The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-01-12
* SERMON. 3sz
HOPE IN GOD.
100000 100000 c00ScctcE
BY REV. JAMES HUDSON.

Quiet it's unrest. Its relation to an
infinite source keeps it ever strug-
Cling upward. The same disqulet
has marked the history of the race.
The millions who have already crossed
the mysterious borderland were sub
iect to the same laws which surround
each life to-day. Humanity is con-
fronted by two hemispheres. The
material world does not satisfy us.
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was
not spoken of the SOUL" We know
a little of the world of dust, but be-
yond its limits, if such there be, is
spiritual world, a world of awful mys-
terry to our finite minds; and how
anxiously have we waited for some
voice to speak to us and recall to our
reason and heart at least some truth
on which man may build his hope
and shape his life.
Each life is history within itself,
and while all may have some distinct
phase of self, all is related by COM
mon longings and common disquiet'
The lowest intellection may begin
with the child. The tiny body ex-
hibits little force. AS it clings to the
breast of motherhood it is the en-
bodiment of helplessness and one
can scarcely realize the embryo of a
genius which may yet measure the
stars or startle the universal life OF
Nature. In short space of time it
finds it's feet, and hands, and mouth,
and the external world has little of
any interest. Instinct, similar in all
animal life, soon grows into force and
then begins the lower intellectual
processes very little above that OF
mere sense. But the love of life soon
develops into mastering passion.
The schoolboy's battles are not less
real than that of two antagonizing
nations. But the schoolboy and the
man of forty are distinct epoch in
history. The fancies of childhood
are forgotten in the realities of ma
ture manhood.
Education gives us mind sight and
the tools by which we may hew out
a way through the universe; it gives
us the scales by which we may meas
ure quantity, but it solves few of the
mysteries of the external world, and
nearly nothing by which we may I'M
lock the mysteries of that spiritual
condition in which the soul feels like
an imprisoned bird.
The soul will assert itself whether
the child be taught or not, but how
much of the beauty and excellence of
life depends on our early teaching!
Foolish nurses talk of bogies and the
little child is haunted with imaginary
spectres which are beyond the every
dav things one can see with the nat
ural eye. But each age and each
nature has it's God. From our earli-
est memory we receive instruction
that gives to the mind at least some
vague notion that man has superior.
What that personality or force may
be neither science nor religion has
vet said. But we bow to the awful
force we cannot deny. The loving
PRAYERS of sainted mothers follow us
like echoes from an unknown voice.
No good man tries to close his ears
to the voice which first with closed
ewes lifted the head heavenward. Our
little lisping prayers at eventide be-
come the foundation on which all
spiritual life and development rests.
The souls disquiet begins with an
age of thought. The voice of reason
is the first which startles us from
dreamlike fancies and asks questions
which the wisest philosophy has yet
to answer. The passive mind is not
a reasoning mind and the soul that
can dwell in its chamber with silence
has no beautiful pictures, no tears, no
pathos, no enthusiasm, no disquiet.
The soul must reason of God. Neither
the philosophy of Plato nor the
dreams of Swedenborg speak just the
right word to any soul. We must
work out our own salvation. But who
shall interpret the desires of your soul
and mine9 Each mind looks with a
different eye at natural life and he
who saws he thinks the same as you
has probably never been guilty of
thought to any degree. The earliest
disquiet of soul very often arises from
the fact that we cannot see God or
understand God or think of God just
as our fathers did. The TRADE
against reason is the most foolish of
all ages. She has opened volume
which will never be closed. Each
generation shall bring some new
chapters to this unfinished book. In
its pages are the first CLEANS of light