Article November 4, 1905 Issue

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One cannot do well with life as a whole unless he does well in the infinite array of small affairs out of which life is composed, and he connot do his best in these unless he is interested enough to do them with all his heart; but most of them are so simple, so commonplace, that they have in themselves no power to stir the heart. Here, then, lies one of life's supreme problems. Whence shall we bring to these little commonplace things the enthusiasm without which one can never do them finely? The answer is, of course, that the interest which belongs to life as a whole must be attached to each of its minutest parts. Every great achievement is composed of multitudes of trifling details, any one of which, standing by itself alone, would be insignificant enough. Ten thousand little, simple touches of brush to canvas, each guided by a great thought, each tempered by a vast emotion, each co-ordinate with all the others, have given us the Sistine Madonna. —The Congregationalist.

The power of a Christian life is determined by its likeness of Jesus Christ. Spiritual life is begotten of spiritual life and by nothing else. We have every right to expect that a Christian will be Christlike, and failure of church members to conform to the likeness of their Lord is one of the most serious hindrances to the progress of the kingdom. The main evidence of likeness to Christ is not found in devotion to forms of worship or correct theological statements, but in the common relations of every-day life. Whenever a Christian man contents himself with a credal statement and fails to illustrate the graces of the Christian character in his daily relations, whenever he is found faithful in his attendance upon the public services of the church but unfaithful to the great laws of brotherhood and forgiveness and love, so often do we have a testimony to the low valuation placed by this professed Christian upon those things which Jesus made of primary importance. —The Standard.

When our religious formulas and services do not attract and satisfy, when men turn away from worship to get comfort and joy in the other interests of life, let us not hasten to credit this to depravity or unspirituality. We ought rather to ask ourselves bravely if some of this indifference may not result from the too narrow philosophy of our devotions. It may be that our point of view is entirely unsatisfactory to some who have felt the swing and rhythm and thrill of the mighty processes of creation and of human history. It is a deplorable and demoralizing situation when in the last analysis, in its deepest life, at any point, the human spirit finds itself at war with the only conception of religion and the only formula of faith with which it has ever become familiar.—The Universalist Leader.

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