Acts 19

Acts 19:1-20

DIVINE HEALING AND HEALERS Acts 19:1-20. THE paths of Paul and Apollos cross and recross. They are mutually attractive, and while duties may send them on separate errands, affection will often draw them together. This coming of Paul discovers a small church, constituted of “certain disciples”, “about twelve” in number. They were imperfectly instructed; they had received Jesus for salvation, but not the enduement of power for service. They had been evangelized by Apollos. They were in sore need of instruction by Paul. Salvation is one thing; one’s upbuilding in the faith is another and an additional thing, and through the cooperative endeavors of Apollos and Paul, this small company are getting both. The Word of God is not only “a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death”, but it is a test of the thoughts and intents of the heart. When Paul, in the synagogue at Ephesus, continues to speak for the space of three months, and the majority simply harden their hearts against the Word and speak evil of the Christ way, he departs from them. But he goes to another and even more difficult task, namely, to meet the philosophers in the school of Tyrannus. He is a warrior, indeed, who, when his work wanes with the common people, dares to undertake the scholars, and no small man would continue such a task for two full years. Whatever may have been Paul’s size physically, he was a mental and spiritual giant, and the multitudes of both Jews and Greeks heard the Word at his lips, and special miracles were wrought at his hands. The remaining portion of this record leads us to speak on both healing and healers, and our text adequately covers both. It presents The Apostle of Faith; it reveals The Professional Faker, and it Discovers and Uncovers and Converts. THE APOSTLE OF FAITH It was Paul who, for the space of two years, in the school of Tyrannus, had reasoned daily, “so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the Word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10). He was not a mere peripatetic. He was no disciple of Aristotle tramping from pillar to post, and carrying with him a pocket full of credentials from the unsophisticated or cowardly. True, he was a traveling missionary, and by the labors of such the early church made its progress. He was not one of that limited sort who can preach two or three sermons and then must move on because they have no more. We believe in the private ministry! Moses voiced a Christian sentiment when he said, “Would God the Lord’s people were prophets every one”! If a man can preach but a single sermon, let him do so much; and if he can bear only the testimony of one clear statement, God will use that. But the minister does well to equip himself for a long-continued strain, so that, if need be, he can stand in the same pulpit for two years, or twenty, or fifty, and reason from the Scriptures without repeating. Paul was such an Apostle! He was a most marvelous teacher. The statement that “all they which dwelt in Asia heard the Word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks”, from Paul’s lips, strains one’s credulity; and, of course, it is probable that it is the common language, and that any one who believes the record of the Apostle’s labors can understand that Asia was permeated with his teaching, as a little sugar sweetens the whole cup. Paul enjoyed the two most important essentials to successful teaching. His mental equipment was not surpassed; his spiritual experience was seldom ever equalled. He knew; letters, for he grew up at the feet of Gamaliel. But even more important still was his personal experience with the Lord on the way to Damascus, from which hour he was a new man and a minister of the truth. S. E. Herrick, in his volume, “Some Heretics of Yesterday”, speaks of John Tauler’s conversion which occurred in 1340 when Tauler was fifty years of age. It seems that one day there appeared in Tauler’s audience, (for he was preaching before his conversion,) a stranger who heard the sermon through and then asked to make confession and receive absolution.

He went a number of times and finally requested Tauler to preach on “The Highest Spiritual Attainment Possible, and How to Reach It”. The sermon was delivered as asked, under twenty-four heads. When it was finished the layman frankly said to Tauler that he had missed the mark, and while preaching to others, had not himself discovered the sinfulness of his own heart, nor yet made a complete surrender of his will to God, and warned him against deceiving himself. Tauler was angry at first, but finally recognized it as the faithful wound of a friend, and said to the layman, “Thou hast been the first to tell me of my fault; stay with me and show me how I may overcome.” For two years the friar’s lips were sealed with the sense of sin and consequent shame. This agony wasted his body and sapped his physical strength as a disease might have done. His enemies taunted him, while the monks ridiculed him for taking life so seriously.

But finally he came into conscious faith in God and knew that his sins were forgiven. Emptied of self he was filled with the “peace that passeth understanding”, and with the peace came power.

Then the layman said, “Now thou knowest the power of God’s grace, and thou understandest the Scriptures as never before, and will be able to show thy fellows the way to eternal life. Now one of thy sermons will bring more fruit than a hundred aforetime, coming from a simple, loving, humbled heart; and as much as the people set thee at naught they will now far more love and prize thee. But a man with a great treasure must guard against thieves. See to it that thou hold fast thy humility, by which thou wilt best keep thy riches.” And it came true; and he was called Dr. Illuminatis —“one upon whom great light had shined.” Such was the Apostle’s appeal. Permit this remark! The recovery to the church of the blessed doctrine of Divine healing will never come to pass at the lips of mere prattlers; it will not be recovered by men who are dealing in pious phrases without understanding their meaning, or experiencing their significance. It will take the well-balanced Bible teacher to recover that doctrine to the Church of God. There is a certain section of the Church of God that responds readily to a smiling face and rolling eyes and clapping hands, and boasted achievements, and hypnotic exercises; but it is the most superficial section of the church. The rightly instructed crowd will wait for the arrival of “a teacher” and will believe in Divine healing when the Word of God has been intelligently set forth, and its multitude of passages have been collated, systematically arranged and properly emphasized. Many miracles are wrought at his hands! Perhaps it is well to pause at this point and define a miracle. George Lorimer, one of the great preachers of last century, declared that “a miracle is an astonishing and expressive effect of which God is the Author.” But that does not mean that a miracle is necessarily removed from the more ordinary forms or courses of nature. William Jennings Bryan tells of a skeptic who questioned Emerson as to his belief in miracles. The philosopher smiled and pointed to a fly. “Miracles”, he said, “they are all about us. When we drop a brown seed into the ground, we get a radish and find it is red without and white within, and we can give no explanation of it. Men are not distressed about miracles in the dining room; it is only in religion that miracles distress them.” Some of us are not distressed about them in religion. We believe the record. Not only so, but we consent to the soundness of the philosophy, “With God all things are possible”, and rejoice in the Scripture statement, attested by ten thousand, thousand, “All things are possible to them that believe”.The text says, “God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them” (Acts 19:11-12).Now, far be it from me to advocate a mere superstition. I am willing to let Popery have well-nigh a monopoly of holy tapers, holy water, and the bones of the saints, and the signs of the cross, and all that, for I do not find a reference to any of them as healing agencies in God’s good Word. But if it was true in the Apostle’s day, and I believe it was, that a handkerchief or an apron sent from his person to the sick one was made the medium of fixing the human mind upon the Great Healer, the Physician of the ages—Christ Himself—who will question that a look to Christ now may save? In other words, since Christ is “the same yesterday, and to day and for ever”, I am never surprised to see Him do over again what He once did: repeating His own action.

