Boys, banish forever from your minds the idea that religion is
_subtraction_. It does not tell us to give things up, but rather gives
us something so much better that they give themselves up. When you see
a boy on the street whipping a top, you know, perhaps, that you could
not make that boy happier than by giving him a top, a whip, and half
an hour to whip it. But next birthday, when he looks back he says,
"What a goose I was last year to be delighted with a top. What I want
now is a baseball bat."
Then when he becomes an old man, he does not care in the least for a
baseball bat; he wants rest, and a snug fireside and a newspaper every
day. He wonders how he could ever have taken up his thoughts with
baseball bats and whipping-tops.
Now, when a boy becomes a Christian, he grows out of the evil things
one by one--that is to say, if they are really evil--which he used to
set his heart upon; (of course I do not mean baseball bats, for they
are not evils); and so instead of telling people to give up things, we
are safer to tell them to "seek first the Kingdom of God," and then
they will get new things and better things, and
THE OLD THINGS WILL DROP OFF
of themselves.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118