St. Paul daily globe., 1895-09-09
FACULTIES AND THE SOUL.
THE FORMER is THE WAY IN
WHICH THE LATTER
ACTS.
That With Thought and Affection
the Departments for Spirit
uul business.

S"1 IAAC I SOplS church on human
Motive Power" His text was Psalms,
cX:, 3: "Thy people shall offer
themselves willingly in the day Of
Thy power" Mr.. Smith said:
What we call faculties are so many
different ways in which the one soul
acts. AS the human eye may give
itself to notice color alone, or form,
or motion, when we see a white
dove flying, for example, so the hu-
man soul may love, or think, or
will. So the mother, as she looks
upon her child, may think what
clothes he is to wear, decide that
he shall so to school tomorrow, or
just love him as the link that binds
her to all the future of the world
as she herself binds him to all the
past. But whether the mother loves
or thinks or wills, it is the one soul
acting in different moods. 1 want
you this morning to think of the
soul as will, and under that form
of spiritual activity learn some les
sons for life. The psalm that sug-
gests the thought this morning
speaks of the time of divine power
in the world. It also indicates the
human condition of it's manifesto
tIon-Thy people shall offer them
selves willingly. The force of the
statement is not found in any idea
Of simple human acquiescence. The
figure is from the sacrifice of the
religious ritual. The thought is that
when His people become victim and
priest as well, Offering themselves
upon the altar of life, Gods power
is seen in the world
Nor must we be scandaIized as
though this We're a divine limita-
ton. God has put Himself under
limitations in the finite world. He
uses media. His manifestations are
secondary. Time and space as forms
of our thought and His, and mat
ter and force condition Him. The
finite world being his choice and
creation is really a phase of the
infinite, but while the finite lasts
God is faithful to the art rules He
has Himself made for managing
worlds. So He makes sky pictures
by the aid Of clouds and in no other
way. He manifests Himself in life
through flora and fauna. He makes
nations, literatures, religions as man
grows into a fit medium for His
purpose. In this sense all that God
can do in the realm of affairs de-
pends upon the kind of men through
which He works. But as a great
artist with a bit of charcoal can by
a few lines indicate a picture he may
never make without better materials,
so God with very common men
shows the dim outline of a far finer
scheme of living, and so discloses to
US the saving power of high ideals.
1 would direct your attention
therefore to the development of the
soul in its power to will as furnish
ing the necessary opportunity for
God. Thought, affection and will
are the three great departments in
which we do spiritual business. We
readily recognize that we may i'm
prove our reason by use, our af-
fectiOns by the right choice of OBJ
jects and their suitable activity, but
most Speople do not see that the
deeper objects of life are only gained
by the culture Of the will, from
which all action springs.
The will is the primary force in the
evolution of man. It is the self
consciousness of life, as knowing
himself thinker gives man the self
consciousness of reason. But life
means energy, and energy manifests
itself in willing, and so man is alive
in proportion to his power to will,
and his life is great as his will we'll
regulated and decisive. The So
called instinct of self-preservation
which is basal in human affairs is
simply mans determination to live.
This works in the soul of the prim-
tive savage as it does in the lower
animals. 1t brings the intellectual
processes after it because this saw
age by cOntrivance puts his action
into better and wiser forms, and so
broadenS his living. All this is sub
conscious as the tiger ravens after
prey because he is hungry, but not
arises into the realm of recognized
desires which become teachers of
his power to will, and a civilization
is begun.
The relative Importance of think
ing processes and action by means
Of the will is not widely seen in
these times, and yet that relation is
a hn
which history teaches. The develop
ment of religion was not first a
Bible and then men made after the
fashion it reveals, but first of all the
thought that man was working with
God, a conviction produced by ex-
perimenting with life in it's joys, it's
sorrows, and his sins, and after
that men wrote down what they had
found out through living. These dis
closures became Holy Writ to later
men, because of the appeal to their
deeper needs and experiences. This
fact incloses in it the germs of a
philosophy of religion. 1t was after
they had crossed the Red sea that
the Hebrews sang Miriam's song,
ctHu IiilS OIocIs lllSl dCllOIL ana CnGn
Scripture, made the Hebrew writer's
possible only after the kingdom of
David had become a national pos
session. The New Testament came
not only after Jesus, but also after
a generation of apostles had done
their work. In like manner the
church had three hundred years of
active life before it became impor-
tant to reflect on why she lived, and |
so creed writing began.
This is not only Hebrew method |
but a world method. Homer could not
write until he had heroes. The fair
haired Greeks must first make martial |
music with their armor about the walls |
of Troy before the poet could make |
music on his harp. 1t was after the |
Caesars that Rome had its Augustan |
age. England must have her Alfred |
and her Normans and her Henrys be- |