But I frankly confess to you that I find a profound difference between this record and some of the professed healings of which I now hear. The latter are too much like the gold mines, the fruit farms, and rubber companies, and the gas fields: they increase in value in proportion to the distance at which they are exploited.

I have never been quite able to understand how Minneapolis people were gullible enough to believe that a mine in British Columbia, just a little north of Seattle, which was going to yield millions, did not find enough ready purchasers in Seattle itself, not to make a visit of its agents to Minneapolis needful; nor why it is that California oil fields are increasingly exploited as you travel toward the eastern seaboard; nor why it is that Texas people do not buy up once and for all the fabulous rubber producing plantations of Mexico, just over the line, for I bear testimony to the fact that Texans are commercially keen and financially capable. The longer I live the more interest I take in a case of Divine healing in Minneapolis vs. Los Angeles, for the very simple reason that I am tired of exploitations that have no corresponding facts. It looks too much like a piece of self-advertisement to claim that a lad somewhere at the ends of the earth recovered at the touch of a handkerchief, when neither handkerchief nor apron, dismissed from the person of the same man, succeeded at home. In the instance of Paul’s work, God was as evidently present where the handkerchief and apron went, as in the presence of Paul, and the disease departed from them, we are told. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the proof of a man’s profession is in the exhibitions of Divine power that appear. I do not recall that in one instance Christ ever told the people of a community about miracles He had wrought in other sections of the land in order to increase their faith in Him; nor do I hear the Apostle employing such an argument in defense of his Divine commission or his unusual blessing. The more certainly a man has God with him, the more surely will he need less of written testimonials or of attendant corroborative evidence. In the many published sermons of Charles Spurgeon, I do not recall a single instance in which he boasted, or even rehearsed how God wrought healing by his hands; but others affirm that no physician in London ever saw so many recover by his pills as rose in answer to Spurgeon’s prayers. The crowd never asked of Jesus Christ, “What proof has this Man of His mighty words?” They inquired instead, “Whence hath this Man these mighty works”? And of Him Herod bore testimony unto his servants, saying, “This is John the Baptist: he is risen from the dead, and thereby do these powers work in Him”. The unbelieving crowd Christ challenged after this manner, “If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do them, though ye believe not Me, believe the works: that ye may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (John 10:37-38, A. S. V.).THE FAKER“But certain also of the strolling Jews, exorcists, took upon them to name over them that had the evil spirits the Name of the Lord Jesus, saying, I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preached. “And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, a chief priest, who did this” (A. S. V.). Fakers by flocks! I call your attention to some of the special marks which almost always characterize a pretender. This Scripture suggests them. There are three of these! In the first place, he takes advantage of an engendered interest. It was when Paul was working real miracles and men and women were being healed of the Lord, that this school of pretenders appeared. You will remember that in the Old Testament when Moses, with his rod, began to work miracles, the magicians gathered and began to imitate. The interest in miracle working was excited and they proposed to take advantage of it. There are people in America who suppose that Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy gave rise to the great movement in favor of Divine healing.

On the contrary, she is one of the multitude who have taken advantage of the suddenly rising tide of interest. Quite a few times in life I have seen a Christian man call a crowd on the street corner and deliver to them the Gospel message while some socialist would draw nigh and wait his opportunity to harangue the same crowd. The advocates of the “millennial dawn” make it their business to go to great meetings where “the Second Coming of Christ” is preached, and the doctrine of the future state set before the people, and as the people turn to leave the place of preaching, push into their hands their misleading and unbiblical literature. A Mormon behaves after the same manner. Not one of them cares a rap whether he makes a convert from sin; his concern is to make a proselyte from any conceivable quarter to his personal views. The problem with these is not that of turning men from iniquity to holiness, but of seeking a convert to the latest social or semi-religious fad.

It is now almost universally accepted as a scientific certainty that the mind has marvelous power over the body, even to the extent of recovering certain forms of disease, and all kinds of “mental healers” and “mediums” are following in the wake of this interest, as sea gulls track the great steamers, and it seems fairly clear, for the same reason, namely, that they may feed thereby. He makes superficial use of sacred phrases. “They took upon them to call over them which had the evil spirits, the Name of the Lord Jesus, saying, we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth”. There may be people who are favorably impressed by the multiplication of pious phrases. I am not opposed to a proper expression of religious emotion. A hearty “Amen” does not jar me in the least, but I am sometimes fearful that “Oh glory!” “Praise the Lord!” “Bless His Name!” and other kindred expressions have been overworked. I hear a great many people pray, “Lord, send the fires!” when I think it is the last thing in the world they really want. Some months ago I was with a man who believed that if we would sit down and sing, “Lord, send the fire”, for a solid hour, the fires would fall.

I did not tell him what I thought would happen. If they did fall they would find fuel enough in his life and mine to keep burning for quite a while, and that in the form of stuff that ought to be cleaned out.

I have a personal friend in Chicago, one of God’s great and good men, who prayed deliberately one morning, “Baptize me with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” and expected suffering in consequence. And it came seven times hotter than he expected, but he never flinched, saying, “This is what I wanted. This is what I asked for.” Holiness is commonly the result of refining fires. A woman went up to my good friend, Dr. Carrol, and said to him, “Doctor, I wish I had your patience.” He looked at her a moment and, as his eyes filled with tears, said, “My dear sister, if you knew what it had cost me to be patient you might retract your wish. My patience was acquired at the bedside and at the coffins and at the graves of two of my sweet children.” I know that he might have added, “And by one experience, infinitely exceeding all of these in sadness, Which broke my heart.” Let us be careful how we employ God’s Name, to what use we submit the Holy Name of Jesus!

