Topics Beginning with "J"

254 -- JESTING Injurious

     The Apostle says that "foolish talking and jesting" (10 not become saints (Eph. 5:3, 4). With this opinion, sensible sinners quite generally agree. While apparently enjoying the jokes of preachers, they are very free to say, in their absence, that they do not think much of their religion.

     Many, thinking only of making themselves agreeable, are carried by the current of levity too far, grieve the Holy Spirit, and lose their power. Alfred Cookman says that he lost the blessing of holiness in tills way. "Conference came on; I found myself in the midst of beloved brethren; forgetting how easily time infinitely Holy Spirit might be grieved, I allowed myself to drift into the spirit of the hour; and after an indulgence in foolish joking and storytelling, realized I had suffered serious loss. To my next field of labor I proceeded with consciously diminished spiritual power." Let our cheerfulness have no mixture of levity; but let our serious spirit, amid earnest words, or devout silence, impress all with whom we associate that we are living as in the sensible presence of God.

* * * * * * *

255 -- JESUITS and Morality

     The Jesuits are dangerous to any community in which they gain a foothold. They insinuate themselves everywhere. They wish their influence to be felt. They work in secret. It is one of their maxims that "the end sanctifies the means." The teaching of the Jesuits is one cause of the great decline of business morality in this country.