Smyrna times., 1880-12-29
Power of True Feeling.
DEPITcED BY HENRY WARD BEEoHER.

large. Mr.. Beecher preached on the power |
of feeling as the result of emotions. The |
text was Hosea vi, 4: 80 Ephraim, what |
shall do unto thee? o Judah, what shall
do unto thee2 for your goodness is as a
morning cloud, and as the early dew it
goeth away"
No two figures, said the preacher, could
have been chosen to represent the evenss.
cence of religious feeling with more beauty
and delicacy than these. Religious feeling
rises easily, promises everything ecstatic,
and then is as fugitive as the ARREST cloud.
The mystery of God is not SO impressive as
the way man is set in this life, so royalty
endowed and so royalty neglected. No one
knows the genesis of feelings, nor how
they can be fortified. That on which the
character turns is left undecipherabs
The ignorance of men respecting feeling is
monumental.
All action springs from emotion, which
is a reservoir Of force. The desire of some.
thing is the spring of action. The main.
spring of business, social relations and re.
ligion is feeling. No change in the right
direction is made without an appeal to
emotion. Susceptibility to this is suscepti
bility to improvement. Emotion is an ex-
citement carried to particular end 1t is
mistake to suppose that if feeling is
good, much of it is a greater good. Some
men would like to ride into heaven in a
blazing dramas would like to have Mount
Sinai for themselves. Enough excitement
10 make feeling continuous is desirable
, Feeling is to action what wind is to sails.
i. Enough is enough; more causes feeling.
? He who can do right with the least feeling
is nearest right; not the intensity of feel.
ing, but the facility with which it can be
converted into action, is the mark of ex-
cellence. We cannot bear continuous
T, emotion. If we cannot control it it leads
: to lunacy. Feeling must rise and fall.
: The mind has a multitude of chords and
one feeling supplants another.
y The strongest feeling is love, and its
= strongest manifestation is moter.love but
u this cannot be continuous; it must change
$ into action for those loved Two lovers
d say they will love just SO for ever; but they
are fools. They might as well promise t,
J give each other all there is in the natiOna
banks. The feeling cannot be conlinLo 8
but it does well enough in poetry.
i The rest following feeling is not sinful
" The reactions Of excessive grief are health
full. Absence of feeling is the sign Of God
- goodness when one is overweight. In th'
i, same way there comes reaction after re
/, ligious excitement. Large utterances will
. full scale OF emotions are better thai
slender natures. But in all, alienation i
:. rest. In my own versatile nature, ince,
or SAINT change has been salvation to me
:. Often the things men avoid are the yer
- things necessary to them. In pondern
j., religious questions it is better for man t
keep at his normal business.
:, When man tries 10 excite particnla
feeling in an audience, it is done best b
ve exciting the opposite one first. Pervers
~ use of the imagination is wrong ever,
"A where. But the right use of it is the bel
- means to attain good ends. The laugh
good for the soul as we'll as for your body
for its own sake it is not to be produce,
but it can lead to all high emotions.
Buoyancy is a quality of youth. On
few adults have the high health and hapr
- ness that make them buoyant at all time
1t is much a question of Temperament
The quickness of taking impressions is
a. sign of this. Men cannot feel what The
nal want to feel by trying. Many persor
think that if they are but like greenir
ha apple by fire and turned around now AT
tor then they will end by becoming very loot
.d some and sweet. Their idea is to be roa
,ns ted by q sanctuary FIRE. A child can
managed in two ways: one by excitir
IF pain which overcomes the ruling motiv
the other is by exciting mirth. There a
methods to excite all feelings. If y,
,re. want to cause fear you shout "Firep T.
in man who is skilled in producing feeli
ont can touch them as a musician touches (
an. keys. Feeling is produciblei it does n
;cb come by chance. To produce an emoti
,e.. minister must preach what relates to
inn. and not mere interfsction.
H. If one is in low state and desires to
So assert a religious feeling, the first thing
,i,v elevate the lower feelings. The arrani
tod ments for social meetings tend largely
of suppress feeling. Persons steal into I
nod pews, and sit down in the end of the s,
so no one else can get in without straddli
over them. have seen the same thing
nth this church. Often prayer-meetings wor
will be better If there were no seats, and peol
aw. walked and talked socially. Some M
Ole regard church as a stall and manger, wh'
malt they come to be fed. But the greatest q
in is by giving. Strong men should be
les. churches to help others. A man mis-
yeys read the FIVE books of Moses without b.
and ing any rapturous feeling excited. 7
ora. Bible is a cumbrous and useless book;
Of those who don't know now to read il.
is great art to read it for benefit, and
excite certain emotions. Read also bi
is raphies of good men.
ries Men will never see brighter experien
the or lives than many in the Catholic ehur
ght | abhor that ecclesiastical system, but
sme interior life there are no better examp
ting than in that church. They exist still
ave day. Don't read only Protestant biog
phies, nor only those Of your own deno
As = a -. - n :