Part 15 (1/2)

A laborer is worthy of his hire, and a preacher, teacher or benefactor of any sort should be well paid. But when I see these big guns taking away ten to twenty thousand dollars in cold cash for three weeks'

campaign converting the poor suffering people, the thought comes to me, that if the evangelist is sincere he should buy a lot of bread, coal and underwear and hire a lot of trained nurses with a big part of that money.

Christ and his Apostles were of the people; they worked with, and among the people; they had no committees, no guarantees and no business men's subscription lists.

It's mighty hard to read about these sensational evangelists taking in thousands of dollars for a couple of weeks' revival meetings, and harmonize that religion with the religion of Christ, the carpenter, and his Apostles, who were fishermen and workmen.

The excitement, intoxicating, frenzy revival method is pretty much always the same in its working. The evangelist starts in with the song ”Where is My Wandering Boy Tonight,” then follows the picture of mother, which is painted with sobs of blood. Then follows mother's death-bed scene until the audience is in tears. Gesticulation, mimicry, acting, sensationalism, slang and weepy stories follow, until the ferment of excitement is developed into a high state and droves flock to the altar to be made over on the instant into sanctified beings.

The evangelist stays until his engagement is up, and then departs with a pocket full of nice fat bank drafts.

It is a sad commentary on the established profession of ministry that sensational professionals are called in and paid fabulous prices to convert the people in their community.

I do not take much stock in either the frigid form with its frills or the frenzied fire and brimstone, scare-you-to-it extremes.

Somewhere between these extremes is the rational natural sane road to travel; the religion of brotherly love; of cheers, not tears; of hope, not fear; of courage, not weakness; of joy, not sorrow; of help, not hindrance.

The religion that makes us love one another here, not the kind that says we shall know each other there. The religion that has to do with human pa.s.sions, human trials, human needs, instead of the frigid form or the fevered frenzy; the religion that avoids the extremes of heat and cold, that's the kind the world needs most.

Christ taught love, kindness, charity, and not beautiful churches, opera singing choirs. He spoke not of robes, vestments, forms or rituals.

One of the most beautiful things in the Bible is the story of the good Samaritan with his simple, unostentatious aid to a wounded man, an enemy of his people whom the Samaritan knew was none the less a brother. And you will remember the priest of the temple, the man who taught charity, and love, drew up his skirts and pa.s.sed the wounded man by.

LAZINESS

We Are Becoming a Nation of Sitters

Danger is in extremes. Too much of anything is bad for the human being's health.

There is a comfortable proportion of exercise and rest mixed together that will give bodily efficiency. Too much exercise is bad, too little is bad.

Until recent years our vocations and the going to or from our places of business gave us a well balanced amount of exercise, rest, work and pleasure, and all went well.

Lately we hear much about worry, neurasthenia, nervous prostration and the like. There are several contributing causes to the mental and physical ills which are caused by ”nerves.”

First of all, we have an epidemic of labor-saving devices. The princ.i.p.al arguments used by the manufacturer of a labor-saving device is, ”It makes money and saves work.” Making money and getting soft snaps seem to be the objectives of most human beings.

The labor-saving devices take away exercise. The machine does the work.

The artisan simply feeds the hopper, puts in a new roll, or drops in the material. He sits down and watches the wheels go around, likely smoking a cigarette the meanwhile, and more than likely reading the sporting sheet of a yellow newspaper.

Possibly few of my readers have given the matter serious thought, and they will be astounded at the changed work conditions which have come into our modern life.

It will be interesting to note just here some of these changes. Men used to live within walking distance of their work. Now the electric street railway and the speedy automobile have eliminated the necessity for much walking.

Men used to climb stairs. The elevator has now so accustomed us to the conveniences that stairs are taboo.

Machines have replaced muscles. The old printer walked from case to case and got exercise. Today he sits in an easy backed chair and uses a linotype.