Glamorgan Free Press

The Sunday Hour: AN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE." INCISIVE POINTS FOR PONTYPRIDD CHRISTIANS. BY THE REV S. R. JENKINS, M.A., OF MERTHYR. (From :j,, "Pontypridd and Rhondda Valleys Chronicle.") The following sermon was preached by the Wv S. Ro. Jenkins, M.A., of Merthyr (brother to the pastor of the English Congregational j Chapel, Pontypridd), on Tuesday evening, the 3rd iiLst., on the occasion of a harvest thanks- jiving service, held in the Schoolroom of the ttbove-n-imed chapel: Matthew iv. 4. "Man shall not live by bread alone.The story of the Temptation of our Lord resolves itself naturally into three parts er phases, and without going into the difficulties which surround the subject, we can at least affirm that the force of the first temptation lay in the appeal made by the Tempter to the Christ to use the supernatural and magnificent powers he possessed, and knew he possessed, for personal and selfish ends. He was tempted to gratify the craving for bread by the exercise ei his supernatural powers. In a word, it was the subtle temptation which presents itself from time to time to all of us of subordinating the spiritual demands of our nature to the mater- ial. And the reply of Christ states for us the truth it is perhaps more than ever necessary to emphasise in these days of corrupt commercial- ism of miserable mammonism. Man is more than meat, more than raiment, more than wealth, more than mere happiness and comfort. Man is a Spirit, an Immortal, a Son of God, a Subject of an Eternal Kingdom. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that ^roceedeth out of the mouth of God," by obed- ience 5o the great spiritual principles of his be- in* and by his readiness to subordinate the mere material cravings of his nature to the eternal aspirations of his eoul. Man's chief concern, must, therefore, be not with the things of sense, the things that cam be seen and touched and handled, but with the invisible, tirth the unseen, with the truths of character, and of eternal life. Man cannot live without broad—let us remember that; man cannot live w'thous clothing, but wnen all this is admit- t&i we must not omit from our calculations neds and cravings and aspirations and longings which are as real to the soul as bread and rai- ment are to the body; and man is a soul—the be ly is his, but the body is not the man-the bo iJ is the man, and the great end of life is m* i to eat, and to drink, and to dress, and to et it, and to rot, and to die, but to develop in lif, th Godlike character, to hasten on the ceding of the Eternal Kingdom of Righteous- nc to live ever in the great Taskmaster's eye, er to recognise life through the Eternal Sover- cf God ia all spheres--a sovereignty re- TP;ad and explained in the Universal Father- be d. Truth, justice, purity, righteousness, m cy, these are the great ideals for the life of m, not expediency, compromise, wealth,tread butter. Are we not living in a mafcerialis- "tlc me, when the grand old ideals oi religion humanity are being lowered and has ad? TT-t. (Treat questions asked in all spheres are U 2" Will it pay? Will it take? Will it sc! 0 Is it likely to be popular- Does it fall .in ,ith the public opinion of the MOD"B? Will H increase the circulation? W.ill it bring in a crowded house? The poet to-day writes his pcetry after he has received his cheque; that 13 why so many of the poets of to-day aw made and not born. John Milton wrote the "Paradise Lost" before he received his cheque- the handsome sum of 25-the weekly wage of a professional footballer to-day! The novelist to- day writes his novels by order, and if his first book is a success, he is paid handsomely for other novels, which are unwritten and unread and which, when written, oftentimes deserve no better fate than to be consigned to Time's Great Lumber-room. Extensity of output takes the place of intensity of outlook, and there is a danger that the best books of the best minds should be ignored for the catchy volumes which take the public mind. I am sure what we would have done with Shakespeare in our days. Some theatrical managers say that Shakespeare does not pay, that there is no money to be made in attempting to play before the great public his immortal dramas. And although Henry Irving, Beerbohm Tree, and Forbes-Robertson, and one or two others have made, and are' --iri-w larave attempts to educate the public up to Shake- spear's level, it must candidly be admitted that grand opera and grand drama are imperilled by < he craze for the frothy farces and low comedies und catchy musio which "takes" at the music liall, and which will in a season or two be turned out of an Italian organ upon the ears of an unoffending public. Our great news- paper proprietors, too, fill their dailies, many of them wibh information which they know full well cannot but lower the tone of national morality. Many of our popular newspapers are often nothing more than short-hand