These exorcists were not praying; they were blaspheming!They had an eye to the financial advantage. Now this may be a strange interpretation, but I really believe it is a legitimate one. “There were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew” who did this.

If you ever saw a Jew; who did not convert the occasion into cash, I have not met him. It is a custom these days to praise Christian Science for their liberal contributions to the faith they have appropriated. I am not so certain it is justified. The average Christian Science church runs at a far less expense than the average evangelical church. They pay no pastor’s salary, and no small portion of their number, instead of making this movement a means of self-sacrifice, have seen in it an opportunity of commercial advantage. The New York Science Teacher is only one of hundreds that have gathered around them classes and are instructing them for so much per capita. In fact, the greatest financial reckoner last century knew was Mrs. Eddy herself.

Her Divine revelations were so remarkable that they included the purchase of her oft-revised book at an extraordinary price each time, by every disciple of her faith, and she pocketed the profits. There were men who took the same advantage of the Emmanuel movement. Dr. W. W. Everts once said, “I learned the other day of a Boston minister who was offered $3,000 per annum if he would form a partnership with a Boston doctor, dividing the fees on the Emmanuel movement basis.” And Dr.

Everts said, “Think of that!” “Thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.” He added, “Churches are being turned into clinics for the sick and otherwise distressed.” There is not so much objection to that. The Church of God ought to be the place where people go for every conceivable blessing; but when once men attempt to bring the power of God into line with their financial greed, the whole cause of Christ suffers and the Church is discredited accordingly. I heard recently of a negro preacher who excited my ardent admiration. He had been preaching in the streets, and at the conclusion of his talk when the hat was passed, he said, “Now gentlemen, I wants to be fair and square in this whole matter. I is not taking up dis here collection for de Lawd at all, but for my own pusonal uses; I needs dis collection myself and I is gwine to take every last cent of it.” My friend said, “I chipped in a silver piece.” He should have put in a five! Such honesty deserves support! There can be no sort of question that one of the sins that threatens America is mammonism. Mammonism is never so low, so degrading, so hell-deserving as when it takes the name of the mighty God, and by pious phrases, yet with impious spirit, tries to make of it a magic wand with which to turn all it touches into gold. THE AND THE “And the evil spirit answered and said unto them, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are yet “And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and mastered both of them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. “And this became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, that dwelt at Ephesus; and fear fell upon them all, and the Name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. “Many also of them that had believed came, confessing, and declaring their deeds. “And not a few of them that practised magical arts brought their books together, and burned them in the sight of all; and they counted the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. “So mightily grew the Word of the Lord and prevailed” (Acts 19:15-20, A. S. V.). Demons of disease defy mere pretenders. “Who are ye?” And they know the difference between the boasts of the mortal man and the commands of the mighty God. There is only one way in which the unregenerate exorcist can continue to employ sacred texts and yet escape satanic reproof, and that is by going into partnership with him, and seeking with “him to run a counterfeit business. Satan has his lying wonders”, so Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2:9, and I believe that he will let any man or woman be something of a healer who will consent to believe a lie, and become an apostle of the same to his followers. When at last he raises up the anti-Christ, we are told that he shall work mighty miracles. But there is not an instance in which he permits an exorcist to be a healer, but he leads him sooner or later to deny the Deity of the Son of God, either insisting, as in some instances, that He never came in the flesh, or, as in others, that He was a mere medium, or as in yet others, that He was a mighty man but a mortal only. The one who shows any disposition to stick by the fundamental truths of Christ will be opposed by the devil. The public is impressed by the failure of mere profession. One would think that such work must of necessity discredit the cause of Christ. On the contrary, even the unconverted have discerned between the success of Paul and the profession of the sons of Sceva. “And fear fell upon them all and the Name of the Lord Jesus was magnified”. God commonly justifies and even honors His faithful representatives. Paul may perish at the hands of a mob, but he goes with perfect calm, saying, “I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day”.

His life was glorious and his death victorious. Contrast the end of Moody and Dowie. When Moody died the followers of Dowie said that it was the direct result of Dowie’s curse. His opposition to Dowie was his death knell, etc. But what man ever left behind him a more honored record than Dwight L. Moody, and when did one have a more glorious access to the Father’s presence?

Beckoning his children to his side as he went, he said, “This is my coronation day. Earth is receding, heaven is opening, and God is calling.” Even sorcerers are led to seek Christ’s salvation.“Many also of them that had believed came, confessing, and declaring their deeds. “And not a few of them that practiced magical arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all; and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. “So mightily grew the Word of the Lord and prevailed” (Acts 19:18-20). The Adversary conquers against the godless, but God’s man is always and everywhere more than victor over him. Robert Stuart McArthur once said, “There are two great works of art illustrating this truth. The first is the Laocoon, discovered in 1506, on the Esquiline Hill at Rome, immortalizing the legend of the Trojan hero and priest Apollo, who attended by his sons, is encoded by serpents and suffers the agony of strangulation. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture, and it illustrates how a man who, though a priest-father, was unable to tear, unaided, the coiling serpent from himself and his children. They wound about his arms and his legs and rendered him and his sons equally helpless and hopeless, and they sink in despair to death. It is not the death of repose, but of agony.

It is the picture of heroic, yet hopeless despair. It is the parable of the godless Greek’s conception of the end of life. The other work of art is St. George and the Dragon. A similar struggle is portrayed, but the saint prevails. Mounted on his horse, in full armor, he tramples and pierces the dragon which dies at his feet. He goes forth now in his own might, but supported by the strong Son of God. He meets the last enemy, not with quailing and fear and conscious defeat, but with a shout of victory upon his lips and the Te Deum in his heart, crying, “O death, where is thy sting?

