The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 15, 1906, Page 3

Ghe Story of ~ONWARD, CHRISGIAN SOCDIERS.” BY JAWES HUKEKER. o reality Yet we lone have Not great eat by the Rev. S Baring- . i more than forty years ago, and Yorkshire, England.” Baring-Could. ay- of birth and great wealth, was ate time over the Harbury School A school festival was Zed for Whit-Monday. The clergy- sought the pages of his bhymnal hymn that would serve the pur- 2 processional. He could dis- at the none that exactly suited bis taste. he tells us, he determined to make er for his young people. It was writ- « a very simple fashion, without a theught of publication. “I wanted the dren to sing when marching from one village to the other, but could not rofessor of a great n organist, 3 pianist, e Legion of Honor, and hted. Yet, Sir Ar- ed as The Mi- and He wrote t operettas and never m in the more elaborate com- hey made h famo mn dashed off with all the born improvisatore the popularity be sung a the opening of this ound nce to an a Magnet and er's s¢ of the at the s magnificent e doubts if It is replete with the ardor of battles. And words and musi “make for righteousness” mposi- tions of a sacred character. Since Hein- rich Heine wrote of “the fictitious quar- rel which Christlanity has cooked up between the body and the soul” there has been a noticeable and lamentable falling off in the imagination that is touched by the finer issues of fait! We no longer Lave with us Lacordaires, or Kebles, or Newmans: dogma has become suffused by more material images, and to speak te the hearts of the masses symbols must be used that deal directly with life around us. “Onward. Chris- tian Soldiers,” is warlike in its symbels. This is fitting. The fight is never end- ing. The most paradoxical thing about the hymn is that its words were penned by an Episcopal clergyman of the Eng- lish race, its music composed by a man in whose veins some blood of Israel coursed. The conjunction is of, good omen. Perhaps the commingling of two races rich in ethical tradition has con- tributed to the lasting fame of “On- ward, Christian Soldiers.” and Obe IPower of the Resl_irrecfion , " Ry William Croswell PDoane _ Bishop of Hibany /_\ g ‘ HEN the modern mind staggers before the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from g the dead it fails to realize what its only actual difficulty is. St. Paul’s question, “Why should A it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?” still has but one s ¥ answer—namely, that there is no reason why it should be thought incredible; because J%fi_’é raising the dead, as the apostle illustrates it in his Epistle to the Corinthians, is the most w4 natural and usual thing in the world under certain conditions. *“That which men sow is not quickened except it die.” Life not only after, but through and by means of death, is the universal law and the universal event. Only there must come first the undoing by decay of the bondage within which the living principle of the seed is held. So'long as it is imprisoned in the shell it is “bare grain,” but when its outer covering is shed in the cocoon, or broken in the & or rotted in the grain, then the latent life comes forth and God gives it a body, and “to every jits ownl body” So after death and barial, when the wrappings of this earthly flesh are dissolved and done away, “the body that shall be,” “the body of glory,” shall emerge in the fullness of time. J The miracle or marvel of the resurrectian of Jesus Christ, like other miracles, lies in the fact that it disregarded the element of time and also did away with the condition of decay. “He saw no corrup- tion.” So much for the marvel of it. Now for the meaning of it. First of'all, of course, it means that all the dead shall rise and live again. “If w:'belicvg that Jesus died and rose again, even so they also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” The corollary to the article in the creed, “the third day he rose aglin." is the article “I believe in the. resurrection of the body, I lock for the resurrection of the dead or from the dead.” One does not meed, one would not dare, to ‘draw away the hearts and hopes of men from this great and blessed revelation of Holy Scripture, this strong and positive assertion of the Christian” faith. But it is wrong to postpone the meaning of our Lord’s resurrection to this final point of human history. It has a clear and more immediate application of what the apostle calls “the power of his resurrection,” “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This must be recognized and realized as the immediate practical purpose and result of the great fact of Easter day. ‘What is its message to men and women? It is easy to dream a dream of liope and delight about the far future; easy to have a sentiment and emotion that enable us to face physical death with an outiook beyond the grave and console us in the hour of bereavement. God forbid that there should be any shadowing of this hope. But the practical guestion concerns our daily life now. Humanity stands today. as it has stood for all these centuries, facing the fact of the wonderful Life that cur Lord lived here on earth, with the strange and inexplicable combination