| Summary: | BELLEVUE INDIANS '13 The College Graduate in the Christian Ministry — SUCH a subject and only seven hundred words! To minister is to serve. The minister is one who serves. The policeman is a minister. He serves the court and his county by taking the man after he has broken law and administering restraint. He has nothing to do with the non-law- breaker. He is engaged in the work of cure rather than prevention, and is amply paid by the state. The expense of this law-breaking in our county alone is annually about $1,000,000,000 — an approximate expense of $10 to each individual. However, a great deal of crime is prevented. And it is surely true that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Would it not be a reasonable thing, theoretically, for the state to expend money in the prevention of crime? If the citizenship could be so built up in character that there would be no need for this vast machinery of law, what a saving it would be. If a class of men should give themselves to this work of prevention, and accomplish the above result, how well the state could afford to pay them! There is no such paid class. And such a plan would necessarily be attended with great difficulties. The vast importance of this work, however, is obvious. Who will do it? Evidently volunteers. This, I take it, is what the Christian ministry is doing. No one can speculate as to what the amount of crime might be in our country were it not for the Christian church. This volunteer work for the uplift of the race is a great work, there are so many needs. There are questions of justice, prison-reform, removal of slum conditions, child labor, and other social evils. Needs in every line: — better political, economic, educational, social, ethical, and religious conditions are needed. We find bravery and courage in aerial navigation, in the search for the North Pole, and such quests, and all for an earthly crown. Why should there not be a class of men who should see the need of this vast work, count and measure the cost, and throw themselves into it! Can a man engage in a greater work? Service to humanity is the standard of true greatness. Such a cause should appeal to men, call out the best of men, and the best in men; their strength, devotion, and enthusiasm. So far we have been talking about ethical culture and the betterment of the race generally. This is vague and indefinite. If you undertake the work of ethical culture, all well and good. God speed you. But if you enter the gospel ministry you have something great- er. If you hold a New Testament in your hand you have a distinct message. Christianity is more than ethical culture: It is the power of God unto the salvation and the regeneration of the individual both for time and eternity, and thru this regenerated individual the regeneration and permanent uplift of the human race. If the ethical culture of a Plato or an Aristotle appeals to you, how much more should the religion of Jesus Christ, as a working method. "He who knows the most, he who knows what sweet and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal man." —Emerson. 33
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