O grave, where is thy victory”? and in the midst of the last struggle to shout, “Thanks he to God which giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord”.You must make your choice of the method of your life. As for me, I want the magical arts of godlessness and all the books stained by sin to be burned, and the commercial advantages that could keep me from Christ, eschewed, that I may run my race unimpeded and meet the last enemy inspired and strengthened to the shout of conscious victory.

Acts 19:9

THE SCHOOL AND THE CHURCH Acts 19:9 This sermon was preached, to prevent, if possible, the use of public buildings as dance halls. THE school is not a modern institution, and education is not a twentieth century invention. From time immemorial the young and untaught have sat at the feet of the older and better trained, and have learned of them. The majority of heathen countries have their schools, and in pagan lands the institutions of learning multiply. To be sure, Christianity has been the world’s educational religion, and in proportion as it spreads, schools are both multiplied and improved. The whole educational system as it exists in America was founded by men of unshaken faith in Jesus of Nazareth; and however far society may depart from the opinions and customs of the Puritan fathers, it is not likely either to repay the debt of gratitude it owes to the memory of their gracious ministry, or to improve upon the spirit that inspired their educational endeavors.And yet, every good citizen and every church member and minister ought to appreciate the services of those who give themselves to the educational training of youth; and the whole public school system ought to be the subject of conscientious thought and of careful planning, and, at every point possible, of constant praise. Criticism is easy and not always valuable, and in the discussion of the theme of this evening it is not my plan or desire to play the part of that useful, yet uncomfortable member of society—the carping critic; but rather, to plead the cause of better, and even higher education. We know little of “The school of one Tyrannus”. It seems to have been an educational center, hospitable to new ideas, and not averse to the presence in it of a religious teacher, even a Christian preacher; and so, in some respects, it may be looked upon as a sort of model, and raises the question of The Purpose of the School, suggests The Peril of the School, and leads to the thought of The School and the Public Weal. THE PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL The school is, of necessity, a social center. There children congregate, association is intimate, lifelong friendships are formed, love and courtship are commenced. The foundation of the family, consequently of the state and nation, is laid in the educational process. The social element cannot be eliminated, nor indeed is it desirable that it should be. The President of the School Board deserves the commendation of all citizens in insisting that the school be made the social center of the community, and that there be introduced there, in the hours when classes are not in session, public and private entertainment, pleasant and profitable social occasions. And yet it should be perfectly understood that social life is only an incident of education; it is in no sense its whole spirit. The primary purpose of education is mental improvement. The beginning life is as empty in mind as nude in body. The word “education” has lost its original meaning. The school is supposed now to put into the mind what it craves. Dwight Hillis, in his volume, “A Man’s Value to Society”, says, “The school is to help the boy unpack what intellectual tools he has.” That would be a small job. Who can tell what a baby thinks?

The school is intended to provide him with intellectual tools, and to train him in the use of them. The child begins life with the tool-box empty, but with a craving for knowledge akin to that which the stomach has for food. Men have taken advantage of this, and Tyrannus is only one of the thousands who have opened up places of instruction and have undertaken to provide mental furniture. And so far has the entire public been persuaded of its value that it consents without dispute that education, more than anything else possible to human appointment, gives a man advantage among his fellows. I read a story a bit ago which seems to illustrate the thought that this is a law which has no exception. It was from the pen of Rev. Cyrus Townsend Brady. He says, “One day we were traveling across the plains in a caboose of a freight train. It was while I was doing the work of a missionary in the great West.

A young divinity student was with us. He was one of the ambitious kind of divinity students who wreck a parish or two when they begin, and finally drift upon the ecclesiastical bargain-counter. He was ready to argue with anybody about anything. A greasy, dilapidated looking tramp came into the caboose at one of the stations, and he engaged in a heated discussion with the young theologian upon the disadvantages of education. He contended that the less a man knew, and the less education he had, the happier he was. And he did it with such ease and adroitness that the young man rose and went out on the platform to hide his chagrin, leaving the tramp chuckling over his easy victory.” Brady continued, “My good companion, a bishop, who had listened without saying a word, when the young man was well out of hearing, turned to the tramp, and said quickly, ‘What college are you from, sir?’ ‘A graduate of Yale,’ was the man’s instant answer.” Dr.