transcripts of the noisome and unhealthy details that come to light in our courts of justice .together with columns of betting news and odds, all of which can but injuriously react upon the sensitive minds of the young men and women who spend an hour or two in perusing them. The proprie- tors themselves are in most cases men of un- blemished character, whose private lives are above suspicion and reproach, and who in their inmost hearts are deeply disgusted at what they consider the necessity they are under of publishing items which give their papers a cir- culation. The editors, too, are, in the majority of instances, men of highly disciplined mind and of great integrity of purpose, and, in not a few instances, men cf great, prophetic outlook, who realise the immense power they exert in mould- ing the opinion and in forming the sentiment of the nation, and in the leading articles they in- dite do all that lies in their power to raise the moral ideals of their constituency. They con- demn most unhesitatingly the gambling spirit I'> the age, they censure most unsparingly the immoralities of the day, and yet they print and publish betting and gambling news in extenso, and they report at length revelations in news- papers which, if they were printed in a novel, wculd bring down upon the publishers the severest punishment which Stat-e Censorship could inflict. And it is all done to keep up the circulation'. Ha9 it come to such a sorry pass a this, that a newspaper conducted on strictly Christian linos is impossible in a nation calling itself Christian? Can t.he experiment not be given a fair trial ? A newspaper without gamb- ling and betting and police news as features? If, as we are tod, the press is going to supplant the pulpit in inculcating moral truth, surely it need not complain if the pulpit in its few last expiring days should venture to whisper, "Phy- sician, heal thyself. Report a little more of what God is doing on earth and a little less of what the devil does. so shall you best conserve the true spiritual interests which you profess to have so much at heart." "Man shall not live by bread alone," and the men and nations that have made the attempt have proved to all succeeding ages the futility and vanity of life lived upon the materialistic basis. There is no scepticism which would have us believe that God is of no account in his own creation. Either God punishes nations for national wrong-doing o* He does not, and dare not, punish individu- als for their sins. "History is a splendid tonio for doubting minds" is the saying of a great his- torian, for if it reveals one truth more clearly than another it is this truth: that God is even unto this day the Great King Maker. By Him prir.ces rule. It is not the sneerer at the super- natural that has carved out the destinies of the nations, and it is no small matter, depend upon it, in such a crisis as we are now passing through, to rely upon the rightness of our poli- cies, and the justice of our claims. President Kruger has afforded much merriment for the cynical age in which we live; so did Oliver Cromwell for his generation. What a quaint caricature that of Kruger with Bible in his right hand praying God for three hours to assist his arms against Chamberlain, and coming forth from his chamber conscious that his prayers wculd be answered! Ah! do not laugh, my friends, at what you call the hypocrisy and superstition of the old man. I do not say that Irs prayers are going to be answered, and from tl, lowest depths of my heart, if the worst should happen, I say, "God save our father- land." But what I do wish you to bear in mind is this great truth, that God has something to sav in the matter. And if the war be unjust, ai some prophets tell us it will be, if war might have been avoided, that man and that nation which forced on one of the greatest calamities of history, and certainly the greatest calamity of Victoria's reign, will not be held guiltless in the day of reckoning, which is to-day and everyday. The history of every nation has the record of men who were voices crying in the wilderness, men who were despised and rejected, persecuted and maltreated-men who constitu- ted the small minority-the salt of the earth; the men of great ennobling purposes and ideals, who lived for the sake of a spiritual national life. These names were received in crowded political meetings with a storm of hisses, the resolutions they proposed were defeated by an overwhelming majority, the speeches they de- sired to make were not listened to by the in- furiated mob, and yet time has been on their side, and the future has been forced to admit th", wisdom and sanity, as well as the justice ar.d tightness of their views. It was a famous dictum of John Bright, "The city is always wrong," meaning thereby the select circle of stockbrokers and shareholders who dominate thll commercial centre in London particularly, and in all our large towns generally. There ia danger