The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-08-13
Greenacre Congress.

Oreenacfe, El1ot, Me-, Aug 9, 1895.
| Lovely August weather makes the hap
Ply Greenacre pilgrims still more happy,
as they alternate between lectures and
classes, putting in occasionally jaunts to
the York Beach and other ocean points.
or to the Isles of Shoals. W. J. Colville,
OF London, Eng, has just completed a
course of lessons on the ''Book of Reyela-
tions, . and Mrs. Helen Van Anderson
another on 'The Philosophy of Being, y
while Mrs Ursula N. Gestefeld is now
giving course on the Metaphysics of
Balzac" to be followed with another
on the "Esoteric Meaning of Marriage. ;"
Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz is in the midst
OF series of talks on the "Science of
Human Beings" which are of much
value to all who would make home life and
the training of children as nearly ideal
as possible Mrs Diaz has also given one
evenings reading from the civilian
Henry Letters !" and has promised
another from one of her books on doInes-
lo science, which are as is we'll known,
quantity humorous
Guy Waters of the Boston Traveller,
spent his birthday at Greenacre, and cele.
DRAFTED it by giving an interesting lecture
on the Evolution of Consciousness. y
The soul conscience continually expands.
In its greatest modes, it is utterly mex
questionable; its plano is the antithesis
OF the organic The evolution of the con-
clousness of the soul implies progressive
thought. progressive. thought IS q
presentation OF broader relation OF con-
| seriousness. This destroys the narrowness
or antecedent ideation. Thus, out of
the darkness of our attachment to mate
rial objects. is evolved the stupendous love
of the universal. Attachment and love
are two different things A person may
be capable of every fierce attachments,
and utterly destitute Of pure inpersonal
| and universal love sentiment.
On the afternoon of the day following
Prof. A. G. Dolbear, of Tufts College,
gave very interesting lecture on Life
from Physical Standpoint " His dis
course pertained to matter and matters,
as the physicist knows them, Prof Dol
bear was Obliged to return to the city
the same evening, and SO did not get
much of an idea of the beauties of Green
acre and its varied attractions.
| Yesterday, DIR. W. G. Gibbons, of Min
neapolis, Mimi. gave grand lecture on
| uAC DfOlubiOu Vi k0Oul WuiCu u6 liJuS-
trated by some very suggestive original
diagrams, He said in part: life is a
purpose and it is the purpose of life to
| be full and complete. Only that is good
which is good for all. AS Walter Whit
man puts it [ refuse to receive from the
hand of God any favor which my neigh
Dor may not have on equal terms with
myself" DR.. Gibbons did not attempt
a dogmatio exegess of what the soul is
but left each one free to make his own
detihition. This he could say that it was
not producer nor prOyider and that
it is not in Creation and is superior to
| Nature. In truth, we cannot see Nature
any more than we can see the principle
of mathematics. What we see is the man
Hesitation of Nature, and everything we
behold must be accounted for. In the
sense world, all things are discovered
through the five senses, We are in the
world as in great kindergarten. BY the
sixth sense, we only see the finer form
of the same things that our five senses
show US, and it IS the seventh sense that
gives us this quality and tells us what
the objects mean. The great Spirit of
Love well knows that the greatest happi-
ness is in the infinite possibilities and
joy OF discovery The soul is living
lens which invests with its own tincture
the objects beheld by it,. Emerson says,
FThat which l am, that only can I see
dom, we must cultivate these qualities.
The new heaven and the new earth come
to us from the beauty Within
DIR. Gibbons'fne diagrams, illustrative
of soul-life and progress, must be passed
over as the explanations would hardly
be intelligble without the drawings. In
closing, he presented a very startling
thought which will Rbe cogitation. It
is that applied Christianity never con-
templated building a hospital, Jail, pool
house, asylum for the deaf and dumb OF
the blind or the feeble-minded or the in,
sane; never built a Home for aged men
or women or old soldiers never built an
orphanage or workhouse. He said that
he trembled when he first made this state
ment from the platform for he felt it
would not be received, but he had been
forced to make it because it came to him
as vital truth. He said applied Christ
ianity means preach the gospel, cleanse
these evils and raise the dead, and if the
principles of Christ had been applied the
world would not need these things today.
1t had been gratifying to him that Mrs
Abby Morton DiaZ had made practically
the same statement two days before from
the Greenacre platform. The thought
was thrown out without anplifcation
and your reporter took it home and
pondered on the testimony of these two
witnesses of undoubted honesty, who
love God and their fellow men supremely,
and this is the conclusion which She
reached: That this assertion, contradic-
tory as it is to our long ideas. is
true in the absolute, for if the teachings
of Christ had been applied for eighteen
hundred years the sick would have been
healed, and SO no need for hospitals. evil
would have been overcome with good,
and the jails and warehouses things I'M
known children would have been born OF
the highest love and spirituality, and
not of lust or accident and SO would
have been perfect in form and mentality,
and no institutions for the deaf, dumb,
blind, feeble-minded, and insane would
have been needed; and should there have
been any little ones bereft of parental
care, or any aged or infrm, these solitary
ones would have been set in families
and not have been allowed to pine amid
the rigors of an institution, no matter
how well regulated. Poverty would have
been a thing unheard Of if the perfect
law of love in its spirit of co. operation
and brotherhood had prevailed, and thus
there could not have been any poorhouses.
So pass this message along, friends, and
cooperate with might and main with
those noble souls who are trying to hasten
the coming of the glad day when the
principles OF Christ shall govern the