of fleshy reality without the restraints and hindrance of the flesh. And that means, in the first place, the pattern set, and in the next place the power given to us to live our lives on higher lines. Translated into plain English, the great Easter thought is that we may not be absorbed and\nm:ned in merely earthly, temporal, carnal thoughts and things. Life, never more than in our day, is crowded with business, with pleasure, even where it is not choked with indulgence and success. Thke= idlers and loungers, with no thought but amusement, are far toc many. The craze for accumulation of material wealth is wearing out the strength and dulling all the finer faculties of men and women. And the carelessness and idleness of pecple who, with opportunities of ser- vice to society and the demands of home duties, waste daylight hours and turn night into day with games of chance, accentuated too often with the covetousness of gambling, are a reproach to the best inheritances and instincts of Americans. 4 a “You have no leisure class in America,” an Englishman said once to an American girl. - “Yes,” she said, “we have, but we call them tramps.” S RN P Leisure there ought to be. Men and women there must be who are free from the strain and strenu- ousness’ of incessant occupation, but it ought to be a leisure for intellectual cultivation, for philantkropic interest, for the storing of energy. physical, mental and spiritual, which shall benefit mankind. - “Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead!” This is the Easter call, the Easter cry. Hiding even one talent in the napkin of refined indolence or self-indulgence or burying it in the dirt of sensuality and sin, cither one makes an “unprofitable servant” and lays up against the second coming of the Lord an account of wasted powers and lost opportunities which will then be beyond recall. . HEN the pitiful handful who followed the Star of Bethlehem over the arid sands of Palestine 2o 3 A to the lowly birthplace of Jesus general staff—-the marshals, generals, ad- Thoqns,m.‘ _?n, the of Nazareth were on their force v e s silent pligrimage tHere and then began the ever onward, never halt- ing. irresistible march of the greatest * military power in the universe—tae Grana CCMPAlEn for the canquest of the world.. - Army of the Lord. the glistening, giit- , Bicnard Coeur de Liou, with mafled are fine.examples of. hosts of the crusaders in the reclama- dfer, while Joan: of tering cohorts of the Christian church, > more 2 e polyglot in speech, polychrome in -ral. tion of the Holy Land. was no leader'af her cyuntry: of Christianity”—leaders. and followers who have spent the Christian era so in a ceaseless, determined, s ment, many hued in cuticle, the skin = dad Gailiing-of the foiee = feather the creed than the somber cassocXed right path to the Christian he decked natives of the western wilds, cul- Priests who, more than a century in the . Now the soldiers of the cross form: tured Caucasians, = tattooed van of even partial civilization, pene- the greatest: islanders, ‘white-robed nomads of the great deserts, turbaned and Hindoos, petticoated Cingalese, cue laden citizens of the Flow- ery Kingdom and high hatted Koreans, all allied in not only the defense of Christ crucified, but in the of his creed at the cost of life and fortune—an Rome, fighting, praying, healing the fight for and under the sacred er wounded bodies of the Indian and min- the e fortunes : istering to his mind and soul. X 3 B Cortez, in Mexico. De Soto and a brains ready to advise and dir score of other early Spanish leaders, - vigorous in advancing the interests of life to a guestion @Mm ‘was then' the trated our pathless Western wilds to world, flmm?h“mmm“ nd mil establish the missions of the church of the great armies of the earth ready BY MAJOR GENERAL 0. . ASTER SUNDAY is the festival of the resurrection of Chriss, and I am glad to atfempt to prepare an article upen “The Church Militant,” which has made this festival a great joy to the people. There are two dis- tinet divisions of this subject. The one looks mainly to what the armies of the world have done in paving the way for human progress and Christian civil- ization; and the otker assembles all the believers in Christ into organizations which have the semblance of an army. ‘Webster’s definition is “The Church Milltant—The Christian church on earth which is supposed to be engaged in a constant warfare against its ene- mies and is thus distinguished from the church triumphant in heaven.” Still, in common use there are (as above out- lined) two senses to the expression, “The Church Militant.” One is the part the armies of mankind have played in preparing the way, In consolidating and in extending the Christian church, and the other is the part that all Christian believers have had in making converts to what ‘is called the Christian faith, and more still in preserving an active belief in Christ from generation to gen- cration in the famflles and in the or- ganized churches. In this second divi- slon all the churches are regarded liks separate regiments, brigades and divi- sions of armies, and at the head of the whole body is Christ the Lord. The Apostle Paul (Ephesians, vi) urges upon his