when the "City" clamours for war lest ti e appeal should be made not to principle but tc expediency. And whatever view we take of the dispute between our country and the Trans- vaal. it must sadly be admitted by all that there it too much talk indulged in about avenging Majuba Hill and about the goldmines of the Rand, end about British supremacy. Let jus- tice be done by all means, but in a matter so grave as war it is well for us to place the em- phasis upon a sounder basis than that of re- venge and mere supremacy. Need we wonder aL the patriotic feelings which are aroused in the Boer breast at the memory of a victory gained at the expense of the British when we remember that we go out of our way every year to decorate Nelson's monument and to remem- ber Trafalgar? There is a nobler life for Eng- land than that of mere national supremacy, there are cravings which shall not be satisfied ~—• by gold mines and by victories gained on the field of battle, there are powers whicn are- to be nourished not by physical food, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. We must learn to hate the cowardice of doing wrong. That is the national truckling we must fear, and the moral heroism we must cultivate is that which teaches us to esteem first and be- fcre aught else the true spirituw interests of the land. To sing "Rule Britannia" is an easy exercise for the lungs, but Britons ever, ever, sver shall be slaves unless they learn to dis. sociate themselves from all that enslaves the mind and heart and conscience. Pilate could have sung "Let me like a soldier fall" as proudly 83 any one to-day, but it is the pale prisoner whom he that day consigned to crucifixion that has through his life and spirit possessed the centuries. The appeal to mere brute strength and force is not the sign of an intelligent, wise, civilised state-not to say a Christian nation. God in the centuries gone by has not been on the side of the big battalions. Never was there a greater mistake. The great nations of the world have in most instances been the small nations, and the future destinies of the race are indissolubly concerned with the great principles of righteousness, justice, and truth. "History is the stride of God," says Victor Hugo, and why shall we not understand that great truth, living as we do in the closing years of a reign which has been rendered glorious not on ac- count of its battles, but by reason of the en- lightenment of the people, of the establishment of new relationships based upon brotherhood; of the emancipation of the slave and the op- pressed of the conquests of science, and of the gradual victories that spirit has gained upon matter. It were a sorry land to dwell in were God forever banished. What the result would be we faintly understand in the case of our neighbours across the channel, and although we sneer end smile and taunt God with doing no- thing, yet in the last resort our homes, our thrones, our country, our armies and navies, to be blessed must be blessed by appeals made to the spiritual and supernatural agencies at work in the life of humanity. In the hour of grave national peril there is no infidel patriot who will not go on his knees in agony of soul end give utterance to prayers every one of which flatly conflicts with his professed scepticism. "God save our Queen." God save our father- land God bless our homes! God be with our soldiers! The greatest of Britain's interests are not material but spiritimal-rigbteousness between man and man, between nation and na- tion, justice in politics and in conduct, truth in thought or in word, mercy and pity for the weak and the oppressed whether they be our own flesh and blood or brothers of an alien race. Put it to yourselves, my friends, must this not be so?Face the situation fairly, and tell me whether I overstate the case. Are nations only herds of farmers and miners and artisans and traders? Are our fathers' graves mere mounds of earth? Is freedom only sounding rhetoric? Is duty only a name? Is honour dead? Has politics become a game, or is it a passion for national righteousness? Is justice a chimera? And is there nothing left but for us to live for bread and meat and wealth and clothing? De- pend upon it, this view of life degenerates man as we little know. We are told a man must live! Exiactly; but what is a man, and what is life? We have read of men who chose to die that they might live, who perished in a winding sheet of flame that they might live, who left their fatherland that they might live, who were sawn asunder and crucified they they might live. Picture to yourselves the lives of penury and poverty many of earth's greatest heroes endured that they might live. As Sir John Elliot grandly said: "A wise man lives but so long as his life is worth more than his death." "Everywhere," says Heine, "that a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts there also is a Golgotha;" and the world has been redeemed and sanctified and