SUNDAY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 3, 19 August 1911, Page 8

SUNDAY COLUMN.

ENTHUSIASM. Sermon by Dr. Joliu Watson (j.ui Machuen.) “Thov said : ‘He is beside Him sell.' Mark 3:21. Many years ago some of us were mucli impressed by a little work entitled “Modern Christianity a Civilised Heathenism.” Jt is an extreme book, but the anonymous author fairly makes his chief point, when he insists that the difference between Christ and Christians is that the Master was always in deadly earnest, and tiiat wo are generally tepid; and '.men he points out that Christianity does net suffer to-day at the hands of too world because it is so colt and inoffensive.. His most bitter passage is a comparison between two clergymen, one who is concerned with the innocent pleasures of life, and lias a tender regard for his dinner, .ami another who has surrendered everything for Christ and dies of lever caught in the discharge of his duty. “Mad,” says the author, coming to his climax, “simply means different from other people, and if Jesus lived in our days Christians would bo so astonished at. his conduct, that they would put Him in an asylum.” This point has been made by two other free lances of our time. Laurence 01 iphant in his “Piccadilly” and Mrs, Lynn Lynton in her “Joshua David-

Our text reminds us that tire situation actually occurred in Jesus’ life, and was not the least painful in His experience. Ho was inured to insult and abuse, hut there arc strokes which pierce the heart. When Jesus’ own mother and brethern came at the moment of high popularity and explained that He was not in His senses, it was a stroke of Satanic cruelty. And what lent bitterness to the incident was this: they did not object to His work, but the spirit in widen He did it. Jesus was counted mad simply because he was enthusiastic, and the incident is therefore typical. From time to time a lido of emotion has swept through the church, cleansing her life from the pollutions of the world and lifting it to a higher spiritual level, as when Lie ocean Jills the bed of a shrunken river with its wholesome buoyant water. Every such

spring time has been a lift to religion and has been condemned as madness by the world. Tho Spirit of Cod stirred among the dry bones of England in tho 18th century, when great ladies offered themselves to the service of Jesus and tho faces of colliers were washed white by the tears of penitence. And wc know what the formal and respectable world said: “low follies,” “a man out of Bedlam,” “a windmill in their heads,” “fools and fanatics.” One does not count such words as evidence against Wesley and White field, lie immediately concludes that spring lias succeeded winter and that the church has been afresh endued with power. There are two convincing pleas for enthusiasm, and the first is its reasonableness. A man may lie keen about many interests, but of all things ho ought to bo keenest about religion. Wc are indulgent to enthusiasm in many departments, from football to collecting matchboxes, and are willing to give every innocent fad our good-natured benediction. Why should this polite tolerance for every man’s hobby harden into persecution when his mania is the Kingdom of God? Why should a gladiator bo sane and St. Paul bo mad? All, tho reason is not obscure. What is eccentricity but motion from a different, centre ? There is the centra of things unseen and eternal, and the centre of

the things seen and temporal, and tho lives pivoted on those two points can-

not be harmonised. Suppose thirty years ago a scientist had told a rustic that iwe should bo able to speak to people in Paris through a wire, tho rustic would have loft his company with celerity, and kept his children off the road for that day. Madness must, be defined by the standard of sanity. If anyone believes that tho Kingdom of God will remain when this world has disappeared like a shadow, 1 then it is right for him to fling away all that lie possesses and himself too, for its advancement and victory. My second plea for enthusiasm is its success. Take, if you please, the enthusiast who has not always been perfectly wise, and whose plans anyone can criticise, tho man who has not had tangible success. It docs not. follow that the cause of God is condemned in him or lost by 3;im. There is something more important than results which can bo tabula todin reports; there is the spirit which inspires action and without which there will be no report to write. Tinless enthusiasm is stored on the high watershed there will be no stream to drive the mills in the valley below. Gordon’s death was a calamity, but it was not waste. Without his selfforgetful devotion wc should have lost one of the most inspiring examples for our officers and a heartening message for our lads. Wc are hag-rid-den in the church by the idea of machinery, and we forgot that the motive power of religion is inspiration. No resolution of any const, however cleverly drawn up, can produce a prophet or a martyr. Was it a failure when the men of the. Church Missionary Society died at Hganda and the men of the Baptist Mission fell one upon another on the Congo? It was nigh failure, the kind that turns the I

world upside down. “Dive me,” says someone, “one hundred preachers -,vlio fear nothing j hut sin and desire nothing hut Clod, | and I care not a straw whether tiiey I he clergymen or laymen, such men will set up the Kingdom of (Jod upon eart.'i.” Has (!od baptised yon into this spirit? Do not give any heed to the erticism of cool or clever people. If carried away for the mo-

meat by the, strength of tiio hostile tide, you fling up an empty hand to heaven, it will be taught in the hand of (Jill it.

Has God denied you this girt ot enthusiasm ? Then do not chill the enthusiast at your side by a spray of cheap sentiment. If there he not in you tho heart to plunge into the river and save tho drowning man, then, for Heaven’s sake, do not stand on the bank and criticise the style of the swimmer who witli labouring stroke is bringing Ids unconscious burden to the shore. Surely that is the meanest tiling that anyone can do. Mastered by this madness to save His fellows, Christ laid down His life for our salvation, and by this madness the world is being redeemed.