friends the spiritual warfare in remarkable language. He says: “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood. but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spirftual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousnmess. and your feet shod with the preparation of the gos- pel of peace. Above all, taking the shicld of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the flery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. and watching thereunto with all perseverance and sup- plication for all saints.” The synagogue furnishes the model for the fndividual Christian church. Every/ time I have visited a synagogue duriug its services I have been struck with the simi- larity between its form of worship and that of our own Congregational churches. ‘The ‘instant that a body of Hebrew be- llevers recognize the Savior as their prophet, priest and king in a spiritual sense there appears to me to be but & shadow of difference between them and us, and T am fond of going into the syna- gogues where the Seriptures are read every week; but all bemevolent assocta- tions distinetively organized and conduct- €d for the benefit of their felow men con- stitute the great army which Geod Is using for blessing mankind. The Palestine for a better civilization: they were most stringent in teaching a clear. knowledge of Jehovah and obedi- ence to his commands. Whenever they ' upen the results of fighting of success of . armies. . - We now. very clearly see in ths light history how our armies have paved the way and have had a great part civilization. | Triumphantly HE QHURRH MICITAN MARCHES ON. - 0. HOWARD (RETIRED). fovest on the Pacifie Coast and thers cams cn a terrific storm. In the midst of the storm the trees were bending and breake ing. It was near night and I had with me but one man and he was a soldier. Large trees feil acress our pathway light. ning played upon the forest around. tearing the limbs of t ieces and starting fires, W orest wag light as da came the rain, quenching t: leaving darkness so demse th Scarcely pick our way. A suce: orms has destroyed tha ve evidence that such stc destroyed man: there are broad lands ready for farms, gardens, thriving villages and prosperous «ities. I look upon the war with ts desolation as I look upon the storm or the forest fire which for the time being seems to be inimical to the best of human in- terests. After our Civil War by request of Mr. Lincoin I was put in'tharge of the freedmen and refugees. They wers great need and our people strove to re- Heve their immediate wants, but the con- viction was strong upen all thoughtful men that there was something in the line of reiief better than to supply !mmediate physical wants. I said. on our first meet- ing, to our Secretary of War. “Education is the true rellef to the freedmen and refugees and their children.” There was then great opposition to our general gov- ernment exercising such benevolent func- tions; but these were exercised. thougix not on so large a scale as they ought to have been. Since the Spanish war I have noticed that there was but little objection made to the exercise of benevolent functions by our Government in the Philippines. On the contrary, large parties of teachers have been sent by the United States to that frontier of ours, and the teachers were muitiplied five to one from the isi- ands themselves as soon as the islanders were capable of teaching. The war doubt- less was not prosecuted from the begin- ning to the end of it with distinctively benevolent purpeses. It could not have been. But just as soon as peace was se- cured then was the opportunity for the secondary warfare to which I Bave re- ferred. More and more is the Govern- ment of the United States fostering edu- cation., and the States are establishing universities and carrying forward the in- struction of the youth of the land. Surely this is a part of the warfare. Here we have the pickets and the skirmishers on the front and flank carrying knowledge and light to every quarter of our vast do- main. Wil it not be followed M the whole army—that army of men 0 De- Heve in and will carry out the idea meore and more of puttiig on the whole armer of salvation? One of our chaplains, George Duffleld, caught the last words of a dying minis. ter, who. as he breathed his last, said to his aged father. “Stand up for Jesus.™ I will close with the hymn which Duf- fleld composed and which best expresses to my mind the Church militant: tions, Epworth leagues and Christian Endeavor societies are covering the world with their efforts to do the most possible to bring the youth of all na- tions to the knowledge of Christ and to the practice of his precepts. Lest there ed corner, the press of the land scatters its papers, its booklets and its leaflets, so that like the leaves of the tree of life the printed pages go forth by the million for the Bealing of the natfons. And teday we have the faithful army of salvation in one form or another, full of seif-sacrifice, sounding the call of _ the Master, so that every ear shall hear and every soul be without excuse if ha does not join in the battle for the right. And these Christians militant greatly rejoice at the dawn of every Easter morning.