Brady had the right to remark, “The unlucky admission destroyed the man’s argument.” Education always has the advantage; and the better it is, the better the advantage. And yet, moral character can never be despised in the educational process. It is quite interesting to follow great men in their definitions of what education is. President Alderman of Virginia University said, “The qualities of an educated man are bound up in these: First, the ability to behave himself properly; second, the ability to use language with force and precision; third, open-mindedness to ideas; fourth, the ability to get what he wants out of books; fifth, the ability to observe closely, imagine vividly and reason accurately; sixth, the ability to do some sort of work well and cheerfully.” And yet the education is sadly incomplete. Ambassador Bryce, speaking in the University of Chicago, said, “The ardor with which the study of physical sciences is now being pursued for practical purposes must not make us forget that education has to do a great deal more than turn out a man to succeed in business.” This is a near approach to a proper opinion, but after all, the man who, writing a bit ago, said, “The new education adds a fourth “R” to reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic, namely, right living”, would have been entirely correct had he meant thereby, righteous living. This country is not in need of Ingersols educated infidels; still less is it in need of educated Richesons, or moral degenerates; or educated Hydes, or murderers for money. Right living, or righteous living, holds not only an important place in the educational process, but the most important place. Apart from it education is scarce worth the while. This raises the whole question, then, that is now before the high schools as to what are their functions, and what properly belongs with the educational endeavor? ONE PERIL OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL is, in the judgment of some of us, resident in certain suggestions which associate themselves with and express themselves through the present proposition to employ them as dance halls. The passion for pleasure is the peril of education. Some of us are fully persuaded, with all the improvement in our philosophy, with the magnificent additions to our school paraphernalia, with the abundant provisions made by the state, with the comfortable and well-lighted rooms in which the children assemble to be instructed, and the score of other points that mark progress in educational facilities, through the very growth of the passion for pleasure, it is a positive problem as to whether we have improved the educational output. Who can tell whether the educated children of this generation are to be the superiors of the educated parents who brought them into being? And if they are not, it will be discovered finally that the reason for their failure is in the passion for pleasure which characterizes our age, more than in all other reasons combined. The positive craze in school athletics, the multiplied number of parties, assembling for social pastime, the call of the sensual stage, the inroads of the picture-show, the lure of the dance hall—these are opponents of education, every one. A genial clergyman, visiting a village school, said to one of the lads, “Well, my little man, what do you do in school all day?” To which the precocious youth instantly replied, “I wait until it is time to get out, sir.” When one rises up and says that since the young people will have these things it is better to provide them under school auspices than it is for them to go into places of less certain character, they ignore certain essential facts. First of all, it is not essential that these people should have these things; the best young people do not demand them! In the second place, these things have not proven profitable to the young people who have had them, and in the third place, it is not the business of the school at all to meet every social demand without reference to its moral results. If history can demonstrate anything, it has already demonstrated the deleterious effects of the modern dance, and when we have educated our boys and girls in this questionable amusement, instead of having protected them against Dreamland and like institutions, we have simply equipped them for easy and graceful appearance there, and increased their temptations to yield to the lure of the larger place and the newer crowd and fresher conquests. In a lifetime we have known a few people who argued that it was better to keep a demi-john on the sideboard, so that if the boys wanted to drink they could do it at home rather than to have them forced to go to the saloon to slake their thirst. It is exactly one of a kind with this proposition of the school dance. In my observation I notice that the boys brought up upon the demi-john at home have commonly turned out drunkards, environment to the contrary notwithstanding; and I have noticed again that the boys and girls who are taught to dance at home, or at least whose parents make no objection to the same, are the very ones who make up nine-tenths of those appearing in the public dance hall, and perish morally by reason of the peculiar temptations belonging to this deplorable exercise and the putrid atmosphere it has necessarily generated. I listened a few weeks ago to a young minister discuss the preacher’s problem. He defined it as the passion for pleasure on the part of the present generation, and he was right! It is also the teacher’s problem—the greatest of all school problems—and we shall not solve it by patronizing it, and yielding to its every appeal. How many of my audience some time during the last year went into the Donaldson Tea Rooms and looked upon that great painting, “The Pursuit of Pleasure”, by Astley D. M. Cooper, suggested, as you know, by the famous novel, “Quo Vadis?” The scene is in an old Roman garden outside the City of Pleasure, Rome, and the main group represents an imaginary centurion in a chariot pursuing imaginary figures in the air.

Not content with the luxury afforded by Rome, the centurion and others have gone outside the city gates. Their every sense blinded by the quest for pleasure, they drive their steeds over the precipice. The horses, however, have not the lure of the men, and are only forced into the awful canyon of flame by the maddened brutality of their driver. No wonder the picture has been popular. The same rocks on which the state craft of Rome went down are grating now under the very prow of America’s ship of state; and the thing that imperils us in school, in society, in state and in nation, is the passion of pleasure. Those are not true educators who see no danger here, nor are they who join their voices in the loud demand that this public appeal be met, worthy to be the leaders of the youth of the land. Vox populi is very seldom vox Dei. In truth, what we suppose to be the voice of the people is often only the voice of the few; but they are vociferous, and on that account, one mistakenly imagines that they are in the majority. Mr. Lincoln used to tell the story of how a friend of his was alarmed by what he supposed to be a tremendous pack of wolves, and yet, curious to see so great a sight, at the risk of his life, he crept out around to the very edge of the great precipice that lay off to the valley below, that he might get a glimpse of a full hundred wolves who had evidently taken their prey and were now howling in the delight of conquest. Lo, when he came there he saw there were but two, and they had each other by the ears. I am positively persuaded that public sentiment is against the proposition to make our high schools dance halls, and is against using them for dancing purposes at all. Educational leaders should be educational ensamples. It is a fact that every young man and every young woman has his hero and her heroine. Hero worship is not only natural to youth, but desirable for youth. Carlyle is right in saying, “No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour and at all hours the vivifying influence of man’s life. Religion, I find, stands upon it. Whatever is loyal proceeds from affection and submissive admiration for the truly great. Such is hero worship.” And youth never receives a greater shock than when its hero shows himself unworthy by setting examples, which, when followed, cripple and crush; or exhibits conduct recognized as coarse, if not immoral.

Of all people in the city, certainly next to parents, public school teachers and public school leaders should be in person, in dress, in conversation, in conduct, in character, the best examples of high thought and noble living. We read with interest the story of how Thackeray disappointed and almost broke the heart of Charlotte Bronte. Her first meeting was at a well-laden table. As he entered the beautiful dining room she quoted the lines, “Behold, a lion cometh out of the North”, but at that particular moment he was nothing other than a ravenous Englishman. By her own request she was placed beside him at the table, and in reporting it, Thackeray said, “There I sat and endured the miserable humiliation of seeing her ideal of me disappear down my throat; everything went into my mouth and nothing came out of it. At last, as I took my fifth potato, she leaned across the table and implored me, with tears in her eyes, ‘Oh, Mr.

Thackeray, don’t!’ ” And I cannot help feeling that when school teachers and school leaders regale themselves with tobacco smoke, or are guilty of profane speech, engage in questionable amusements, and exhibit doubtful conduct, that every pupil who has ever put them upon a pedestal of admiration, must in his secret soul say, “Oh, my hero, my heroine, don’t!” It is a dark day when of your conduct a child says that—dark for you and darker for him. I have been wondering if the serious-minded young people of a certain church have not been saying it to their Rector, who proposes not only to make God’s house a dance hall, but to join in an amusement which has been the downfall of more girls than any other yet invented by the devil: “Oh, Mr.

