dismal defeat just because he has
failed to understand and apply this
supreme gift of burden-bearing
The texts which l have chosen as
the basic thought for my theme are
quite familiar, l am sure, to us all.
"Bear ye one another's burdens. and
So fulfill the law of Christ" Every
man must bear his own BURDEN"
"Cast thy burden upon the Lord"
We have here three passages Of
scripture that apparently. are self
contradictory. They do not agree. But
we will discover, l think, in the fur
ther consideration of our subject. the
kind of agreement which we find in
music where discords are resolved
into concords; and that, by the way
Is the only true harmony.
You have heard. undoubtedly, of
men who have been so distracted with
respect to bad bookkeeping that it
causes all their malady of mind, and
they went out and left friends and
home and busine,s and said. 1T is all
up with me: | am ruined man."
Now, as a fact, 1t was only poor ac-
counting that caused all the trouble.
The balance sheet itself showed at
once that 1t was not because there
were no assets; not because they had
been wrongly charged got into the
wrong place in the ledger And in
asmuch as the assets in certain
crisis could not be taken from one
account and put into another sudden
ly. the carrying on of the business
was impossible. But the great bus
lness righted itself up through Just
such behavior and just such care and
courage as this.
- Let us suppose, If you please, that
it is the beginning of new year. a
time when you made certain resolves;
when you turned over new leaf.
when you cast away the manners and
methods Of the past and began to look
at things-these burdens, l mean
and saw them only as assets and lia-
bilities. Thus your method or book
keeping was without any clear un-
ierstanding of the principle which is
involved in the harmony of these text