Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1917 — Turning on the Spiritual Steam [ARTICLE]

Turning on the Spiritual Steam

By BISHOP CHARLES BAYARD MITCHELL

We are now living close to the greatest upheaval the human race has ever known. We are hearing so much that tends to weaken the faith of many and cause others tqr scoff at the “collapse of Christianity that J would like to remind ourselves that there is no Basis for any. pessimistic doubts concerning the present or future standing of Christianity. , The activities of the Christian program were never so many or so fruitful. Who so bold as to say that all such'Christlikeservice for humanity can exist without spiritual vitality ? XV ithout faith works are dead. There must be found an adequate cause for all these abounding and uplifting agencies. Doubt never builds. It destroys. Faith only constructs and ventures. Skepticism builds no schools or hospitals. To secure a hearing, it stands on the curbstone or hires a hall. Today the Christian world is seeded down with unnumbered agencies and institutions which are toiling for the betterment of mankind. Try to set a measuring rod to the Christlike spirit which today is so bent on feeding the starving, healing the wounded and comforting the bereft whom war has so devilishly injured. Whence came these unselfish helpers of a stricken continent ? There is only one explanation: the spirit of Christ has come to men. In fortner times spirituality too often showed itself in the shouts of the redeemed and the ecstasies of the holy. Today the spiritual steam is ho longer turned into the whistle, but into the steam chest. ’We behold the revolving shaftings and whirling wheels of a Christ-inspired beneficence which eompelaa doubting world, to believe in himfor his very works.. ■ eako. ,