The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-09-05


material potentiality, as five hundred
arms braided into one and hitched to
a great fiery heart. It's clash and
clank we're horrid enough to the out
ward ear, as it grappled into the
rocks and dirt for its load, but the
inner listening caught the far-off
echoes that were refined and musical
and that blended fitly with the an
gelic choruses. The steam-shovel
was at work for the fulfillment of
prophecy,-to level down the hills
and level up the valleys, and to make
rough places smooth, and to cast up
the highway for commerce and social
exchange, and the running to and fro
of intelligence, and the coming of the
Lord, and the establishment of the
kingdom of heaven.
And so all machinery, like all faith,
is means to an end; and in the long
run to an end that includes, like
faith, the worlds good. Do you tell
me, "a saw-mill means only boards"?
But do not boards mean house, and
house home, and home greater
sweetness, and purity, and power,
and beauty, and greatness of life'
The procession of instrumentalities is
long one, and all marching one
way; and the chief difference be-
tween saw-mill and system of
faith is one of place in the column,
one being at the rear and the other at
the front.
A sewing machine is not an end in
itself, but a beginning that looks
on and looks up to an end akin
to that which a creed ought to sub
serve, an end of more and better
life,-an end of culture and charac-
ter and higher civilization and more
of true being and noble action. Sew
ing machines, like John the Baptist,
should be forerunners of the king
dom, of light and life.
But are they so, as yets Or have
they come. thus far, as new blessings
often come under perversion, drag
ging on train of evil results? Have
they not been vanity educators ?
Have they not drawn life outward
into trifes, and general display
Have they not called forth ten thous-
and exterior anxieties, in every wom-
ans life, where there were but ten
before? Have they not placed null
titudes under slavery and care and
WEAKNESS; and lead on old age too
soon? Have they not burdened the
world with an enormous dry goods
tax, and numbered it with fourstory
trunks, and sent host of books to the
shelves and to undisturbed dust, and
dissipated piety in the churches
through overmuch eye-service, and
inflated the spirit of caste through
out Christendom? But if they have
done this, SO every intended good has
been put, at some time, to an evil
purpose. But really sewing machines
mean, some ways off, what faith means
close at hand, a help toward the
worlds improvement. They mean
more of the right kind of life-that
kind that is y OF ephemeral, because
of the flesh only-that kind to which
more of leisure should contribute
| that kind which beauty of costume
under due subordination will enhance
that kind that blooms from right
development of the finer taste, as
the rose opens from the uptending
stalk.
Art is also an ally of faith in the line
of life's perfection. Pictures are also
preachers. The ultimate meaning of
nature, and the ultimate meaning of
grace, are one. The universe, like
the Gospel, is means for the carrying
on of society and government, looks
or should look-in the same direc-
ton as the Sunday and the sanctuary
All our educational institutions are
or should be-intermediary to the
kingdom by truth and holiness and
Joy in God. Business is not some
thing by itself and for itself, but
stands for other and higher ends,
some of them reaching high as the
heaven of heavens.
Wealth is servant, or it is useless
dirt. Wealth does not mean death
to the higher nature, and yet it
strangles that nature in every miser
Many a rich man is a dead man
only he don't know it. And many a
rich man is all the nobler for his
riches, for he builds himself heaven
ward with it, by keeping himself
above it, and making it serve him,
and serve through him the world
and the Creator.
The means to the final end are