Christian Simplicity

 "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." 2 Corinthians 11:3.

       The simplicity spoken of is not simplicity of thought but simplicity of choice.When Christ bids us "receive the kingdom as a child " He is not asking simplicity of thought. Children are not simple in thought. Look at the fearful questions they put‚- " Who made God?" "Where do the figures go when they are rubbed off the slate? "‚ - questions for the philosopher, for the scientist. But children are very simple in their choice. A child never sees more than two alternatives; a thing is either good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. Paul says that in the moral world man has lost that simplicity; the serpent has beguiled him as it did Eve. How did the serpent beguile Eve? By obscuring the simplicity of the question at issue. Sin would never succeed unless it first obscured the question. Would any man hesitate between God and Satan if the simple alternatives were placed before him! But then the simple alternatives are never placed before him. The lower world is always painted in fair colors. It has stolen the flowers of Paradise and claimed them as its own. I never choose sin because it looks bad, but because it looks manly. The danger of sin is its counterfeit of glory. Satan in the wilderness is quite a Christian. He says to Christ, ''If you follow me I will help you to fulfill your mission more quickly." So speaks to all youth the hour of temptation.

       Help me, O Lord, to unclothe the tempter - to divest him of his disguise. Much of my service to him is an unconscious homage to Thee. I mistake the altar on which I lay my flowers. I have never said, either with heart or lip, "Let me build a temple to Satan." If I loved Satan I should have said it long ago. But I have loved Thee, and Thee only. I have seen in the grounds of the tempter things that were ''pleasant to the eyes;" but they were all stolen from Thy garden; their perfume was the perfume of Eden. Let me regain the simplicity of the child's vision - not shallowness of view but depth of contrast. Let me cease to call duelling an affair of honor, war a military glory, atheism a freedom of thought, immorality a life of pleasure, drunkenness an hour of good-fellowship. Let me cease to clothe the bird of night in the plumes of the bird of paradise. Give me the child's uncompromising power of choice - ''I like this," "I do not like that." Let me see the King in His beauty; let me behold the slave in his deformity. May Thy day have no cloud; may the tempter's night have no star. I shall reach the power of childhood when I have learned the simplicity of a choice betwixt two.