etmobled largely by the men whose insistence upon life was so great that they were prepared for the thumbscrew, the gibbet, the scaffold, the hemlock, the dungeon, or aught that, th, fall ingenuity of man might devise. "For what is worth success's name Unless it be the inward surety to have carried out a noble purpose to a noble end, Whether it be the gallows or the block." "r must live" has been the cry of reformer, mar, tyr, philanthropist,, and saint through the ages and yet not I, but my nation in me, Christ in me. Protestanism in me. Our fathers did not go to prison for fun. Ah, no, they grandly realised the divine meaning of life. William Caray did not go to India to see the world, but that the world through him might come to the knowledge qf the gospel of goodwill. There is banyan tree out in Central Africa; it is not remarkable among the trees of the forest, but under that tree the heart of David Living- stone lies buried, and as we ponder over the great life-work of the Missionary Explorer, we call to mind the master thought of his life that our country should heal the open sore of the world. Not yet has his request been completely complied with, and we sometimes sadly think that wo are about to open another sore in that great continent which generations yet unborn shall mourn. God save Africa! Save its white inhabitants and its dusky sons! Give unto the nations a new vision of the value of one human soul! Give peace in our time, 0 Lord! Even a,4; the eleventh hour, when the sand has well nigh every grain fallen in the hour glass, give peace! and it be Thy will that war should result from the discords of the day, let it come to a speedy close and inspire in the minds of rulers, capitalists, presidents, soldiers, and all th3 great truth that the salvation of Africa must come from a true recognition of the great prin- ciple that man shall not live by bread alone, but by considering the spiritual truths revealed in Christ and by the heroic application of the principles of religion to all both Boer and Brit- ish, negro and white. Aye! and though the stars were paling, And the songs had died to wailing, And the glorious cause were failing, And the gallant flag were torn; Not the lightning nor the thunder, Shall our souls from duty sunder, Till all lies be beaten under, And the palm be won and worm! Amem.

-0- OLD FALSE TFETH BOUGHT. Many Indips and gentleman have by them old Or disused false teeth, which might as whI he turned into money. M"?.?™. R. D. & J. B. Praser. of Princes Street, Ipswich (established since 1833;. buv olii fflse teeth. If you spnd yonr teeth to thew 't'-vy will remit you by return of p"st th:1 'irrnopt value or, if pre- ferred, they will nniV" you t'.i^ best, uff^r, and hold the tee to ovi for yc.urr«y>ly. If r^fcrtrRw necessary, apolv to Messrs. Paeon & Co., Bankers, Imwirh. 4927 Pontypridd Ccachbuilding Co. (J'rize Winners fur Carriages), A Hi; now ofr-rinK a brer, number of Traps Mil Carriages of "t>.rhu3 deFari.,t,hulIl\.t the rory >0«<•> priceo. Large Show Rooms, I new "pen— | CARRIAGE WORKS, Mowun Kthct.t, VOJTTYTBIDD. .ulF 'tf'J.Tr

The Headmastership of Porth Intermediate School. SPECIAL MEETING OF fHE GOVERNORS. A DRASTIC? STEP. NO REASON ASSIGNED. At a special meeting of the Porth County Sehool Governors held on Friday evening, Mr W. W. Hood, M.E., presided in the chair. The attendance also included Dr W. E. Thomas, Mrs B. N. Davies, Miss Gwen Thomas, Alder- man W. H. Matthias, Rev J. James, Council- lors B. H. Davies, J.P., J. R. Evans, and Ald. J. Jones-Griffiths. The Chairmen proposed that six months' notice be given to Mr Samuel to terminate his engagement as headmaster to the Porth In- termediate School. Dr W. E. Thomas seconded. Chairman: Has the headmaster been noti- fied of this meeting. Clerk: I spoke to Mr Samuel, and asked him if he would require official intimation, and be told me that he would not. On being put to the vote all the members supported the pro- position with the exception of Alderman J. Jones-Griffiths. Chairman: You remain neutral, Mr Grif- fiths? Mr Griffiths: I think it is hardly worth my while taking any action at all. I hope you have all counted the cost of your action and the results. Chairman: Oh, I think so. Mr Griffiths: May I ask is there any call for the dismissal? Chairman: I don't propose giving any. Mr Griffiths: You send a man a-bout his j business after the splendid results of the last examination without even telling him why? Chairman: Yes. Dr Thomas: I suppose we are all convinced it is to the interest of the school that 1141. should go. The Clerk intimated that Colonel Turberville had written tendering his resignation as mana- ger of the schools and had appointed Mr Rich- ard Packer, his agent at Ynyshir, to act in his stead. Dr W. E. Thoxnes gave notice of motion that he would at the next meeting move that the meetings be held on Friday instead of Wednes- day evenings. This concluded the business of the sitting.

