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6 THE LUTHERAN VISITOR February 6, 1902 IMPHATIC CHRISTIANS. RKV. THEODORE L. CUYLER, D. D. The Lord Jesus Christ put great emphasis on the spiritual char acter of his followers. They were to be sympathetic and yet sep arate—a peculia r people, zeal ous of goodly works. They wore in the world and yet not ‘ of the world.” Our Master was pre-eminently sympathetic; he touched human life at every point, lofty and lowly. He did not draw hack his foot when a sinful woman’s tears of penitence trickled upon it, nordid he refuse an unpopular publican’s invi tation to be his guest. * Th a man receiveth sinners,” was the sneer of the bigoted Pharisee. It is a bastard Christianity which snubs honest worth in coarse raiment, or refuses to shelter the harlot who is struggling towards a better life, or which builds a “colored pew” in a remote corn er of a church gallery. With all his infinite sympathy —which drew not back from the bitter agonies of the cross—there was a sense in which Jesus Christ was “separate from sin ners.” He possessed a divine holiness, an unwordly spirit and a spotless life; tempted in all points, be was yet without sin. “Ye are not of the world,” he says to his followers, “because I am uot of the world.” Just here runs the line of separation. It is to be a separation, not of con dition or daily contact, but of character. Christ's people are to be a “peculiar people”—peculiar in loving the truth, peculiar in honest dealings, peculiar in works of unselfish benevolence, peculiar in hating sin, and pecu liar in trying to copy him who was holy and undefiled and separate from sinners. “Be ye holy” moans to be sound and healthy-hearted; it also means to be set apart to Christ’s service. The separation of a genuine Christian must be a separateness of Christly character. All his power for good depends upon it. The leaven is separate even when it mingles itself through the whole batch of meal. The dif ferent particles of salt are distinct from the mass of food which they season; i. e., the salt never loses its saltness. The more pronounced and em phatic every Christian is in his aloofness from the codes and the fashions and the sinful ways of the world, the more peace and spiritual power will he have. He has his standard of faith and practice given to him—to be lived up to. There is an increasing tendency to sneer at creeds. But the all comprehensive creed which a man must hold to if he be a Christian is—“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” and “Faith without works is dead.” Strait is the gate that leads to eternal life, and he whose love has opened up that pathway has aright to demand heart-belief in him and obedience to his commandments. Much of the self-styled “liberal Christ- ianiiy” is only a thin veneer to cover shallow convictions; it is libei il in giving away priceless trutin*, and liberal in pulling down enclosures which the Bible puts up. It is an indistinct blur rather than a belief, and has no spiritual emphasis. A healthy Christian conscience emphasizes the divine claims of the Sabbath and does not rob Ood of his day. It recognizes the clear, distinct line between sacred time and secular time. That line with some church- members even is becoming a mere chalk-mark, easily rubt>ed out. A huge blanket-sheet of a godless newspaper covers the early pari of Qod's day, and its latter hou> are devoted to social visiting or other secularities. This stealthy and steady under mining of the Sabbath is under mining the church of Jesus Christ.^.Christianity cannot live without; divine worship and worship most surely, will not live without the Sabbath. When reverence for God’s law is broken down, reverence for human law is shattered also. If the ob servance of the fourth command ment bo “ Puritantical,” then let us have more of it. The salt that has done more to save our coun try from moral corruption and from the dry rot of imported errors and vices has been the transmitted virtues of those stanch Puritans who were strict themselves because they served a strict and holy God. Nothing did our blessed Master emphasize more than non conformity to the world. Its mammon-worship, its covet ousness, its self-indulgences, its frivolities, its soul-destroying influences, he protested against. “Be ye not conformed to the world 1” Not to be taken out of the world, but to be kept from the evil in the world, was our Savior’s prayer for his people. The power of true Christly re ligion is not in assimilation, but separation; Christian never will impress or reform or purify a sinful world by agreeing with it. When we go down to the world it drags us lower still; if we yield one mile, it compels us to “go with it twain.” We never can save sinners on their own ground; it is only by living on a higher ground, living a separated and Cbrist-obeying life, that we can hope to lift them to a higher, purer, holier, and thus a happier living Laxity is the church’s peril. The sorest need of the hour is an emphatic Christianity, an uncompromising Christianity, a Christianity that keeps its .con science clean, that finds its daily law in the Bible, and whote inner life is hid with Jesus Christ in God. HI DUD OF A BROKEN HEART. “The Rev. was found dead in his bed at his boarding house last Saturday morning.” This was the message received while quietly taking my break fast a low weeks ago. Tne news was unexpected, for «>u my desk at that very moment lay a letter that the departed brother had written me within forty-eight hours of his death. In it he stated that he was not well, but gave‘me no reason to suspect that his illness was so very severe. Naturally I sought for information and the friend who told of his brief illness and sudden departure from this life added: “The doctor told me that he died as much of a broken heart as of anything else.” Died of a broken* heart! He was a man of fine presence and noble carriage. Tall, erect and dignified he would attract attention on the street os a good specimen of manhood. Ap parently in good health and possessed of a sound con stitution, it was a great* surprise to be informed of his death. But the greatest surprise was to hear that he “died as much of a broken heart as of anything else.” Our brother had not been long among us. Of his early life and ministry in his own native land, little, I believe, was known. Personally I knew nothing. Of his ministry here I was not much better informed. For about three years prior to his death, how ever, be labored in mission fields that required patience, for bearance, decision and the spirit of Christ. That he was con scientious and faithful those who knew him well can not doubt. That he was not as successful as some other men in other fields may have been largely the result of circumstances beyond his control. That his connection with his field of labor was only a short time before rudely severed may have been entirely the result of a “misfit,” the end of an effort of a faithful pastor, who however could not adapt himself to his surroundings, and of an impatient, illiterate class of people trying to'^work togeth er. But hejis now dead and—“he died as much of a broken heart as of anything else.”. What was it that brought about the condi tion that ended so suddenly and so sadly Was there anything connected with his life and history in the years that passed before ho came into this part of the vineyard of the Lord that could have preyed upon his heart and mind so seriously and have taken him away so unexpect edly? In life he never com municated to me any thing of his former history and now that he is dead it is not my prerogative to look into his past. _ 1 remember his great anxiety to be employed in the Lord’s ser vice. I recall how anxious he was to do his people good, and with what apparent f bitterness and sorrow of heart he would tell me>f.his.failure tof impress upon his hearers, as he wanted to do, the mind and spirit of Christ Jesus. I hear.him plead ing when-) his’ congregation turned against him, pleading, almost with.tears in.his eyos, for an opportunity’to appear before a vacant congregation, if happi* ly they would accept.of his ser-, vices, so that he might continue, to.serve God and his fellow-man. All this now occurs to my mind, and.as I think of the disappoint- mentsjhe. suffered , and perhaps the unkind words sometimes spoken to him, and realize that “he died as much of a broken heart as of anything else,” I fedl j constrained toask'.myself: What J portion of his burden did I help to bear? Did I ever do for him or say anything to him that may j have given him cheer, comfort j or encouragement? If not, j wasn’t it my duty to do so? Hadl I acted differently toward him, J with more cordiality, with more l of a real brotherly regard, with I