Article February 15, 1930 Issue

Cultivating Pure Desires

LAURA BOWLBY MASSEY

The Sermon on the Mount is acknowledged perfectly to pattern Christianity. It was not given for a chosen few at a special time, but for all who throughout all time should accept Christ Jesus' teachings and precepts, and humbly strive to digest and emulate them. It shows the correct way for both living and doing, and is brimful of joy and promise to all who adhere to its rules.

If accepted literally and casually, some of the precepts of this sermon might seem to be cold, forbidding, and difficult of accomplishment; but many who have accepted and successfully practiced them have found that they are glowing with promise and reward. It is true that our loved Master gave us the pronouncement, "Enter ye in at the strait gate: . . . because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it;" but there is nothing fearful, threatening, or difficult in this when we learn that "the gate" is the truth, and "the way," the denial of matter or the flesh, not followed by all as yet, but shaded and sheltered by the tree of life, which bears the fruits of blessedness promised in the Beatitudes to all who take this way.

The whole ministry of Christ Jesus was intended to wean men from the false belief that acquiescence in the claims of the flesh brings happiness or peace, and to lead them into the way traveled by footsteps of pure desires.

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