CLOSE TENDERING FOR THE NEW LLWYNYPIA WORKHOUSE. The Building Committee of the Pontypridd Board of Guardians met at the Workhouse on Wednesday, when the following tenders were received for the erection of the new Workhouse at Llwynypia. It will be observed that all the tenders run very closely to each other, all with two exceptions being in the same thousand:- £ s. d. D. Davies (Cardiff) 11,902 0 0 W. Thomas and Co., 11,142 0 0 Alben Richards 11,948 13 6 William Davies, Hopkinstown 11,818 0 0 1 W. E. Willis, Ystrad 11,574 0 0 C. Jenkins and Sons 13,431 0 0 D Thomas and Son, Cardiff 11,700 0 0 A. Seaton 12,350 0 0 E. R. Evans and Bros. 11,610 ? 0 l Morris and Thomas 11,790 10 0

Licensed for Six Days but -Selling oil the Seventh, TREFOREST LADY PUBLICAN CONVICTED. At the Pontypridd Police Court on Wednes- day—before the stipendiary and other magis- trates—Elizabeth Jones, landlady of the Bailey's Arms, Treforest, was summoned for selling in- toxicating liquor without a licence. The hotel is only licensed for six days, and the offences were alleged to have taken place on Sunday, on Sunday, the 10th and 17th ult. P.S. Rees gave evidence to watching the hotel on the lQth ult. in company with P.C. James. Several persons were observed to leave and en- ter a garden in front of the premises. A man was seen to come out of the front door of the hotel, carrying a jug. He went into a building in front of the house to some men who came out wiping their mouths. At 9.30 a man went from the front door of the hotel and appeared to be carrying something, presumably a bottle, into a stable at Bailey's Court, and some men fol- lowed him into the stable. The stable belonged to a salt-hawker. Several complaints had been made respecting the Bailey's Hotel. Mr James corroborated. Mr Phillips submitted that he had no case to answer. There might have been complaints about people congregating about a public-house but there was no proof of any consumption of intoxicants nor proof of any sale. The con- stables could easily have run down towards the inn and caught them consuming the liquor it they chose. The Stipendiary said the Bench were satisfied with all the policemem had said, but there was no absolute evidence as to the contents of the jug or bottle. If they had captured them. it would be something. wc°M lBve better. The case was dismissed. Following this, the alleged offence on the 17th was proceeded with. On this date P.S. Rees said he saw a man named Job Davies in a garden opposite the house making motions to- wards the house. The son came out and went over to the garden, and spoke to him, returned t1 the hotel, and afterwards ianded Mrs Da- vies two bottles of beer, who drank the contents of one of them.. Witness thea left his place of concealment, and went on. When questioned Mr Davies said he had come for a cabbage. The landlady's attention was sailed to the affair, and she said she knew nothing about it. The son was searched, and a bottle of whisky found in his inside coat pocket. Mr Phillips observed that the only question he had to answer was whether the bottles of beer were a gift or a sale. Mr Job Davies said he was a great friend at the Bailey's Arms, and had often had gifts of drink on Sunday at the hotel, and dined there- on many occasions. He owned the garden, and the two bottles of bass wer- a glft. The magis- trates thought the case was made out and thought it highly improbable that such hospi- tality would be extended without-payment. Superintendent Cole said there had been com. plaints about the house for i and they had been trying to catch the house for that per- iod.—A fine of JE1 was im. Job Davies was fined 109 for aiding and abet- ting. The case against Alf. Jonet for a Uk offence was dropped.