The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-10-26

st-afed that the church was altogether
inadequate to accommodate those VINO
desired to hear him.
There was an immense audience at
the theatre yesterday morning. DR..
Holman took for his text:
But without faith it is Impossible
to please him. For he that cometh
unto God must believe that he is Goa
and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him." Hebrews XII 0.
DR.. Holman said, in part;
If we study the seemingly almlesS
movements of a healthy human lnlanl
we find that these movements are put
the successive attempts OF the oaDy 10
bring every object within the range OF
his perception under the test or each
one of the five senses. BY touch, taste,
hearing. sight and smell, the child Is
sroping his way out into the strange
world in which he finds himself Over
leap fifty years of the child's life and
look at him now. distinguished scien-
fist in his laboratory As you STUDY
the strange instruments and appliances
with which he is surrounded YOU ind
that every one of these scientific ap-
pliances is but an attempt to extend
the range of some one of the nVe
senses. In other words your scientist
is only repeating with elaborate ap-
paratus the experiment OF his BABY
DAYS when he tried TO get his rattle or
his foot in his mouth. All science Is
but the attempt to interpret the exter-
nal world by mee rs of the five senses,
and the five senses constitute apso-
lutely the only medium of scientific in
VeStigation.
But there is whole range of phe-
nonlena which cannot be reached by
scientific apparatus or apprehended by
the senses and, strange to say, these
phenomena are connected with the
deepest facts of human life. The power
of love is no less real than the attrac-
lions of chemical affinity. The author
ity of Righteousness is no less absolute
than the law of gravitation, yet these
are things which cannot be touched
through the senses. Life itself, that
mysterious something which lies behind
all phenomena, utterly eludes scientific
research. No scalpel can uncover II,
no miscroscope discover it, no chemical
analysis reveal it, yet its reality under
lies all other realities. Here then is
new world in which man must find his
way and where the senses give him no
report and science furnishes no help.
What authority shall man give to
the utterances of his inner life? He ac-
cepts the reports of the senses as YER
acious for the the world of sense. Are
the utterances of his own soul also
veracious for the world of moral and
spiritual phenomena?
At the last analysis this is the SUI
preme question of the moral life. How
far shall trust the highest utterances
of my own soul?'
To every man, either abstractly or
concretely, comes this momentous
choice. Shall 1 give weight and author
ity to the best and hottest within me?
This choice to follow the inner light at
all hazards and any cost is what the
Bible calls faith. If we were TO at
tempt 10 define 1t we would say that
faith is the choice of the soul to accept
its own highest utterances as authori-
tative FOR conduct and character.
Viewed in this light three things may
be asserted of faith-First, it is the
universal basis of spirituality. The
choice TO follow the inner light is con-
fined to no race, creed or cult. Men of
all faiths and all races and in all ages
have made the sublime choice to follow
the light within whitheTsoever it should
lead. It is this fact which makes
Christianity the universal religion; the
gospel appeals to universal facts of life;
Il brings to men the ideal for which
they have groped: il reveals to them
the God for whom they have longed.
Second. faith may lead a man to doubt
as we'll as to believe. The largest ut
false as well as the true. Men of faith
have been mighty doubters Paul must
needs doubt the old before he could re-
ceiye the new. His whole life was an
assertion of his liberation from the
thraldom of the cult in which he had
been raised.
Martin Luther was a mighty doubter
as well as a strenuous believer. The
men who have marked the progress of
religious thought in all ages have been
men who dared to follow the inner light
even though it led them TO doubt all
which they had been taught to revere
The attack upon outgrown creeds and
musty confessions of faith which con-
stitutes the stock in trade of platform
infidelity. was anticipated long ago by
men of faith who questioned outgrown
creeds in the interests of a larger and
better belief. The men who today are in
the forefront of the movement for
larger horizons of religious thought
are men of lofty and reverent faith.
Third, faith lies at the basis of the
worlds great heroisms. When the
sacred writer would illustrate the
power of faith he calls fhe roll Of the
heroes whose illustrious deeds had
made Israefs name luminous in the
history of the world. At the basis of
all real heroism lies the sublime choice
to follow duty at any cost and at all
hazards. and this is the very essence
of faith. Faith is no lackadaisical
maiden with clasped hands and up
turned eyes gazing into space Faith
is a mailed warrior with helmet dented
by many blow and shield SCARED by
many a thrust and sword battered in
many conflict, ready everywhere and
alway to do battle for the right. 1t is
this faith which lies at the base of our
Christian religion. 1t is to this faith
that the Master makes his supreme APP
peal. He comes to reveal the God in
whom it is the joy of faith to believe.
He is that for which faith longs and
toward which il reaches as the flower
reaches toward the sun. It is this faith
which give dignity and significance to
human life; it is the assertion of the
souls royal lineage. Man is on The
earth, but he is of the stars. Righteous-
ness is not a dream, hope is not an H.
fusion. The deathless loves and limit
less aspirations. the longings for i'm
mortality and the intimations of the
splendors of the universe which lies
beyong our vision are something more
than The mere outworkings of nervous
force. They are the outbreakiug of
light from the inner world; they are the
prophecies of the immortal life. they
are the foregleaus of that glorious es-
tate when men. crowned and sceptered
with all the powers of eternal xouth
shall enter upon life of limitIess ana
ageless development.
Y. vi. VI. j. A. Conference.
The general Young Mems Mutual I'm
rroveinent association of Salt Lake stake |
held their reor,l,r oo,fo-o~--