The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-11-16
Tho Spiritual Life.

there Is q form OF mental llo WHICH we
| call spirital. This is the highest, as it is the
| finest, phase of the mystery that We name ex-
| lstence. Colerldge expressed what l mean
VII, II he said that "faith is itself a higher
reason, and corrects the errors of reason as
| reason corrects the errors of sense" As the
physical life is revealed by its phenomena, as
the mental life possesses its expression, so
| the spiritual life has its manifestations This
IS a fact. As such it is to be respected.
As we dep nd upon the senses to make
clear to us the presence of the sunrise, as we
rely upon the reason to explain to us the
nature of a thought, so we lean upon faith to
reveal to us the nature of a spirit.
While the eye brings to lis the color of the
dawn, it cal do more the optic nerve of an
idiot, though it culver in precise obedience to
the laws OIL his physical organism, for three
score years and ten, will never reveal to him
The rapture Of the morning. Sense and reason
must act together. So the reason, left to it
| self, informs us of the character of the thought
| or Of the feeling which we have about the
sunrise then it comes, and there it must
come, against its limitation. The intellect of
a sKeptic, though he cultivate it till he is in
his grave, will never produce q prayer for the
! guidance, or endurance CT delight of the
day that is about to be his. Reason and faith
must work together. So, we might add, faith,
as adisconlected faculty, cannot result in true
devotion. Unless guided by reason, the de-
| voice may become a bowling dervish, or a
hysterlc nun. The sense, the mind, and the
| spirit must live together.
l. Ike the life physical, like the life intel
I~ectual, the spiritual life, while yet confessing
an independence upon those other forms OF
life, possesses, Ike them an individual exis-
tence.
"My soul to me a kingdom is" In this
kingdom there are laws there is obedience
or disobedience; there is anarchy or order
th-re is the separation of government; there
is the history of growth or decline. This is a
fact. As such 1t is to be respected.
A broken physical law involves its penalty.
A denied intellectual law implies punishment.
A detied spiritual law presumes its retribu-
ton.
Leap rnto the ocean; no opposing law Of
salvation i~nterposing, you will drown. De-
fraud the hours of rest for study or for dissip-
patton, you lose the mental power of control
ling natural sleep. Contest against the sur
render of the soul to its Creator that which we
call the religious lite withdraws itself from
you. Unbelief closes over the willing ui-
believer like the waves of the sea or the tides
of insomnia. These are facts. As such they
are to be respected.
Again the great law of development is the
law Of action. Every natural power grows
Dy exercise. any ScnOOi BOY Knows That lie
can create the iron ball of muscle on his arm
only by the use and training of the muscle.
Any college girl understands that the various
faculties of the brain, the mathematical skill
of the accountant, the acquisitive power of
the linguist, the obedient memory, or what is
called the conservative power of the historian
as we'll as the rythnical faculty of the poet,
the manual deXterity of the musician, ard
the balanced imagination of both, become
sprviceable only through action, as
they become through ~inaction inert. As with
the Drawn, as with the brain, SO with the
spirit.
To exercise spiritual power, is 20 develop
and strengthen it.. TO disuse it is TO rcpress
or e~Xtinguish it.
AS the body has its senses, so has the soul.
Burns speaks of "those senses Of the mind
by which great religious truths are apprc-
hended. Spiritual truth is received by spiritual
powers. Spiritual fact is perceived by the
spiritual eye, heard by a spiritual ear, handled
by spiritual touch. 1.-The true saint" says
DR.. Holmes 'can be entirely appreciated only
by sanity natures"
Spiritual power is the flower OF the human
growth. In spiritual character we find the
highest, finest and most complex form Of the
species. All other nature, whether physical
or mental, is embryonic to spiritual nature.
Spiritual culture is the elimination of human
Observation-Disclosures Stuart Phelps in the
Atlantic MONTHLY.