July 1924
THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
471
was ended we started to drift back, thinking only of our selfish pursuits. I tell you, my countrymen, that we can never be the ideal republic unless we have great ideals to pursue and know something of the spiritual as well as of the material life.” Things of Real Value Not Appreciated, Booth Tarkington relates an experience of his in Naples when an Italian accosted him, calling his attention to a minor eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and said, “ You have no thing like that in America” to which Mr. Tarkington in stantly replied, “No, but we have a Niagara Falls which could put that thing out in five minutes.” This is typical of all our American spirit. We have something better within the borders of these States than they have anywhere else in the world and in our pride we are frequently making ourselves disliked by the rest of the worlds because all our boasting is over material riches and the astonishing accum ulation of gold in our possessions. The things of real value are not appreciated by us, neither are they possessed by us. We have no makers of poetry, no great artists, no great literary geniuses, no great orators, no great actors. We are producing only mediocre people and leaving the art galleries and libraries of the future empty, and in all these low ideals there is a death-dealing satisfaction. We are not concerned about it and give no evidence of anxiety or de termination to change the condition and place life on a higher level. We are content with the material and con tinue to neglect— the spiritual. So true is this that many of the churches are without worshipers and more than sixty millions of our people do not cross the threshold of a Christian church. A large number of the remnant of the population are only occasional worshipers and manifest very little interest in spiritual life. Revivals are few and largely mechanical, with meagre results. Religious con ventions are machine-made, politically-operated affairs with no spiritual life or spiritual ambition and with the Holy Spirit— the great Administrator of the Christian church almost absolutely ignored. The church is going to the world to get the world and the world is getting the church. This poison of the material is reaching the hearts of un counted Christian people and they are unconscious of the slow death which is creeping through every vein and artery. We are all in imminent peril. Our Supreme Duty It is our supreme duty in this hour to live the spiritual life and live it in the midst of our own environment. I saw a little flower in the desert, with no other green life in its vicinity, lift its pretty face to the sunlight and breathe its fragrance out into the burning air of the desert. I stopped to look at it and admire it and then pick it. When my hand was extended towards it, it seemed almost sacrilege to pluck a blossom which could grow in such ad verse circumstances. I left it for the possible inspiration of some other traveler. It seemed as if it must have been transplanted from the gardens of God. Any flower can grow in a conservatory, watered and fed and cared for and deserve little credit for its beauty or its fragrance, but the flower in the desert deserves the admiration of men and angels. Your life may be in the desert, but it is a more real, wonderful, eternity-marked life because it grows beautiful against tremendous opposition. Where you work or Where you live, where your atmosphere is heavy with blasphemy and impurity, to still breathe the air of the upper world and live the Christ life is the greatest of all achievements. We make many excuses, but no one of them can be accepted by Him. We have been chosen to reveal the reality of the
spiritual and to overcome the dangers of the material. We must understand that we cannot serve both God and Mam mon, but we can serve God and always and everywhere serve God and live in His companionship and be like Him. What do I mean by the spiritual life? Can I make it plainer and more personal and more practical? I was urged by the pastor of a church in Southern California to come and help him in a difficult situation. The church had a history of crises. It had a building debt of years’ standing. There was no organ for their use. Some repairs were necessary, and a small mortgage must be paid. This was the greatest crisis of them all. He said they must have $10,000.00. There was scarcely anybody in the church who believed they could raise $1000.000. His faith and his con secration were magnetic and attracted me. I went to his
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