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TIUS

spiritual downfall. There are the voices of nature, in sky, and sea, and storm; the voices of childhood and of early youth; the voices of playfellows

inadequate and incomplete-as if a voice called from the confines of eternity, in the infinite spaces where no time is, and rolled onward to the far-off ages when time

ing mass, which from century to century wakes, and breathes, and sleeps again! Years roll on, tides flow, but there is no cessation of the march of years, and no whisper of a natural change. Is it not a st

d, and long to know Him. But if we try to define the religious instinct, we shall find it a hard task. What might be called a religious instinct leads to

have been ambitious and aggressive. Others say, He appeals to our need of help. But self-reliance is a Christian trait. Others say, He appeals to our sense of sin-our need

ce which we must recognize-though we do not yet in the least understand it-which is gradually drawing the race Christward. The law of spiritual

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strange human semblance-is that all? And so many other heaps of atoms have already been, and passed away! Blown hither and thither-where? The universe reels with change. Star-dust and earth-

w there are more to walk upon them! The ground we tread was once trodden by the feet of those long dead. I am taking up their room, and in due time I mu

t, and climb the Alps; yesterday I lay helpless in swaddling clothes. Yesterday I was a thing of laughter and frolic; to-day I am grave, and brush away tears. As a babe, was I still I? What is Myself? When did I

wept through time and space, bearing within our souls hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, which are never twice the same. Every

no abiding-place for our deepest affection, our most tender yearning. It is curious how deeply one may love, an

f the changeless Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. In Him

Elijah, there is a voice which sings: "O rest in the Lord!"

. The rest we receive is that of sympathy, of inspiration, of efficiency. Christ really increases the toil-capacity of man. Man can do more work, harder work, and always better work, because of the faith that is in him. What makes the confusion and fatigue of life is, that men are everywhere scrambling for themselves, and tr

I look down over the world, as a master upon his men. My work is not to found an earthly kingdom, as some have thought; it is not primarily to set up industrial establishments, or syndicates, or ways of transport and trade. My work is to build up in the universe a spiritual kingdom of energy, power, and progress. To this kingdom all material things are accessory. In My hand

because no one is unruly there, or idle, or lazy, or vicious, or morose. Each soul is at true and happy wor

amy, nor Campanella in his City of the Sun. Each hand would be at its own work; each eye would be upon its own task; each foot would be in the right path. All

many stripes. The first sin that besets us is forgetfulness of God. Apathy creeps over the spirit, and sloth winds itself about our deeds. Nothing is mor

, and lack of truth and honor fight more strongly against one's career than any other foe. No sin is without its lash; no experience of evil but has its rebound. To expect a hi

ourselves if we could create a new self, in the image of some ideal which is be

hese grimacing phases of ourselves? Do we not yearn eagerly for the dignity and beauty of high virtue? Do we not long for the grac

ange the fact that the world is there. So about our souls there lies the invisible world of God, which, until born of the Spirit, we do not see or understand. It is a world in which God is everywhere; in which

a part of the universe which God is building. We change from a self-centre to a God-centre; from the thought of whether the world applauds to whether God approves; from the thought of keeping our own life to the thought of preserving our own integrity; from isolation from all other souls to a symp

could we love Jesus if He did not sympathize with our ideals? But here is a Divine One in whose sight we are not visionary; who lovingly guards our least hope; who welcomes our faintes

ers. Which of us has ever exhausted his possi

e, the energy, neither wastes nor dies away. Air-it is as fresh as the air that blew over the Pharaohs. Sun-it is as undimmed

down to others one atom which was not long ere we were born. Yet the vitality of the universe is being constantly i

luence never dies. The body is born of ages past, of the material stores of centuries; but the soul

n the great whirling myriads, I am distinguished and apart. I am an appreciable factor in universal development and a being of elemental power. By every true thought of mine the race becomes w

of the soul. It is this wish for growth, for the development of our power

lies our dream. Not all the voices that call men from place to place are audible ones. We hear whispers from a far-off

ss? What can I hope that shall unseal other eyes to the universal glory, comfort others in the universal pain? We say: I do not want to be mewed up here, while others are out where thrones and empires are sweeping by! I do not want to parse verbs, add fractions, and mark ledgers, while others are the poets, the singers, the statesmen, the rulers, and

we pant, But life, more lif

is but the call of Jesus to our souls. We sometimes hear of the "limitations of life." What are they? Who s

ty, He has looked upon as possible for us. Could any career be grander than the one that G

moving force, the reason for being, activity, development, for ethical conduct, and for unselfish and joyous helpfulness. Religion is more and more perceived to be, not a thing of feeble sentiment, of restraint, of exaction, of meek subordination and resignation, but the unfolding of the free h

uperstition and unrest, there were the cloistered ones who maintained traditions of faith and did works of mercy, as there were knightly ones who upheld the ministry of chivalry, and followed, though af

arching and the countermarching of nations in the throes of progress and of social change. It is not the story of princes alone, but of peasants as well; the result of myriads of small, obscure lives; of changing conditions; of the movements of great economic, psycho

e but a handful of the tribe

red and scattered, land and sea have been peopled and made desolate, as the thronging tribes and races have lived their little life and passed away. Babylon and Assyria, India and Arabia, Egypt and Persia, Rome and Greec

, and a general regard for life, health, peace, national prosperity, and the individual weal. The day has passed when men merely lived, slept, ate, fought; they are now involved in an intricate and progressi

forth beauty? How ought the soul of man to act in an emergency? What is the best solution of the great human problems of duty, love, and fate? The voices of Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Browning sweep the soul upward to spiritual heights, and answer some of the deepest questionings of the soul of man. And hence literature is no longer merely a thing of vocabulary, of phrase, of rhythm, of assonance, of alliterati

la. The scientist looks out over the earth and sky and sun and star. Against his little years are meted out vast prehistoric spans; against his mastery of a few forms of life, stands Life itself. Back of all, there lo

th. Throughout the world there is being turned to the service of religion the highest training, the most intellectual power. Wars are being wrought for freedom; the Church and the university are joining hands; the rich and the poor are drawing near together for mutual help and understanding; industry is growing to be, not only a crude force, bruta

s what is just before. Immortality is a native concept for the soul. Beyond th

out over eternity, that billowy expanse, do we not see rising, clear though shadowy, a vast Permanence, Completion, Realization, in which the soul of man shall have endless progress and delight? This

star-encircled, with a voice above the ages and a