Newspaper Page Text
(January 10, 1932] THE
ties be used in God's appointed way, they become
useless or worse. "Unto every one which
hath shall be given; and from him that hatb
not, even that he hath shall be taken away from
him.
Every young man has his visions and dreams,
full of romanticism and enthusiasm. It is not
well to repress them, for the seers of visions
have directed the destinies of the world. The
monuments of the world are erected to dream
crs and history is full of accomplishments of
men who could see far into the future. The
world has little use for the day dreamer who
does not make his dreams come true, it has
less use for those sordid souls whose imagination
does not make them see the usefulness,
tin* possibilities of which we are capable. What
is needed is not fewer visions, but the determination
which clothes the vision in flesh and
blood.
w e need a constructive idealism which is
not content with the common grind of life,
but which tills the future with its conceptions
of the life and then strains every nerve to build
up the life to its imaginings, even as the architect
who builds his house in liis imagination
before there is sound of chisel or hammer.
There should always be a hungering for
the unseen and unattained.
. "Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it which reaches and
towers,
And groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in tree and flower."
The imagination is the creative workship for
? these ideals. Little work can he wrought out
until it is first pictured there. This chamber
of imagery in the soul of every man is that
which really directs the life and forms the
character. We will be as our gods, as our
ideals. In this chamber we may set up the
unclean images and unworthy ideals and cherish
the memory of evil deeds, or we may erect
there ideals that will call forth all that is noble
in a soul and fill our lives with lofty aspirations.
But there must he a connecting link
between the seeing and the accomplishment.
When Paul in his dreams saw gates opened
for the gospel in Europe, and in his sanctified
illlnorinntinii ? >"' J 11
B.U?V1VU oa*v viirece HI1U KOIUC brought
to the cross, he said, "Immediately we endeavored!"
This was the determination and the
endeavor that clothed his phantom with flesh
and blood, that connected the dream with the
reality, that enlisted his powers, means, and
efforts, and brought to pass that which had
been born in his imagination.
We thank thee, Father, for the love and care
that made our childhood safe and joyful, a
school of wholesome living and serviceable
powers. We praise thee for teaching that has
come out of the lives of children, for their affection,
direct. simplicity of thought and their
forgiveness of our impatient ways and words.
With joy we remember that our Lord Jesus
Christ came as a child and learned his first
, n L. >_ J.. nf? ' -
ironuiiti hi ins muuier s Hiue. nis infancy
tie our teacher and his reverence for childhood
our example. In thy mercy suffer us not to
put a stumbling block in the path of any of thy
-little ones but by honest and good hearts enable
us to lead the way in all simplicity of
faith. So build thy kingdom, Lord, securely in
the hearts of those that love thee and let our
earth be still thy nursery of saints and heroes.
Tn the name of Christ- Amen. Selected.
He who will not learn from little children,
cannot learn anything from their elders.?
Ernst von "Wildenbrueh.
..... .... . . ; . t .. i
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S<
THE BOY PROBLEM.
We are inclined to think that this is a mis
uorner. That set of conditions which is referred
to under the title were better called by another
uaine. It is "the man problem" as the problem
works itself out in the boys. The man is
father to the boy in this case, and not the'boy
the father to the man. It is the man's attitude
towards God and Christ and religion and the
Church that shapes and determines the boy's.
The man is the one of mature judgment and
ways, and not the boy, and it is the older that
has both the right of command and the influence
to exert which are needed to prevent or
to solve what we call "the boy problem."
At a certain age the boy always tends to cut
loose from what he comes to look upon as "the
11 ni'All of n.o ' * ?? U*? x 1 1
obnuga ui ins uiuuier. one nas Deen
up to that time the center and soul of his being.
Her influence and power have been his rule and
authority. Her thoughts and acts have been
his standard. But now a change takes place.
The father begins to loom large. Masculinity
begins to be attractive to him. He is becoming
not so much manly as mannish. He is an imitator
of what he sees in his father. He follows
the father's politics with a blind infautation
and becomes a greater partisan than the adultHe
begins to brush his hair as the father does,
and to desire the same kind of heels and toes
to his shoes. He affects the sam<? lnnomncra
the father uses, and seeks to ride the horse
most like his and to walk in his young way
with his father's stride, trying to keep step
with him. Consciously or unconsciously he
patterns after him in everything. If that father
lets drop a profane word occasionally the
hoy thinks it is all right and does the same.
