The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-10-20
Lottery Fling Not
 Christians Pattern
Rev Dr. Walker Claims Men Who Profess No Allegiance
 to God Are Ones Who Feel Free to Gamble

choices. With all his willingness to live and let live there must still re- main the inevitable cutting edge, the uncomfortable edge of the truly Christian life. Don't pride yourself on the comfort, and con- solation of the Christian faith. Ask yourself, where is the cutting edge, the Christian edge, on my nfe2 What makes my life Sacrificial, what makes 1t fruitful, what makes 1t different? from the lives of those who make no pretense to Christian faith?
 say that In the third place, life needs burning edge. Will you par don me for a further lapse into personal experience? Not quite twenty years ago worked for some five months in the boiler shops which were part of the repair shops of 8 great transcontinental railway. shall always remember the huge cranes that picked up those great locomotives and carried tn m through the air with the greatest of ease and we had in our shops from time to time what were then some of the heaviest and most pow erful freight locomotives in the world. One other thing rememo ber most distinctly the men who called "the burners" These men were rohed in strange garments and looked not unlike spectors of the night. They used oxy-acetylene torches or electric welding equip. ment. The ease with which these men burned holes through great plates of steel or welded together heavy pieces of equipment was revelation to me. My most vivid memory of those days is of an cc- caSion when one of the burners On the outside of the firebox of loco- motive neglected to look inside be- fore he went to work. My partner and l were more than astonished to see sudden jet of fierce flame burst through the side of the fire- box and shoot past our unprotected heads. We thank the Good Lord that that was an accident that didn't quite happen.
 Those burners have lived with me as the symbol of concentrated pow CT. There was @ tremendous amount of power used in those repair shops but if you want concentrated power you looked to the burners the men who worked with heat and a heat beyond and above all ordinary standards. So I say that in the last analysis we need a burning edge in life. The great Christians whether they be in places of high responsibility or humble folk ln quiet station, have a burning tn- tensity of zeal and purpose, of will and conviction, in our Christian Churches in America. We are too conventional, too prosaic about rur faith. There are some evils in this world SO hateful that they ought to do more than arouse our mild dis- approval, we ought to blaze with anger. There are some causes In this world, so decidedly Christian that we ought to burn with zeal to further them. There are some needs so great, as among the victims Of war, that our hearts ought to flame with sympathy.
 I stubbornly maintain that life needs an edge, 6 growing edge, 8 cutting edge, a burning edge. The figures of speech may be somewhat confused, but am not desperately concerned about that. The Chris . tian life Is more than ritual ob- servances more than accepted con- ventions, more than nominal con- fornity. The Christian life at its best is hard and difficult, danger ous and Sacrificial.