Rector; don’t!” Permit a few words on THE SCHOOL AND THE PUBLIC WEAL and we shall finish. In the administration of the public school the will of the whole people should be considered. Some years since the Bible was put out of the public schools of many states at the demand of a section of society only. Our State defended her conduct in the matter on the ground that a section of society demanded it, and our educational leaders conceded and defended the process on the ground that a section of society demanded it. Let it now be understood that a section of society insists that the dance which was born in one of the lowest dives in southern Europe, and which was never even permitted on the sensuous stage of gay Paris until within a century, and which was not condoned by society until very recent years, shall not come into the institution erected by public money in the interest of higher education. Let the administrators of the schools then hear what a section of society— than which there is a no more reputable one—now says. If in its administration the will of the whole city should be considered, in its accomplishments good citizenship should be sought. Dr. Von Holtz, historian of our constitution, says, “The common school system may be called, without exception, one of the most essential systems of our American government.” With him agrees Green, the historian of the English people, “The establishment of a system of local schools is still the glory of America.” Edward Everett asked, “Where did our fathers find the elements out of which they constructed this school edifice?” and answers, “They found them in the Bible.” At the demand of a few we put the Bible out of the public schools. Those who believe that it had furnished them their very foundations, and inspired their very institutions, surrendered to that only by the exercise of unusual grace. But if it be proposed now to put into our schools, out of which the Word of God has gone, and in which His Holy Name is seldom mentioned, that which defeats high morals and imperils the very educational process itself, then the state will hear a protest such as she has not known on any public question; for Horace Greeley was right when he said, “If the public school system is destroyed, American character and American principles will be radically changed.” And yet Horace Greeley said also, “The noblest institutions of America were founded alike on the common school and the free Bible, and these are our corner stones; and if our nation stands at all, it must stand upon them.” Already we have repudiated that proposition, and have made no improvement in the process. I propose now a proposition which no man dare repudiate, namely, that the best citizenship is always and everywhere the most Christian citizenship.If our schools look to the accomplishment of good citizenship, then Christ and the truth of God cannot be left out of account, and I say to the patrons of the schools, that when you do aught that makes Christ an unwelcome Guest in the halls of learning, you are throttling education itself. I want to say to the pupils of our educational institutions, whether you be in the grades, high schools, or university, that apart from Christ your highest mental and moral accomplishment is impossible. Henry Van Dyke is accepted the world over as a man whose words are well worthy the attention of his fellows. He shows that the ideals that men have tried to create for themselves have always failed and fallen, because they were defective in virtue. That of the Stoics and that of the Epicureans was perverted and corrupted by unspeakable frivolity; the military ideal of the Middle Ages was hardened into cruelty and tyranny; the artistic ideal of the Renaissance decayed into luxury; the social ideals of the French Revolution have all failed. But, as Van Dyke remarks, “If it could once be put into practice it might leave us upon a dead level of equally comfortable, equally sensual, and equally faithless folks.” Wisely does he conclude, “No, my brethren, the one ideal that is pure and permanent and satisfying, the one ideal that actually has had power to keep itself alive and prove itself victorious over the disintegrating forces of sin and death, is the ideal in Jesus Christ. The men and women who have built upon that foundation have been the best men and women, and have left behind them the most enduring and glorious work, even in the very domain where the human ideals have been erected as supreme. What contributions to human intelligence have been made to compare with those of Christian philosophers like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and Bacon and Leibnitz and Locke and Newton?

What soldiers under the Roman eagles fought like the Christian legion, and what knight left such a record of chivalry as Bayard, sans peur et sans reproche? What poets sang like Dante and Milton? What artists painted like Michael Angelo and Raphael? What apostles of humanity have made such real and lasting contributions to the happiness of mankind as William Wilberforce and Robert Raikes and John Howard and Florence Nightingale?” Yes, what have all the social theorists and dreamers, outside the circle of Christian charity, done that will compare for a moment with the silent, ceaseless ministry of service to the sick and wounded in great hospitals and crowded cities, of protection to the helpless and comfort to the friendless, of instruction to the ignorant and care to the forsaken, which thousands of men and women have been quietly giving through the centuries for Christ’s sake? Beloved, if you want to be good and do good, come to Christ and let Him teach you. Form your character on His model, and let the ideal of a life in Christ, for Christ, like Christ, be the foundation on which you build for time and eternity.

Acts 19:21-41

AN OFFENSE TO BIG Act_19:21-41. “After these things were ended”. Paul’s work, like a woman’s—was never ended. There were pauses in it; there were breathing spaces; there were times for tightening girth, but they were always employed with a view to the next task. Paul was a man of plans. He wasn’t drifting with tides; he was making and carrying out programs instead. He thought through and then determined what next. Macedonia and Achaia should have a visit. In his passing, Jerusalem, the Jewish capitol was his objective, and after that Rome, the capital of the world. It is amazing how many of our modern methods are ancient. Mr. Moody was the American evangelist who conceived the idea of an advance man, and since Moody’s time, most of the prominent evangelists have employed such forerunners—men who go on and get things ready for the coming conqueror. But that’s not modern. Paul sent into Macedonia two of his associates, Timotheus and Erastus, and he sent them to make ready for his coming, to open the way, to advertise, to call a crowd. And according to the text, they accomplished it all, for the twenty-third verse tells us, “And the same time there arose no small stir”.I want you to think with me in the study of these twenty verses about The Big Stir, The Loud Cry and The Quieting Voice. THE BIG STIR“There arose no small stir about that way” (Acts 19:23).This stir was occasioned by Paul’s presence. Timotheus and Erastus, his forerunners, were not the subjects of the excitement. When Demetrius, the silversmith, the manufacturer of “shrines for Diana”, called together his workmen and fellow-craftsmen, he did not attack Timotheus or Erastus. He selected a larger target. He struck straight at the man higher up. “Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people”, was his charge. There are some men who never disturb anything.

They come and go and the family hardly know when they arrive or leave. They are in the social circle, but are largely overlooked. They walk the streets of the city, but quiet is in their wake. There are other men whose presence is vibrant. The home is alert when they come in; street passengers turn their heads when they pass by; the city stirs at their arrival, and this attention is not a question of regal station. It is far more often the effect of personality. Some weeks ago the Crown Prince of Sweden toured America. Throngs gathered along the highways over which his limousine passed. The rich gathered at the hotel tables when he was a dinner guest, and even the crowds filled the amphitheaters where he spake. Later his brother came—a younger man, without immediate prospect, at least, of any accession to the throne, and yet his very virility moved large circles, affected wide newspaper notice and aroused great popular response. Paul’s reception was both popular and unpopular. His arrival meant the rise of opponents, but it also meant the rallying of friends. That was because the Apostle was not there to deliver a lecture that would please and bring a plethoric return, but rather to discuss the philosophy of life, exalt the right and condemn the wrong; and every man who does that effectively will make his presence felt. He will warm the hearts of the righteous and attract them to him, and he will excite the wrath of the unrighteous add set them against him. Just how hot this anger was we are not told, but writing to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:15-31), Paul says, “If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me”? Doubtless he referred to this very opposition.

