If for pleasure life on this planet was bestowed on human beings, would Jesus have lived to suffer as he did? We should "take up our cross and follow him" as the true office of life. If we do not find pleasure in doing so we will find satisfaction. John Brown experienced it; Stephen grasped it; it was his when he cried, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" YE 181ST LESSON. The Higher Motive. Most persons (so little do they think), do not seem to be aware that private gain is the least praiseworthy of motives to action among men and least powerful. It has been but a generation since America experienced an awakening that brought to the front the motive of deepest hold. What led two millions of men north and south to enlist in the civil war? It was not the motive of money-making; it was not self-interest. It was what they believed to be the common good. The motive of self-interest pales in the light of this higher motive. All, even life itself, is willingly surrendered for the good of the unborn. This motive, as man rises to the meridian of civilization, will cause to grow and ripen a new social order, like the one it may be that the primitive disciples of Jesus sought to realize described in the Acts of the Apostles. It will be similar to that Christian community in purpose-the common welfare made the supreme aim. motive is instinctive not only with mankind, but with all gregarious creatures, mammals, birds and insects. This Private interest is a motive wanting dignity. We must give up all our private interests for the common good or meet the fate of Ananias. We encompas the earth with our argosies seeking new markets for our products. This is suicidal. Let all products essential to life be placed within the easy reach of our home consumers until all wants here are fully supplied before we ship goods abroad to enrich millionaires who have no passion but insatiate greed. It is not the augmentation of the wealth of the wealthy few that society should aim to accomplish, but to bring plenty within the easy grasp of each and all. What is the first thing requisite to this end? It is the realization of how little each absolutely needs for health and comfort and that life is wasted by him who reaches out to grasp beyond his needs. One can, it is true, run through with a great sum. An Iowa man, in a short time, squandered one hundred and fifty thousand of trust funds -sufficient to support amply a family one hundred and fifty years, for a thousand a year is enough for a large family to live well upon. Soon the battle will begin, 'Gainst the giant powers of sin;- Private capital no more Shall enslave the toiling poor; All the land will then be tilled By the owners of the field; Their own hands will plow and sow; Their own hands will reap and mow. Soon shall perish Tenantry; Rent will die with Usury. Soon each man a home shall have; On his own proud acre live. Soon of cities (Sin's retreats) COMMERCIALISM AND ALTRUISM Grass will grow upon the streets; No longer will palatial domes Look proudly down on humbler homes— To dwell above the common plane; The greatest-the most truly blest- The Godlike man, whose noble mind The widow's helper in distress. Yes, there is a higher motive than greed. What is it? 245 Love. And mankind have for thousands of years been of this belief-ever since it was held that "God is love:" True Christianity restored, To metamorphose Hell to Heaven, A Christian community— It is the same to-day as then And oh, I see the time quite near, When each shall live and act as though So great his philanthropic zeal, YE 182ND LESSON. Commercialism and Altruism. Milton's Paradise Lost may be read as an allegory of commercialism and altruism. Satan and his rebel host represent the one and God and his loyal angels the other. Cruelty and Greed warring against Benificence and Love; Darkness against Light; Barbarism against Civilization. Altruism will, in the end, prevail over Commercialism; Beneficence and Love over Cruelty and Greed; Civilization over Barbarism, as God prevailed over Satan. This war has gone on ever since the beginning of human history. It is waged now with greater fierceness than ever before, as the darkest hour just precedes day. Under the guize of altruism the Spaniard championed commercialism in the West Indies and in Peru and in Mexico. He would "Christianize" the heathen, he said. But he annihilated fifteen million Indians in fifteen years because they would accept death rather than slavery. Negroes were brought to the islands as slaves. Why are Russia and Japan at war? Commercialism is the cause. Why have we possession of the Philippines. In the interest of commercialism alone. Who are benefited? Millionaires. Our soldiers upbraid the Filipinos, calling them "niggers," push them off the sidewalks and treat them as meanly as if they were dogs. We exploit their country, taking possession of their mines, timber-lands, etc. Commercialism demands a navy, each battleship costing seven millions or more. "Give us a hundred battleships," says Lieutenant Hobson. They will cost seven hundred millions at least. Who will be benefited? Only the contractors for steel plates and other material, and for guns, munitions and the building of the ships. Thus we create billionaires, and for every billionaire a million paupers. So is commercialism a vampire bleeding the millions to build up trusts, create trust magnates and make paupers of the many. We have no need of distant islands, nor of warships, nor of professional soldiers. Commercialism has ruined the nations that have acepted it, from ancient Persia to modern Spain. Imperialism is another name for Commercialism. Its fruit is slavery first and then ruin in its wake. The introduction and enslavement on our soil of the negro-what has it cost us? The price of Commercialism everywhere and as it is costing Russia and Japan. What produced our Civil war? "It was," says one, "the altruists (abolitionists), John Brown Gerrett Smith, Garrison, Phillips and others." Altruism, I affirm, did not bring it on; but altruism did free the slaves, both in the West Indies and on the American continent. It freed the Russian serfs. It will finally gain the mastery everywhere. Then there will be no more wars, no more battleships, no more armed soldiers. It was greed that brought on the Civil war and that causes all wars. The commercial spirit is savagery. The altruistic spirit is civilization, peace and happiness. He that opens a department store and would monopolize the trade of a whole city is a savage. He that has enough for essential needs and still reaches after more is a savage. Enough. What is enough? Very little. "Il fares the land to hastening ills the prey Reader, do not think for a moment that altruism is not a more powerful force or motive by far than greed. It has no hold on the minds of barbarians-on the minds of savages. The reason commercialism triumphs now is that the Sun of Righteousness is eclipsed. Is that possible? Yes; but an eclipse of the sun does not last long. Remember: nobody among us wants distant islands, battleships and standing armies for America but men who look to be