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Organ of iheNorlh Carolina Conference.
SIXTY-FOURTH YEAR.
RALEIGH, N. C, JUNE f5, 1918.
The Habit of Worldliness.
DR. JOHN HENRY JOWETT.
What is worldliness ? Worldliness is a hard and pol
ished materialism. Worldliness is the hardening of the
spiritual arteries. Worldliness is the encasement of the
soul in fleeting ambitions and delights. Worldliness is a
solid prison of material interests with no windows or
skylights looking out upon God and the eternal world.
Worldliness is something very hard and very thick, and
very tenacious; it is like the shell of the limpet in its
fierce hold upon the hard rock. What can you do with
worldliness ? What can you do with the solid imprison
ing walls ? We accomplish nothing by pouring upon
them the soft waters of merely ethical teaching. We
have done nothing when we have decorated the walls of
the prison with works of art. We get no further when
we just stroke the rock with smooth and gentle plausi
bilities' We may hang a bit of ritual on the heavy
walls, but the imprisonment remains. All these will
leave it unmoved, and worldliness will rear and spread
itself as strong and defiant as ever. What do we need
for its destruction ? We need dynamite, the dynamite
of the resurrection. And when this mighty force which
dwelt in Jesus, and which broke both sin and death, is
received into the innermost soul, the hard imprisoning
walls of worldliness are blown into nothing, and the soul
looks out upon a new heaven and a new earth. Yes,
when the walls of worldliness go down we have the en
trancing prospects of the Kingdom of heaven. World
liness cannot stand against the dynamite of the resur
rection. And so it is with every other established habit
Every one of them can be blown up by the power of the
risen Christ. Nothing can stand against it. " For this
was the Son of Man manifested that He might destroy
the works of the Devil "Baltimore Southern Methodist.
MWJHIMl IK.