We have no history to the effect that Paul was actually thrown into a pit and with the sword was compelled to slay attacking lions; but we have his judgment of the character of the men with whom he battled at Ephesus, and in the same Epistle, 1:4-17, he tells us his purpose in sending Timothy as his advance agent. Paul did not care to pass through those countries unknown. Paul was not the sort of a preacher that was simply looking for smooth paths or easy passage. He was there to arouse the public, to preach the Gospel, to make converts, and, incidentally, to battle every bestial enemy, and his presence was, in itself, a stir. This stir was headed by a leading business man. Demetrius, the silversmith, was no common laborer. He was a manufacturer, instead. He was an employer of many people and he was providing the public the commodity that the public demanded—silver shrines for Diana—and his returns were no small gain. It takes a few sentences from a facile pen to set full before us the picture of the successful man. Demetrius was the chief man of the community. The smallest village has one man to whom the rest of the populace look up, and upon whom a large proportion of the same depend. We are ashamed to confess it, but he is not commonly the man of mightiest intellect in the community.

He is generally the man of the most money—the man with the biggest business interests. Communities don’t closely question, as a rule, the character of the business. The fact that it is big and successful settles the question of honors for its head. Sometimes the biggest man in the community engages in the business that by nature is small. Sometimes the biggest business man in the community engages in business that is questionable, and sometimes in business that is flagrantly wrong, and even immoral. But the mere fact that he is in big business often gives him the preeminence, and almost uniformly he feels his station.

Often he assumes the role of spokesman for the town, and in nine cases out of ten he takes the wrong side of any subject. To such men too often the financial question is the only question.

They see everything through gold-rimmed glasses. They study everything only as shining silver reflects it. They think that a community has but one occasion of existence, and that occasion is the accumulation of wealth. We make bold to suggest that if all the church quarrels and divisions that have characterized and cursed the twenty centuries of Christianity were faithfully written up, it would be found that in a majority of cases the chief bone of contention has been between church men who made gold the touchstone of every phase of life, and the minister who preached a pure Gospel, or the church members who believed that the chief end of man was “to glorify God”.A successful man can be, and sometimes is, the life of the church. If he generously leads in its activities and in its giving, he lends zest and hopefulness for every phase of the work. If, on the other hand, he is niggardly and domineering, he is the destruction of the church.

Unfortunately, there are thousands of instances where the latter condition obtains, and thousands of churches are torn to pieces in consequence. The successful Mr.

Demetrius is often death to the spirituality of the church of which he is an official. I have known the big business man to be the smallest and most contemptible of Christians. This stir involves an excitable multitude. Business men uniformly have their followers. Comparatively recent excavations have uncovered a temple in Ephesus and also a long buried theatre, both of which prove the veracity of this New Testament report. The inscriptions found, the silver images of Diana, running in weight from three to seven pounds each, illustrated both the truth of the text and the source of Demetrius’ profit. Most manufacturers have their multitudinous dependents—men who work for them and who are somewhat at their mercy, and must, on that account, back up “the boss” in any debate in which he finds himself involved. Then there is a larger class, still, of social satellites—little figures that delight to float around the larger central one, much after the manner of satellites in solar systems. The natural disposition of men tends to make them independent, but the power of the attraction of a big body converts their tangent into a circle and they never get outside of the same. That seems to have been the exact situation here. Demetrius called “the craftsmen * * * * together with the workmen of like occupation”, and by his crafty speech converted them into a mob, raging against Paul on the ground that he was destroying their trade (Acts 19:26-27).Alas! That’s the tender spot with many a man!

It is not unusual to see an individual pass through the sorrow of losing a son, a daughter; and yet, in the consolations of the Word, and under the conscious influence of the Spirit, keep sweet and hopeful—yea, even cheerful. But how few men there are that can lose their material fortune and retain their faith; that can see a big business tottering and yet continue to believe God; that can go from riches to poverty and retain both self-respect and a jovial spirit! Mammonism has been the curse of men. “The love of money is a root of evil.” When the God of gold comes in, the God of heaven is often driven out. But we pass from The Big Stir to THE LOUD CRY “And when they heard these sayings, they were full of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.“And the whole city was filled with confusion: and having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in travel, they rushed with one accord into the theatre.“And when Paul would have entered in unto the people, the disciples suffered him not.“And certain of the chief of Asia, which were his friends, sent unto him, desiring him that he would not adventure himself into the theatre.“Some therefore cried one thing, and some another: for the assembly was confused; and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together.“And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defence unto the people.“But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians” (Acts 19:28-34).This cry voiced the worship of Diana. She was a false goddess, utterly futile and faithless; but that mattered not. The worshippers at false shrines are seldom disturbed by the circumstance that there is no God there, and no source of power, of revelation, of inspiration! It is a strange freak of human nature that it is often more devoted to the false than to the true. Christian Science, so-called, has secured the allegiance of some who repudiate both Christianity and science.

In the true they are not interested; for the false they have an unbounded affection, and like the Ephesians, they are ready to shout themselves hoarse, “Great is Mary Baker Eddy!” and when it comes to worship at false shrines, there are folks who have not departed so far from the Word of the Lord, but who give an equally undue and indefensible allegiance to a person and a propaganda. At the present moment this is illustrated in America in the whole “Pentecostal movement”. This phrase became the rallying cry for a mob.This report is full of touches that tell the mob story. The crowd was filled with wrath; the whole city was filled with confusion. They “caught Gains and Aristarchus” and rushed with one accord into the theatre”.“Some therefore cried one thing, and some another: and the assembly was confused; and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together, and they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defence unto the people. But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians?” (Acts 19:32-34). The University of my State has much to say in its classroom and through its text-books of “mob psychology”, believing the teaching that man is evoluted from the lower animals. They see in the flocks of birds, the drove of hogs, the pack of wolves, a social instinct—the basis of mob psychology. A leader acts and the less independent follow. That they are right about it has been recently illustrated on their own campus by shouting, “Great is the Diana of evolution”; by getting up three hundred petitions and putting them into the hands of rabid Jewish and materialistic students; by calling a mass meeting with the brass band addenda; by visiting the room of every individual student, every single class in the University, every sorority and fraternity house. They have secured five thousand names, many of them said to be repetitions opposing legislation against evolutionary teaching. It would be hard to find a finer illustration of mob psychology.

