Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1890-07-19
INDIVIDUALITY.
BY REV. THos. p. HAY.

what you are and as you are. Such
spirit is almost as bad as egotism.
There is a divine reason for each
ones personal and individual exist
ence, for his distinctive self; and we
have divine right to be what we
are, and to assert, in the proper way,
our individuality. Yea, it is our
most bounden duty to manifest and
justify and magnify Gods wisdom in
Ordaining our peculiar beings and
lives.
What could we do without the as
surance of this divine reason of our
being? Often men have wondered
and wondered why they were ever
made, and wished they had never
been created. The trials, failures,
sufferings, and disappointments of
life make them feel that life is not
worth living. Elijah, when a fugi-
tive from Jezebel, even went so far as
to assert that the wisdom of his Crea-
tor could best he protected from
righteous impugnment, and the
honor of true religion best be main
tanned, by his immediate departure
from this world.
But it is not trial and failure alone
which make men depreciate them
selves after this manner. Too often
comparison of themselves with 9TH
er persons leads to this same state of
mind. Some despise their individu-
atty, and permit it to be over>
Swallowed by that Of others. Some
are only contemplate mimics, con-
tent to be imitators, or even counter
feits, of others rather than original in
dividuals. Very manhood and self
respect demand the proper assertion
of our individuality and the protec.
ton of its genuineness. There
is a wonderful ontogeny here.
Ontogeny involves diversity in
in likeness. Gods work in the
production Of individual being
nature is wonderful. There is a law
ever specializing to the extent of Sc
we're NATURALIZATION. God made
us from two parents and many
grandparents. All these are individu
ais, with funds of heredity; and al
these things tend to make each of Vi
a peculiar and distinctive being
With this work of our own individu
al making we have no practical con
cernment, for it is Gods work. Blu
it becomes our duty to fall in lin,
with Gods plan and ideas and will
the laws and offices of our creation
and strive to develop and emphasiz
our individuality. We should desir,
to make manifest the fact that eacl
one of us is a distinctive idea and ere
alton of God, and to realize this fact
Oh, how humiliating the confession
that | must initiate other persons ant
try to change myself into a Likeness
to their individuality, in order to adj
something TO my force that / mus
borrow from others to make mysel
weigh something! George Macdon
aid beautifully says: 81 would rattle
be what God chose to make me thai
the most glorious creature that
could think of. For to have beel
thought about - born in Cod
thought, and then made by God,
the dearest, grandest, and most pre-
cious thing in all thinking" Fac
one of us is to embody and work on
some distinctive thought of the di
vine mind. We are like the prett,
transparencies that adorn our windoy
glasses, to give all God>manifesta
tons through us the beauty of tn
colUring of our own individuality. !
has been well said "that the NOR
man cultivates his idiosyncratic ms
ture, the more independent he be
comes in knowledge and the exercis
of the will, the more he suffices 70
himself, and the less need he has c
Others" Pantheists assert that Go
is impersonal, for the reason that tn
notion of personality implies HnitC
tiOm And it is to be feared tina
many people feel so cramped by tn
consciousness of their personality tina
they would be almost willing to SUI
render it in order to escape from in
dividuality. They need the powe
Of control over their own distinctly
beings. Herein, no less than in s
many other particulars, the Son c
man waits to liberate us with tina
freedom which is freedom indeed
"Science knows no Pantheon" am
the heart must know no master bu
Jesus and no self but one self.
1 I l., l. l.