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THE KING’S BUSINESS
make a choice between a fruitless con servation and prolific decay. And this choice comes to us in so many ways. We see it in the sphere of prejudice. Preju dice is often/ but-, it is not always, right. It is very often misplaced or perpetuated beyond a time when it does any good. (You never find a man cherishing a prejudice, because he says he is “standing up for a principle.”) It was good enough when he started; it served its purpose at first; but it has outlived its usefulness, and is now just a prejudice. A good many years ago, at the foundation of the London Mis sionary Society, a speaker said, “We stand today at the funeral of bigotry.” There is not a word of objection to that, except that these obsequies have been so unduly protracted. God send the day when men shall recognize the lineament of Jesus Christ in one another’s face, whether they be Presbyterians, Episcopalians, or what! And this principle, this choice, whether there shall be a conservation that is fruit less, or an expenditure that is generous, meets us everywhere. It meets us in our relationship to the past. There is a sort of medievalism cherished and fostered by some people with an odor of sanctity—they love things which are old. And there is a vandalism that destroys the old, and wor ships the new, because it is new. My friends, they are both wrong. Let us look at our inheritance of the past in proof of this. Hold fast to that which is true, and do not hold anything that is not. Read the great formularies of worship with the. critical light of modern thought, and hold on to that which is true. The Jerusalem Chamber is not holy ground, the Westmin ster divines are not inspired. If they said what was true, it is because of the truth of what they say that we hold on to it, not because they said it. And what is true in regard to these formulas holds true in reference to our own individual life. SEEN ON THE CANVAS But there are times, I suppose, when people who live in a city as busy as this is, and where the engagements of the week
run into two weeks, and where every hour has its own employment, there are times, I suppose, even here that people have lei sure to sit still while the fire burns; and in these choice stolen hours, I suppose, fig ures of long ago come out upon the can vas and stand there in bold relief; and We say that they were happy days. Imagine the dear oid room, and those pictures of long ago coming before us, when our imag ination was all aglow. I can imagine that the door-bell might ring, and that one of those that we have not seen for fifty years was announced. I can imagine the con versation that would ensue. We would talk excitedly for twenty minutes, and then the conversation would flag, and before the hour was up we would be completely disil lusioned, and would see that our paths had diverged. All that sort of thing was good in its way and time, but it is not the time for it now. Of course, we must have a foundation for the house. Still we do not live in the cellar. We live upstairs in the sunlight, and experience says we do well. These past incidents of life are just the foundation, and it is the superstructure after all that you build upon; and unless a man is willing to part with the past, he is going to make a mistake. MUST MOVE ON Unless we learn to do better today the things that we did yesterday, and paint a better' picture today, and write a better poem than the last, and are more proficient in our arts, we are just as good as dead. We are eternally improving and moving on. There is a conservation, steadfast and still; and there is a forgetfulness and a generous prodigality^ of past attainments that is prolific of vast results. There is your health. What are you going to do with it? You had better wear out than rust out any day. You can see people who make themselves obnoxious to you by their everlasting attitude of complaint. There is something better for a man to do than to take care of his health, and he will prob ably live longer if he does not. Is a man who has an intellect expected to have
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