St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-05

most precious heritage of our common
Christianity. But these letters and
documents as we have them could not
in the nature of the case be a final,
universal and authoritative guide in
all the exigencies of future time and in
all the detail of human life. We are
here brought face to face with a doc
trine of the inner light, which is the
very
GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY,
is contained in the whole extent of the
New Testament, and forms a rich part
OF the common conviction of Christen-
dom. AS Jesus said He would send
another teacher, the comforter who
would abide with us forever, so the
apostles went about asking the cues
ten, Have ye received the Holy
Ghost since ye believed?" And the
New Testament epistles make con-
slant reference to this divine leading
not alone for apostles and teachers,
but as the priceless possession of the
ordinary Christian.
The moral growth OF the individual
is history of the inner light. A man
or woman of high character having
passed through the struggles of youth
and the conflicts of earlier maturity,
no longer searches painfully through
the Scriptures to find a rule for each
emergency of conflicting duty and in
clination. The inner light guides them
They have acquired the habit of right
ecusness. This is by no means a habit
that cannot be broken down, but it is
habit that probably will not be
broken down. They have come near
to the divine securities. AS the apos-
tie says, lit is impossible for God to
lie" so there are men and women
of whom you or 1 would say it is
impossible for them to lie. This hui
man security is like the divine Sc
curity, and the difference is one of
time, for God has been telling the
truth forever while your friend has
been telling it for only fifty or sixty
years. 1t is this aggregate of moral
habit which is really the
SPIRITUAL WEALTH
of the world. It is the cement of So
CT 'ty; it is the foundation of phrophecy
and hope. The inner light is protected
from mere individual self-direction by
it's social character. Advanced moral
standards are perhaps, for the few,
become the property of the multitude.
The doctrine of a Christian brother
hood is a corrective to the possible
extravaganza of individualism. He
who cannot convert others to his
views must be reconverted himself.
The general judgment of mankind is
more valid at thu last than the judg-
ment of any one man, however gifted,
and this familiar fact in the domain of
practical affairs is equally the law of
spiritual life and knowledge. The
prophet is at the last judged by the
church.
But it is the inner light alone which
gives hope of a better world. A world
organized by mere rules is hopeless
and dead. The growth of the inner
lights furnishes new guidance as the
unfolding of the inner life furnishes
new strength for new achievements.
The dome of the temple of humanity
cannot be builded by digging up the
foundation of religion, but for the
structure of that dome there must
be the bringing in of new material
and the revelation of a completed
plan. The strong foundations can bear
up the weight. of wall and roof, but
that dome may glow with new frescoes
painted by the new spiritual artists of
the living present. 1 must reserve the
psychology of the subject for another
time.