If the father somewhat sneers at the religion
of women and girls, as they sometimes foolishly
do, he does the same. If the father neglects
the church and treats lightly the claims of religion,
so does the boy.
So it is "the father problem" or "the man
problem" that precedes "the boy problem."
The sons of men who are very faithful to the
church have very little of "the boy problem"
in their homes. Their own principles and conduct
settle it before it comes up. True, there
is a short period in which all boys are more
or less shy, abashed as to church and religious
duty, and when most of them dislike to have
personal religion mentioned to them, and when
they do not like to be thought to be "good;"
hut that critical period is quickly passed. Its
dangers are greatly lessened and its length
much shortened when there are fine, manly,
brave fathers to help their boys over it. That
part of the hoy's life is bad enough, in its disinclination
to what their fellows may call
" goodishness," but there is something worse,
and that is for the boys to have fathers who
will not by precept and example and silent duty
help their sons over it.
If we had more men in the Sunday schools
we would have more boys in the classes and
would hold them better and longer. The boys
see few men there and an hour later few men
in the church's pews. They think it is the
part of the man that is in them to stay away.
We repeat the point with which we began, that
it is "the man problem" more than "the boy
problem" that is before us to be snivel
that fathers have both the making and the
solving of it in their hands.
What the world really needs is men who have
news from the land of the ideal, who have
God's life within them, who open afresh the
springs of living water that qneneh the thirst
of the soul.?J. Brierley.
, . ,
)UTH (35) 11
INTERNATIONAL PEAOE.
Extracts from a Sermon Preached by
Dr. Jowett.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall
be called the children of God." The children
of God are to seek peace in the way in which
the Father himself seeks it. God seeks peace
through rectitude. We are to seek first the
kingdom of righteousness and all things, including
peace, shall be added unto us. When right
relations are restored the Angel of Peace comes
to abide. The children of God are to be makers
of peace through personal sacrifice, through
costly ways that demand the shedding of blood.
r>? 1--? ....
ji cutc-uituvuig is noi to De a iigtit pastime, a
cheap bit of by-play for the disengaged momeuts
of the day. The peacemakers will leave red
marks along the road and the blood will be their
own.
Apply the principle to still wider fields, to
the estrangement of nation and nation, to the
hideous twilight where the ominous clouds of
war are never out of the sky. Look around on
the perilous elements with which we have to
deal. There is the unhealthy and obtrusive emphasis
of armaments. Everywhere they are
given pre-eminence. At coronations and all state
ceremonies they are accorded the first place, to
the subordination of the tokens and captains
of industry and the leaders of literature and
science and art.
There is the blinding of the judment by fierce
and unclean passion, the blunting of discernment,
the perverted sense of honor, all of which
fan be seen at work in the relations of England
and Germany today. And fourth, there are the
barbarities of war, which John Bright described
as "the combination and concentration of all
the horrors of which human nature is capable,"
4 a * * * *
?.m mr cuiiurnmuon oi tnese words may be
found in the appalling condition of Tripoli
today.
And when the war is over when homes have
been decimated and families have been riven,
when the battle has gone to the swift and the
strong, who knows that the right has prevailed?
The triumph of the mighty may mean the enthronement
of the wrong.
These are some of the perilous elements with '
which we have to deal. What shall we do?
Let us listen again to the Master's words:
"Blessed are the peacemakers." And how shall
peace be made between nation and nation when
affairs are tending to misunderstanding and
alienation and strife? How does the Father
make peace? "Having made peace by the blood
of the cross," and O, I would that some great
Christian nation would, in some time of crisis,
make peace bv the blood of it?
-- - "J
some sublime act of glorious sacrificial magnanimity
! I would that some Christian would disown
the axiom that the law of nations is the
law of the beasts, and "laying aside every weapon
of carnal warfare," would rely for her continued
existence upon the powers of reason,
"upon the service she would render to the
world." and the testimony she would bear to
Christ. You may deride the suggestion as ideal,
and amid the fog of worldly compromise and
expediencies, to keep its radiant dignitaries in
sight? And it may bo as a man of statesmanlike
mind declared some years ago. "it may be that
a nation martyred for Christ's sake may he
within the counsel of God," a nation which
sought to make pence by the blood of its own
cross.
ri -J J * - - - -
viuu directs tne path of his faithful servants.
They may go there and seem to he very much
at random, but there ir a guiding Hand: not
simply a principle or a purpose, hut a guiding
Hand which leads them.?Ex.
*