y, -U V "V7 fw-r? The Commoner is VOL. 16, NO. 11 llttlo sood gots Its tremendous power? Where does It find its coloring mattor? How does it collect its flavoring extract? How does it build a watormolon? Until you can oxplaln a water melon, do not bo too sure that you can sot limits to the power of the Almighty and say just what He can do or how Ho would do it. I can not oxplaln tho watermelon, but I oat it and en joy It. (From Tho Prince of Peaco.) and grow upon its own merits. Its tendency is to destroy not to create. A society fashioned according to its plans would be neither elevated nor lasting; in proportion as materialism is em bodied in life it robs life of both usefulness and happiness, while Christianity grows and will grow because tho more perfect its embodiment in the lifo the more attractive and forceful it becomes. (From The Fruits of the Tree.) . TUB RADISH Did you ovor raise a radish? You put a small black seed Into tho black soil and in a little whllo you roturn to tho garden and And the full grown radish. Tho top greon, the body whlto and almost transparent and tho skin a delicate red or pink. What mysterious powor roaches out and gathers from tho ground tho particles which give it form and size and flavor? Whoso is tho Invisible brush that transfers to tho root, growing In darkness, tho hues of tho summer Biinsot? If wo wore to refuse to eat anything until wo could understand tho mystery of its croatlon wo would die of starvation but myia-,' tcry, It seems, never bothors us in tho dining room; It is only in tho church that it causes us to hesitate. (From a lecture on Tho Value of an Ideal.) STUMBLING BLOCKS The Immoral church member who borrows his habits from the outside world, and the moral man outside the church who borrows .his virtues from tho church, are stumbling blocks only be cause their inconsistencies are not clearly un derstood by the unconverted. . (From The Fruits of the Tree.) , 1 MORALITY THE POWER OF ENDURANCE Morality Is the power of. endurance in man; and a religion which teaches personal responsi bility to God gives strength to morality. -(From The Prince Of Peace.) ' THE DARWINIAN THEORY Go back as far as we may, we can not escape from tho creativo act, and it Is just as easy fdr mo to belioyo that God created man AS HE IS as to believe that, millions of years ago, He cre ated a germ of lifo and endowed it with power to develop into all that wo see today. I object to the Darwinian theory, until more conclusive proof is produced, because I fear we shall lose the consciousness of God's presence in our daily life, if wo must accept tho theory that through all the ages no spiritual force has touched tne lifo of man or shapod tho destiny of nations. But there is anothor objection. The Darwin ian, theory represents man as reaching his pres-. out perfection by tho operation of the law of hato i tho merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off tho weak. If this is the law of our development then, if there is any logic that can bind the human mind, we shall turn backward toward tho beast in proportion as wo substitute the law of love. I prefer to be lieve that love rather than hatred is the law of development. How can hatred be the law of development when nations have advanced in proportion as they have departed from that law and adopted the law of love? (From The Prince of Peace.) TRACING MAN'S PEDIGREE If a man links himself in generations with tho monkey, it then becomes an important ques tion whether he is going toward him or coming from him and I have seen thm going in both ' directions. I do not know of any argument that can be used to prove that man fs an improved monkey that may not be used just as well to prove that the moneky Is a degenerate man, and tho latter theory is more plausible than the former. It Is true that man, in some physical charac teristics resembles the beast, but man has a mind as well as a body, and a soul as well as a mind. The mind is greater than the body and the soul is greater than the mind; and I object to having man's pedigree traced on one-third of him only and that the lowest third. -(From Tho Prince of Peace.) DRUMMOND VS. DARWIN, . As the plant, to repeat what Drummond has said, reaches down and draws inanimate mat ter up into the realm of lifo, so. wo need some divine power to reach down and draw us. up into the realm of spirit. Man can respond to a summons from above, but ho has no physical or mental force within him which can, unaided' carry him, to moral heights. ' (From The Fruits of the Tree.") ONE WITH GOD Man needs faith in God, therefore, to strengthen him in his' liours of trial and he needs it to give him courage to do? the work' of life. How can one fight lor a1 principle unless ho believes in the triumph of the right? , How can he believe in the triumph of the right if he does not believe that God stands back of the truth and that God is able to bring victory to truth? The man of faith, believing that every word spoken for truth will have its' influence and that no blow struck for righteousness is struck in vain, fights on "Without .there iff asking whether he is to fall -in the beginning of the battle or to live to join in- the shouts of tri umph. He knows not whether he is to live for the truth or to die for it, and if he has the faith he ought to have, he is as ready to die for it as to live for it. Faith will not only give you strength when you fight for righteousness,' but your faith will bring dismay to your enemies. There is power in the presence of an honest man who does right because it is right and dares to do the right in the face of all opposition. It is true today, and has .been true through all history. that "One With God shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight" ,'v (From Address' on Faith.) ''" . - '''' ' LIVING THE IBD3LE ' What greater miracle than this that converts a selfish, self-centered, human being into a ceri-" ter from which good influence's flow out in every ' direction! And yet this miracle has b'een wrought in the heart of each one of us or ma? ' be wroughtand we have seen it wroucht in the hearts and lives of Chose about us. No liv ing .a life that is a mystery, and living in the midst of mystery and miracles, I shall not allow either to deprive me of the benefits of the Christian religion. If you ask me if I under! stand everything in the Bible, I answer,, rio but if we will try to live up to what we do under- stand, we will be kept so .busy doing good that we wil not have time to worry about the pass ages which we do not understand. (From The Prince of Peace.) 