enriched by contracts for building ships, etc., etc. The commercial class, to become billionaires, would see wholesale butchery going on in our country and throughout the world, as in Manchuria to-day, no matter, though the millions be pauperized, and the youth slain and maimed, if only fat contracts come to them. The starlight of history reveals the altruist devoting his life to others' good-the Jesuit in Canada among the Hurons, Las Cassas in South America appealing to the heartless Spaniards to spare the THE TRUE PURPOSE OF LIFE 247 inoffensive Red men; the Sisters of Charity and the Salvation Army workers giving their lives to doing good; Lovejoy and John Brown dying for the slave. Yes, altruism is God, for it is love, and God is love. It is omnipotent and it will hurl the Satan of Commercialism "Headlong down to bottomless perdition." YE 183D LESSON. The True Purpose of Life. Many years ago I clipped the following from the Detroit Free-Press: "To go through life with a high purpose brings out the best of youth and manhood. Money, fame, position, influence may come. But the noble impulse to turn them all to others' good comes with them, and every year marks the practical difference between one whose only thought in life is of being successful, and one who is all the time thinking of being useful in that station in life to which God has called him. The one, as a matter of habit, looks over everybody with whom he comes in contact, wondering how far he can use him for his own purposes. The other is trying as he can to see how he can use himself for others and for mankind. The record that the first named class makes is that of self-seekers. The record that the other makes is that of a noble manhood." It is to the second class named in the beautiful quotation above I would have every boy and every girl belong; for that class alone will be found on this planet when true civilization fully and universally prevails. Self-seekers are not civilized men, but barbarians. They cannot be termed Christian, for the ideal held forth in the New Testament teachings is purely unselfish. How the Apostle James denounces them that "know to do good and do it not." "Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl, for your miseries shall come upon you," etc. If one open the New Testament and read and note to what extent it points the way to a life of usefulness and purity, compared with the writings of Plato and Aristotle, the greatest of all the old time Greek teachers of righteousness whose works have come down to us, he will be led to exclaim "It is divine!" A high purpose in life! What purpose can be higher than that St. Paul had in viewthe evangelization of the world! And nowhere in the sacred word is there a hint that the most humble disciple has had assigned to him a mission less sublime than that assumed by St. Paul. "Ye are priests! Ye are kings!" is the definition of the office of each professor of the religion of Jesus. It is the duty enjoined on every one to be an Apostle of the Lord and not the duty of merely a select few. It is the lifework of each to do as the Master did-live unselfishly for others' good. But would it indeed be wise to "take no thought of the morrow" as he enjoined? I think it would be. Let us do all to-day that lies in our power to help redeem the world-"deliver it from evil"-and do the same tomorrow, if it come. But tomorrow never will come. It is only to-day that we see. The now is ours. Tomorrow will never be our own. What we do must be done today. This moment is all we have. Before it is a blank; behind it a memory. But the now is ever with us and it ever will be with us. All there is of life to any one is just the present moment. What is the law of the present? Make the most of it. How? "Lend a hand." How long does my past seem to me now? No longer than three score years ago. When I looked back then to the beginning of my recollection it seemed as far in the past as to look back now after 70 years of life. So nothing of time is seemingly gained. Those who die young have lived as long as have the aged lived, so it seems to their young minds, The present brought to a period is the same to the child as to the centennarian. Warren lived a thousand years in a minute, as the electric spark passes around the world in an instant. He is living still. So are Lincoln and Washington. The mighty dead rule the world. Those who live to a purpose never die. Those who live to no purpose are already dead. "We have passed from death unto life." How do I know this? "Because we love the brethren." Are we not all brethren -children of "our Father in heaven?" "He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." How long have we lived? The length of life is measured by the yard-stick of good done. He that has done no good and will do no good had an untimely birth. He never breathed the breath of life. Life is made up of good deeds, not of length of years. Count the good we have done; so long have we lived. A high purpose in life is life itself. "In him was life and the life was the light of men." So, to live through life for a high purpose is the end for which God gave us being and that purpose others' good. Such is the Christian ideal and not to "escape hell and get to heaven" as has been falsely taught. YE 184TH LESSON. Commercialism and Extortion. Is Mr. Rockefeller worse than any other modern devoted to money making? I stop off to get a bite to eat, the train giving twenty minutes to passengers for that purpose. Here is a railroad restaurant adjoining the depot. Ten cents is charged for a sandwich, a bun split in halves and a wafer of meat between. Buns like this one are sold at McQuaid's establishment in Des Moines, Iowa, for five cents a dozen, and the piece of meat inserted to make the sandwich, would hardly weigh an ounce. A few blocks away from the depot one may have a good meal at a restaurant for fifteen cents. Are Rockefeller's methods of extortion worse than those practiced wherever men are compelled to purchase articles necessary to subsistence, and opportunity is found for extortion? Mr. Rockefeller is a typical moneymaker. All churches in America are, and have ever been, built and the ministry supported by contributions from just this kind of extortioners. There is neither law nor public opinion adverse to extortion; for the sin is so common that no business man or woman can plead not guilty of the crime, though it is declared in the Bible a great sin. There would be, under our present order, no churches built, no ministers supported, nor missions established if contributions were refused and not accepted from men no better than Mr. Rockefeller. The hesitancy of the board of missions to accept money from the millionaire oil magnate to "spread the gospel" when what we term "commercialism" is the religion of Christendom, is ano malous, to say the least: Than Christ's there is no other name Through which mankind can be redeemed; As Haddock labored and gave up His life a sacrifice for right, And Logan-martyrs to a cause Is done most truly "In His Name.' Cursed be Mammon! Oh the wrong "Twas profitable," and slaves were shipped |