Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-05-02

| ANiSA AiBhI III US Ildl Is DdSlC,
and not always remembered. Some
times we weave such an intricate
Fabric of religious beliefs that we
lose sight of the elemental fact that
| there is God who made us and
that we are his, the sheep of his
pasture" as the Psalmist says.
| Losing sight of Gods creation
rights, we set about undoing or re-
vising his, work. What is bringing
nations to crash to-day? Whence
! springs this turmoil that resounds
from Germany and Russia and con-
| tiguous parts? Why are statesmen
more affrighted by Bolshevikism
than by militarism? Is the answer
not simple? Men fancy that, as
Omar sings, they can
Grasp this sorry scheme of things
entire,
And reshape it to our hearts de-
sire"
Flouting God, his nature and his
law, they are attempting to build
Babels that will outwit him and
overcome his purposes. Anybody
who has seen BolsheVikism at work
in Russia, as l have, can understand
| why it has repudiated Christianity,
and the centuries-tested Ten Com
mandments. These expressions OF
the Divine will run counter to self
! ishness, hatred, greed, lust, idleness
and power. God must be dethroned,
before Bolshevillism can have It's
way with the world. Instead of call
| ing men back to the benefcient pro-
, visions of the Creator for mans well
fare and social solidarity, it bids
them spurn the tested integritles,
and give free reign to all the baser
| impulses of self-indulgence.
What Are We Here For?
Dissect not only Bolshevikism, but
most of the current social radicalism
and liberal" thinking, and you will
| find at bottom the idea that human
beings are merely physical crea-
lures, whose material comfort and
carnal appetites arc supreme. OF
course, this is a Garden of Eden
fallacy, but it swings into power
recurrently through the centuries.
Nowadays, as with the Greeks, 1t is
cloaked in pleasing sophisms. we
talk about the sanctity of our I'M
pulses, our right to self-expression,
our untrammeled nature, our free
dom to obey our desires and to hout
all conventions as mere man-made
restraints for inferior beings. 1t all
comes to the same thing: we want
to do as we please, regardless OF
hurt to others, and we do not care
to please God. whose beneticient laws
are born of his omniscience and
good will. Still more plainly put,
this radical conception of life re-
duces us to the level of unreStralned
animals, and would end in making
the world a jungle.
Dead against this draft rises the
majestic and man-ennobling decla-
ration of our lesson, God created
man in his own, image, in the image
of God created he him. Again,
Man became a living soul" There
is the clarion word for our befud-
died times. Man is man at his best
when he is likest to Cod The high
est aim of life is to fulfill the divine
design of the Creator, in whose
image we have been formed From
the beginning there has been a di-
vine destiny for the race. We all
have Godlike potentialities. What
is best in us-as we know of a sure
ty that it is what is best in our
mothers and wives and friends-is
that which savors of God, which
pursues truth and loves holiness and
which has standards of honor tran
scending common practice. We
have bodies; we are souls" In those
hours of illumination, when we
! best know our best selves, we per-
| ceiVe that godlineSs, with its coral
larry, the subjugation of tieshly pas
sions, is the true aim of man.
With real pertinency, the lesson
committee has clinched this teach
! ing by one of Pauls ringing words
to the Christians in the degenerate
| lyft, 4
same downward forces that now sur
round us. But We have not so
| learned Christ; if so be that We have
heard him. and have been taught by
him, as the truth is in Jesus: that
ye put off concerning the former
conversation the old man, which is
corrupt according to the deceitful
lusts; and he renewed in the spirit
of your mind: And that We put on
the new man, which after God is
created in righteousness and true
/ holiness"
The Man and the Woman
If all the iests in the current
press were TO be tabulated, it doubt
less would appear that most of them
have to do with love and marriage.
In a great time, with evidences of
| spiritual illumination and rebirth
! on every mana, II is nevertheless
true that there is a great and grow
ing cynicism and tiippancN with re-
Spect to the holy passion of love
! between man and woman, and to
the institution of matrmony. The
practice of many men and even of
nations has been a defiance of the
| Christian teaching of chastity and
a living thing. Even in this, how
ever, there has been a glaring in
consistency. Peoples that pander to
human lust, still sacredly guard
their own daughters from the ideals
which they practice themselves. And
even the most abandoned man or
woman cherishes the hope that some
day the miracle of real love, with the
consequent joys of home, will kindle
fire in the cold ashes of his heart.
I who write these lines am trav-
cling in the ancient, weary and
worn-out regions of earth: where
the cup of self-indulgence has been
drunk to the dregs. And the lees
are bitter. If history has any power
to teach the wise, this lesson should
be learned to-day, that righteous
ness eXalteth a nation!" and that
"There is a way that seemeth right
to man, but the end thereof are the
ways of DEATH" Out here amid the
burnt and backward peoples,
the worst suffers in the world, one
gets a new devotion to our Anglo
Saxon, Bible-taught ideals OF home
and chastity of love. What is writ
Gp.t cI, pfar of