Norwich bulletin., 1920-05-24
ANSWERS THE QUESTION WHAT
 CHRISTIAN LIFE PROMISES

CHRISTIAN LIFE PROMlSES
 Peters question was pertinent and Jesus reply affiuent in promise, said Rev. Dr. S H. Howe in his sermon Sun day morning at Park Congregational church from the text Matthew 1927, We have left all what shall we have?
 Dr. Howe said in part:
 Jesus had just been interviewed by the young ruler who wanted to know the1 price of discipleship and was told to sell all and give it away. Peter wanted to| know what he and his fellow disciples would get who had forsaken all and was told that their sacrifices would win them equivalents with a margin Jesus an- swers to questions were not always iden- tical though not contradictory Peters question was not out of place but nat ural question. The religious appeal does not disregard rewards. Jesus appealed to rewards: Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life" The fruits of great living are continually pressed to the front These young Galileans rightly wanted to know what sort of an enterprise they were em- parked in. Nobody ought to fling out his life on an enterprise without learn ing what was to be i:s outcome. This world and the other world were to be W was pertinent and Jesus reply affiuent | in promise. The question only looks small because of the wealthy response. l Yes, there is a forsaking, an off-cast- 1 ing of the world and many of the legiti- mate things for which men live. There l is a world fair and beautiful with high and fine ministries the home of beau ] ty and of order and of law the bounti- ] tul purveyor to all our elemental needs l and necessities, appealing to us by it's majesties and it's mysteries, to our sense | 0f wonder, admiration and awe.
 | And there is another world under the power of evil, where good things are
 twisted into strange and unnatural con 1 yortions; the lair of temptation. The
 world construed into an evil agency hos | tile to the higher interests of the soul 1 whose false standards are hostile to the
 great life we are set to live.
 ] And there is world construed as an end. an ultimate a fnality. a world 1 that overworks and overabsorbs the pri- ! mary and palmary forces of the soul 1 Men can be overabsorbed with the world ! at it's best Charles Darwin is in many ways the most commanding and revolu- | tionary figure in the nineteenth centuhy and yet in the worthy unveiling of the laws of the world he purchased his sue cesses at the cost of the loss of his love l of music and poetry and religion. The good eclipsed and rendered nugatory the best. This was not inevitable, for the most devoted men of science have not 1 lost their vision of the highest The great champion of the inductive system in science and philosophy remained a be- liever. The discoverer of gravitation did ] not let nature eclipse the face of God
 Brewster and Hershell and Faraday and Morse and Gray and Dana were devout
 believers in the spiritual world Phy-
 sical investigation did not blind them
 So men are often found pursuing wealti
 to their undoing. We have giants bur. jed under mountains of gold" turning the choice gifts of providence into in struments for corroding and hard-grit 1 ting the very substance of the soul AnG yet we have great captains of industry past masters in the accumulation ant use of wealth who are the great knight. of. the spiritual chivalry, using theil i wealth in the best interest of the worlt | and of their own spiritual life.
 Now to the question of Peter we hay, a great answer in terms largely litera and in terms of equivalence Forsakin: I Friendships held in a narrow sense get
 them back transformed. If these mel . lost friendship they gained it in highe senses. If they want out from fisher man associations they drew the lovt l and admiration of the great and good o } all the ages. If they lost tradesman' gains they gained pedestals which hay lifted them up to the gaze of a multi
 tude no man can number
 But the gain is personal and expert
 mental in deeper sense. We get a ney self We get ourselves at our best W get, like the planet of the new astron orny, new orbit, new type of great : ness, the greatness of loyalty to a high } CT will. new vision, a wider outlook. l new life that is unhorizoned a life lin
 itless in its range and reach. ne' g peace and rest, new courage to fac g the actual facts of life, even the mas s tery of sin and sorrow and death, feal
 ing no yesterdays, dreading no tomo1
 rows.
 And we get big program Our syn . pathies and interests and activities g - out on world wide field. And here N
 are in the sweep of the big ocean.
 Yes. that hath been with me in the r, d generation in the great worid-buldin
 work in which I am engaged This WE . l their supreme reward, their supreme di s tinction. Jesus can do nothing greatt }, Tor a life than to take it into copartner f with himself in the worlds regeneratio n Yes, the supreme earthly reward of fo n saking and following is a heroic task. V aew heroism that takes risks and rnak,
 sacrifices, that does not count costs (
 cultivate prudential safeguards This
 the note that appeals to men. On tn
 Jesus bore emphasis. He offers difficu d tasks and big ones. not a child's tasl but mans dead lifts, are Christ's r. " ward of discipleship. We may rese, |. rewards on lower planes but Jesus Chri if makes heroic service the guerdon of H
 loyal followers
 But he adds in the world to come ti = 1 fife eYerla sting oo=-.. .a----.