False statements have been used with which to fan the feeling; fake illustrations have been employed to excite ardor, and the hue and cry that “academic freedom” and “vested interests” are jeopardized, has produced a duplicate of the Ephesian experience. It is not a difficult task, nor as a rule does it turn out to be a particularly profitable or promising procedure. No one making intelligent observation upon the present course of Christianity in America can possibly escape a comparison between the conduct at Ephesus and the trend of events in the States and Canada. The Diana of the present day, in my country at least, is denominationalism. The uniform cry is, “Great is our organization, and the uniform alarm of people, who are profiting through present-day denominational organization, is lest their craft be touched. Practically every one of the big denominational bodies is now so organized that it has hundreds of salaried servants, and the majority of them receive a better compensation than they were ever able to get on the ground of individual merit. Their jealousy, therefore, in behalf of denominationalism is natural. In earlier studies of this incident we marvelled that these people could sing the praises of Diana for so long. The two hour chorus is rather exhausting, particularly when it has no greater subject than a false god. But now we marvel that they quit so soon, since they were not shouting so much to praise their goddess as they were to protect their incomes. The animus here was not a creed; it was cash! The loyalty was not so much to the object of their worship as to the interests of the purse! Human nature remains ever the same. The cry has spent itself in meaningless speech. Think of two hours on one sentence, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians”. Imagine full-grown men, with brains in their heads, bleating out a sentence like that for one hundred and twenty successive minutes, and at the first opportunity to rest, falling into silence, having accomplished nothing of value; having spoken nothing of meaning; having not even done any particular damage to anybody. Such is a mob! If you ever saw one and heard one, you expected to read in the newspapers the next morning that there were hundreds of people murdered and hundreds of houses destroyed. Its fury, its raging, its vociferous cries impressed you as a cyclone might, and you expected everything to fall before it and death and destruction to stalk after it, and you hid yourself, and you crept out next morning to get the newspaper and read of the awful tragedy, and you found that they had broken out five window-panes, and had left a scalp-wound on a poor defenseless man; and that when the police appeared and arrested the three leaders, the remainder “quietly disbursed”.

The average mob is a joke! It almost always ends as it did here. THE VOICE“And when the town clerk had appeased the people” [how sudden this surcease], “he said, Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter? “Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly. “For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess. “Wherefore if Demetrius, and the craftsmen which are with him, have a matter against any man, the law is open, and there are deputies: let them implead one another. “But if ye enquire any thing concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly. “For we are in danger to be called in question for this day’s uproar, there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse. “And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly” (Acts 19:35-41). Give attention to the tact of the true politician. “He appeased the people.” He eloquently praised Diana and complimented her worshippers. He defended, also, her origin. The image came down from Jupiter. Doubtless the original image of Diana had been made out of a meteor that had fallen to earth, and the inhabitant, seeing it come down, naturally concluded it was from another world— some messenger sent to this earth in man’s behalf; and they would do what was done in Tennessee in my boyhood days, dig up this great meteor and preserve the same. And in that far-off day when gods were easily created, they made a Diana out of it. The town-clerk either believed that this image represented a goddess coming from another world, or else accommodated himself to the substitution for the sake of policy, and by his language created the impression upon the auditors that he was absolutely with them in their worship of Diana, and in the certainty of her divine origin, and in the assurance that no speech to the contrary could ever mark progress or unmake this fact; hence that calmness was justified, and composure as to their object of worship would show at once their faith and the opponents’ folly. It was a master stroke and it brought its immediate result of “quiet”. Then this town-clerk revealed his further familiarity with human nature. He took up the side of the Apostles and spoke next in their behalf. “Ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess, “Wherefore if Demetrius, and the craftsmen which are with him, have a matter against any man, the law is open, and there are deputies: let them implead one another.“But if ye enquire any thing concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly.“For we are in danger to be called in question for this day’s uproar, there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse” (Acts 19:37-40).Speaking of men as types, here you have one. I know this man personally. I heard him speak last night. He is still doing what he did at Ephesus. He is taking both sides of controverted subjects. He tells the wrong crowd that they are right, but he tells them that they are making a mistake in their methods. The thing they want is wholly correct, but there is another and better way of getting it. His real intention is to effect a delay that will eventuate in the dissipation of the crowd; but his ostensible meaning is, “You can get justice if you take another course.” Yes, I have known him. He is in every assembly. He particularly delights to attend upon debates and show where both parties are wrong, and how compromise and mutual consideration is a better adjustment of difficulties than the discovery of truth itself and the actual defense of the same. We need not elaborate this further. You know such folks, and they are in your thought now. He accomplished his purpose and dismissed the crowd. “When he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly”. It was not a bad result! Absurd assemblies ought to be dismissed, even though you have to feed them candied compliments to hush their cries. But the chief result of this speech was not so much the safety of the Apostles, nor even yet the peaceable breaking up of what promised to be a bad company, but the smug sense of the clerk himself. There are men in the world who know one passage of Scripture and live in it. “Blessed are the peacemakers”. To them there is no difference between black and white. They harmonize by adopting grey. The thing to do is to compromise and be through with your difficulties. To them there is no difference between night and day. The thing to do is to enjoy the twilight. To them there is no difference whether you worship Diana or Jehovah if only you are conscientious; whether you believe in the Scriptures or Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, if only you won’t bother over the differences; whether you worship Christ or Creation, if only you will avoid controversy. Peace is their slogan; quiet is their objective; a graveyard is their ideal!