4 ' t0 iA7 WitU lnt anticipations. p0r weeks before December 25th busy hands Vm work, tiny sayings banks are gathering in tLl sacred store and eager expectancy is wri ttl upon the, face of the young. To the boys and girls Santa Claus is a sort of composite donnr who monop61izes the distribution of presort and who, reading the minds of his little friend" rewards the good (and all are good just bnfnri Christmas) with the very toys that Jhey them selves have selected, while the older ones leani by experience that it is more blessed to cive tit to receive. Back of Christmas and the OhX mas present is love, and the broad, brotheriv love taught and exemplified by the Nazarene X not content with the remembrances which aro exchanged as tokens of affection between mem bers of the family and between intimate friends it is compelling the widening of the circle to idthUo? r poor and tbe eedy though not of What an instructor love is! ,How it develops .the one of whom it takes possession! When once it is awakened its dissolves all opposition Dr. Parkhurst, the New York clergyman, in ni lustrating the difference between.. force and love said (quoted- from memory) that "force is tho hammer which can break a block of ice into a thousand pieces but leaves each piece still ice while love is the ray of sunlight which though acting more slowly and silently, melts the ice." At this season of the year our thoughts turn to the contemplation of the new degree of love revealed to, the world by Jesus. To tho love between members of 'the family and love between friends He added an all-pervading love that in cludes every member of the human race. Even enemies are not beyond the bounds of this love, for man's puny arms ro not strong enough to break the bonds that unite each son of God to all his brethren, "Love is not stupid," says Tolstoy. It makes known to us our duty to our fellows and it will some day rule the world. Force is the weapon, of the animal in us; after it comes money, which the inteljept employs sometimes for good, sometimes, for .harm. But. greater .than all is love, the weapon of the heart. It is a sword that never rus$s, jnejther does it break and the. wounds that iCleayes' are life saving, nqtjife-destroyjng. 'Noarmor can with stand it and no antagonist can resist it. But why try to define this love or to measure its scope? Paul, the apostle, tt his first epistle to the Corinthians describes' it, in language to which nothing can be added and from which , "uuub VU.H LC kftlVOU. 4f ." THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL Even in our maturer years we need an ideal which defies complete embodiment In 'the flesh. It is a low ideal that can be easily' reached; when we overtake our ideal, our progress stops. It is the glory of the Christian ideal, embodied in the words and life of our Savi'olir, that while it is within sight of the weakest and the lowli est, it is yet so high that the best and noblest are kept with their faces turned ever upwards; and Christian civilization is the highest that the world has ever known because it rests upon a conception of life which makes that life a con tinuous ascent, with no limit to human advance ment and-development. ;' ; (From The Fruits of the Tarctei ) IN HIS IMAGE j ir. v h, I find proof that man was madqm the imae of his Creator in tho fact that. tarouKhouHh centuries, he has been willing to dl? ?f ne sary that blessings denied "to him' might lit ' - w ,, wV l MATERIALISM Materialism has no morality of its own; it is a parasite which fastens itself upon the living, tree of, Christianity. It has no trunk;, it has no. power to send itsroots down into the ground (From The Prince of Peace.) ' , . .' A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT Christmas is love's festival. Set apart for the commemoration of. God's gift of Hte Son it has grown into a great holiday which is ob served throughout Christendom by rich and poor alike. Even those who refuse to take unon themselves the vows of any church S strained to join-in the beauUful qusCwXh makes both parents and children Took towarS- HE LARGER LIFE: ; . ' . 'V ., If. an agricultural community,, which found its wealth upon the eacfch's surface, was visited by a stranger and told that just a. -few feet down in the, ground a vein, of coal could be .found which would add ta ts material resourcep, would not the. inhabitants. At once avail themselves of tho information? And would they not he grateful to the. one to wbom they were indebted for the information that thus enlarged iheir wealth? They might be too much engrossed, in gathering in .their new riches to honor, their benefactor during his life, but after his death, at least, they would build a monument to'him in proof of their appreciation . And suppose after they had bqcome accus tomed to drawing their incomes from these two sources of wealth, the soil and the veins of coal. another stranger visited them and told them that a little farther down they could- find gold with which to purchase all that they,, might de sire, would they' riot again be, glad to profit by this new knowledge? Thej; might become so rich as to temporarily forget the one to whom - I v. .