The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1895-01-03
UNDER THE SURFACE.
REV. DR.. LYMAN ABBOTT ON THE
HIDDEN LIFE.
The subconscIous Self That Shines Through
TO the Surface - Sermon Preached at
plymouth Church, Brooklyn-Secrot Of
tho Greatest Power.

with Christ in God. When Christ, who Is our
life, shall appear. then shall ye also appear
with him In glory -Oolossians iii, 3, T.
There is an outer life which we OBJ.
serve, and there is an inner life Of which
we are conscious, and there is an inner.
most life which lies back Of oven con-
seriousness. There is tho lifo Of word
and deed, of expression by voice or by
hand, and that is the life with which
we aro most familiar; that is the life
in which we impinge upon one another;
that is the life which we see in others
and which perhaps we most see in our
selves Back Of that is an inner life of
which wo arc consCious--a thought
which We look at, an emotion which we
recognize, a motive which we perceive,
guided and inspired by which wo take
our action. But back OF that is the deop-
est life of all, out of which come the
thoughts and tho emotions, and that
life, deepest of all, we are not conscious
Of, save as it breaks into consciousness,
first in the inner and then in the outer
life.
SubconsCiousness.
One learns to read music. First he
takes his book and opens it and reads
the notes. Presently he has learned the
tune, and then he sings it without the
book, but he secs before his minds eye
the notes which were before in the pres
enoe Of his physical eye, and still he is
singing by note, but by and by he be-
comes so familiar with that tune that
he is not at all conscious of seeing the
note either with the eye or with the
imagination; no sees nothing; he SIM
ply expresses the emotion within him
by that which has gone down into the
Inconsistencies; no can no longer be
said to sing either by the note or even
by the memory, for he does not remem-
Der the notes; he sings as the bird sings,
without seeing. Or he learns piece Of
poetry; reads it first, and then, as he
recites it, consciously calls up word by
word and secs it still with mental
vision, but by and by tho song Of his
childhood comes to be so wrought in his
memory that in his old age, repeating
it, he no longer recalls it; it springs
out of his Inconsistencies without an
effort to recall.
stood by the dying bed Of an aged
saint, who had been to me as one Of my
two or three mothers, and l tried to re.
peat 20 her the twenty-third psalm,
and kept breaking down and forget
ting it, and then, rs the words dropped
out Of my mind and tried consciously
to recall them, she, passing out Of con.
sciousness into the dim, shadowy land
OF her unconsciousness, caught up the
words and prompted me. The twenty
third psalm was not any longer written
in her memory; it was written away
down i'll this subconscious soul of hers
and broke into consciousness at my suy-
gestion.
You meet friend it is long time
since you have seen him. You say,
know him-where was it l saw him?
You try to recall his name; at last il
comes to you. 1t is the result of con.
scious volitiOn. But you do not have to
recall the name Of your wife or child:
when you go down to breakfast and the
little girl runs up to you, you do not
have to stop and think who she is; her
name is written down beneath the con-
scious line and springs into action in
stantly without volition.
Tho Secret of All Life.
So we all have this hidden life-hid.
den from others, hidden from ourselves
We do not know what it is, and yet
out Of it spring all recollection, all
thought, all memories, all volitions, all
emotions. All things come from this se-
cret, subcouscious life, as all fruits and
flowers from the secret, hidden seeds in
the soil.
We do not know what we are be-
cause we do not know what this hidden
life is.
1t is this subconsoious life that is real
ly the secret Of all life 1t is this sub
conscious life that makes the difference
between culture and learning, between
the scholarship that is culture and the
scholarship that is mere learning. The
man whose scholarship consists only in
this--that he remembers the things he
has read and can tell You where they
are by volume and page-is not the true
scholar The greater scholar is he into
whom that scholarship has so wrought
itself that it springs out from his lips,
springs out from his thought, and he
knows not whence it has come. The
greatest judge that l ever personally
knew, one Of the most eminent mem
bers of the Judiciary that this state has
ever witnessed, rarely cited an authori-
ty, aud do not think he knew many
that is, not by volume and page The
principles of law had been wrought into
him; he decided the great questions
submitted to him according to princi-
plos which had become part of his ju.
dicial nature, but he was very rarely
overruled.
We hear one musician. She PLAYS
with wonderful skill, but we do not
care for her music. We hear another
musician; she does not play so accurate
ly, and we care very much for her mu-
sic What il the reasonp You have seen
perhaps the curious piano so construct.
cd that you can put score OF music in.
side and touch spring, and the piano
will itself play the score. There are
some musicians that simply do that;
the music comes through the brain, the
arm, the finger, but il never comes into
the esubconsoious life. When Paderewski
plays, there is Paderewski AZ we'll as
q Sohumann in the playing; the Sohu.
mann, the Beethoven, has entered into
his life; he himself has felt the pulsa-
Liou of il and all his natura has haen