The Law of "Otherism.”

Western Star, 30 January 1906, Page 3

The Law of "Otherism.”

SPECIAL SERMON TO WALLACE LODGE* Upwards of forty members of the Wallace Lodge of Oddfellows, headed by the Band under Mr J. W Moore marched from the Lodgeroom to the Presbyterian Church on Sunday evening, when the Rev. [Charles A. Gray, M.A., preached a special sermon, which was thoughtful, inspiring and eloquent. The church was filled in every part, the Lodge, in regalia, occupying the central seats. The lesson read was the fifth chapter of Galations, and the text was taken from the sixth Chapter, second verse ; “ Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” The preacher opened by showing that there was no contradiction between the text and another verse in the same chapter which said, “For every man shall bear his own burden.” On the, contrary, they were knit together in a deep and vital bond of unity. Paul was speaking to a people with whom individual freedom and freedom of the Gospel were in danger of being bound together with ceremony and ritual. He proclaimed unto them that love was the only law, and he straightway proceeded to apply it, seizing upon the case of a brother overcome by some special temptation. He said, in effect, “If you must impose burdens upon yourselves, let them not be the burdens of rite and ritua® but the burden of sympathy ; and if you must fulfil the law let it be the law of Christ.” Lying beneath both statements there was this principle—that the deepest, truest life consisted in the *■ SERVICE OF OTHERS,

and that in bearing the weight of our brother's burden we shall fulfil the law of Christ. Only by fulfilling that law could the Kingdom of Love and Brotherhood break upon the earth, and sorrow and sighing flee away. It was a far-reaching truth, and one inseparably connected with the future of Christ’s Kingdom upon the earth, and the manifestation of that spirit in our

individual and corporate life was ‘ but an earnest of that fairer, brigh ter day which attached to men’s dreams of promise and nerved his hand with h6pe. It was a principle of supremest importance, and one by which his life must be ruled if he would be truly Christ’s. The whole civilised world was rapidly coming round, at least theoretically, to the teaching of the Apostle. ‘Consciously or unconsciously, modern civilisation was absorbing the principle of Christ bit by bit. Time was when .the individual was supreme. Curiously enough in the multitude of his rights his duties were forgotten. Now it was otherwise. The question for the religionist, moralist and economist was the question of men and peoples in the mass. The WORLD WAS DISCOVERING that no man liveth unto himself, and none dieth unto himself—'discovering that separate lives were part of a vast social organism, whose bond of vitality was the law

of love, of reciprocal service— awakening to a recognition of the fact that all lasting progress was in the love-service of the unit for the whole and of all for each. Should that be doubted, one had Only to take up any magazine, no matter how antagonistic to religion it might be, and on every one ■word met the gaze, and that was Brotherhood. Creeds, dogmas, and doctrines they would find relegated to oblivion, and trumpet-call of hope was the service of man, being the other fellow, observing the Rule,-hearing one another’s burdens. In short, brotherly love, that love which was born into the world when- Christ was born. The witness of the popular social teaching of the day was that the ultimate welfare of any society rested not upon power, wealth, or armed might, 1 but upon LOVE-SERVICE and sacrifice. Consciously or unconsciously this principle was finding sway in the practical relationships of men. Men were saying in their judgment of their fellows that lovcService and sacrifice were after the '(things that counted. Who were the people that were hustled out of men’s affections ? It was the selfish, the grasping ; the men with no Sympathy, no bowels of compassion ; no kindness or fellow-feeling fn their hearts for the victims of adversity, .sorrow, or want. One always found it easy to forgive the kind-hearted, the generous, the benevolent. The witness of the practical'man was, that although selfcontrol might be a great thing, and honor might be a great thing, yet after all in human life and character the things that counted were love and service and sacrifice. ENDORSED by PHILOSOPHERS This same insistence of the sup-

rcmc worth of reciprocal service _ Ijvas to be noted in the great monn ■Sirtftar books of the last few years, teachings have been so widely diffused. Take up Benjamin Kidd or Herbert Spencer. What was the

word to which one could reduce the whole sum total of their teaching ? Was it not Altruism, a word .which expressed that principle which made the welfare of others an inspiring thought in word, speech and action. In his “ Data of Ethics ” Herbert Spencer confessed that the outcome of his long and patient investigation was that the frundamental ethical law of the universe was “ That no man can achieve his own happiness except by Striving to further the happiness Jof other men.” This was simply expressing the text in another way, and that obedience to the great ’ principle which it enunciated was the origin of every step in progress find betterment, it was brotherly Jove and mutual confidence that Jcept society together. A truly | SELFISH SOCIETY Could not exist for a week, and if it were possible to create it, it Would fall to pieces in accordance the Pauline teaching, " hut if ■B&..jtte and devour one another, "lake heed that ye be not consumed oncof another.” The social life we all enjoyed was, in the more uniform inspects of if, the direct actjpn upon it pf those men and jnpn who have taken up thy bprd P }is pf their time. The utterly selfish jind’self-centred man was ant}: social, and the time would come When he would be treated as a social enemv. If wc were to do our part in the realisation of the King? (loin of Heaven upon the earth, Ihe social ideal must be brought to the ideal oi Jestia. The

self-centred family was also antisocial. Simply to bear the burdens of your own kith and kin was of no great service to humanity. The law of the spirit in Christ Jesus demanded something more. It demanded—and it was its first and last word upon human relationships—it demanded love for men as men. That was the application of the principle in its more distinctively Christian side. He rejoiced in the measure in which the brethren of the Wallace Lodge had apprehended the great principle he had been discussing, and essayed to make it A SOCIAL FORCE of power and blessing in the district. Paul declared that “if any man provideth not for his own, and especially for those of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” It was a good thing and a wise thing that by co-operation and combination they did as much as in them lay to fulfil in adversity,

or incapacity or loss those sacred obligations owed to families and kinship, and he urged those outside such a lodge as that represented to connect themselves with one in order that those obligations and responsibilities as parents or prospective parents of families might more adequately be fulfilled. He rejoiced that the principle of bearing one another’s burdens was a rule of the Lodge. In the constitution of the American Order the object was declared to be to visit the isick, to relieve the distressed, to bury the dead, to educate the orphan, and to improve and elevate the character of men. He need hardly remind them that that was part and parcel of that

PURE RELIGION and nndefiled which before God and the Father was to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keep oneself unspotted from tlie world. It was a glorious ideal, and might he, in the spirit of love and of brotherhood, and actuated by a pure human interest in them as members of ‘the one great family for whom Christ died,—might he, as a sinning man

unto sinning men, urge upon them to hold fast to the faith in the fullorbed Gospel of Christ ? The simplest service rendered to others may be sanctified. "For as much as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” In that Christ-like social service lay not only the private adjustment of all human relationships to the salvation of society in the mass, but also the hope and promise of the realisation on earth of the Kingdom of God.