Daily press and Dakotaian. [volume] (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1875-1880, 1877-12-12
INTELLECT AND HEART.

INTELLECT AND HEART.
A sermon Preached Last sabbath by Rev.
Karl Gerncr, OF the Liberal
Christian Church,
'.Out of the Heart are the issues of Life -
-Pr0Uer6S.
1t might be we'll for me to state just here
how am going to Use these two words, in
tellect and heart. BY the intellect l mean
that part Of our nature that deals with
pure reason. That part that is fed on a diet
of logic and abstract principles. That part
that contents itself with laying down cold
propositions and making proper deductions
from them. In short that part Of our nature
that is never swayed by the EN- ,tions but is
moved only by reason. The hear. is differ
ent. The ancient philosophers spent very
much of their time in locating certain sem
sations and faculties in different parts Of our
bodies. They claimed that the heart was
the seat Of the emotions. We who live and
think in this century know that the heart
has no more to do with the emotions than
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home of the intellectual, spiritual, and
aftectionate faculties. The mistake of the
ancients, however, still clings to the word,
and so ws shall use it to distinguish that
part Of our being that feels, from the part
that thinks. shall endeavor to show how
great the heart is and what a preference we
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pertaining to life and religion.
The creeds of the world have an intellec-
tual origin. In the seclusion of their stud
les the creed builders Of Christianity placed
in solemn and stately array facts, Judge
ments, and speculations, and, throwing them
into form, call their productions the last
analysis OF divine truth. These creeds only
change when society cons ults the heart
more than the head in the affairs of religion.
Creeds are not based on the theory of love,
but on the deductions of the intellect. A
young child watching people going to
church on Sunday morning, wanted to
know that if they all prayed to and loved
the same God, why they went to different
houses to worship? 1t was startling ques-
tion and one that finds its only answer in
the fact that men follow the tendencies Of
the intellect more than they do the impulses
Of the heart. When the heart sways an un.
contested scepter in the world of religion
than there is unity. When the intellec,
rules there is nothing but division and dis
cussions. All religious system are epheme
raj, that have not sunk their foundation:
in the heart.
"Out of the heart are the issues of life.'
says the gifted author of the proverbs. AL
the fine arts are not the children of the in
tellect, but of the heart. All genuin.
music is the creation of the emotions. AL
fine poetry rises from the same source. All
ideas Of generous justice and equality, SWELL
up from the overaowing heart just as natur
ally, as the spring verdure mounts from tn,
inspiration of the soil. Say what we viii
the ultimate seat of religion is the heart
and the true builders up of religion mus1
all band together and rule out all errors ant
rule in all those sweet and loving qualitie
in the practice of which, life shall become
a prolonged summer, and its arenas fields
Of fruitful richness and floral beauty. The
hearts creed, assure you, will be creet
not of dry and barren tenets, checking tn
flow of Life as dead leaves remaining on tn
tree would arrest the spring growth and d
away with the summers glory, but rathe
the hearts creed will be one of great sim
plicity, power and freedom it will max
worship easy and will make US more init
mate with God and righteousness. 1t will
arouse our slumbering consciences 1t will
urge us on to the performance of those
duties that will finally produce among us al
= fellowship of soul.
We cannot by any intellectual process
convince adoubting man of the existenc
of God. The proof is not conclusiv
enough. 1t is something that must be tel,
Bringing into play only the reasoning fac
ulties religion grows to have the hppearsne
OF an intellectual study. From design, "
may reason that ,hure is a God, but by an
by even that argument loses its itfllcne
and we drift helplessly on the wild, ooe
sea Of atheism Intense thinking alone o
those grea. themes that embrace God an
Immortality lead TO skepticism We are u
longer conscious of the existence Of tn
Father. We do not feel the warm breat