St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-01-06

noI that - Is entered IN the history
OF the world in words that you cannot
separate from that history, but it is
bred in human nature. and to do with
out 1t is to dismember nature and
MAIN the structure of human nfe-that
is reason for the use of religion; it is
a part OF the very man who asks what
Is its use? You cannot name a function
OF human nature that it does not pene-
trate, nor a passage of humanity's his
tory but has been fed upon the body
and blood of religion as its reason and
inspiration, or as it's protest and ex-
cuse.
Inc White wings of the ships that
bear to foreign shores the cargoes OF
the world, the freight of the nations
carry also the messages of religion. to
ma that before it's message is spoken
religion stands on the shore of the
pagan lands to welcome the new ex-
preston, or reject it. No carmine stair,
was ever injected into any anatomical
specimen to show its fiber and tissue
more penetratingly and Intimately
than religion is injected into the very
tissues of life. 1t is of the man. often
1t is the man, in all cases its use is
wrapped up in his utility, and cannot
De rent from his being without leav-
ing him manned.
but also the use of religion appears
III tnat II offers a philosophy of life
1t makes an ordered life possible.
Most men and women live their lives
d gay at a time. 1t is days work with
ehefn' they have no contract. nor anv
pan. Their days for the most mart
are 10 them days that come senaratA
iioii other days; one at a time they
coihe IN their sad procession; theirs
10 no ordered life; but when a man
iedhzes that human life is only one
aspect OF the divine energy in the
world II behooves him to order his life
upon some plan so that he shall 1T
10 the dlVinely ordered world in which
ne lives; then comes the full-eroyyn
man. the fullness of life appears; vet
now rare it is, but when it is seen II
is as beautiful as it is rare.
Inc soul that cannot be chanead
from its direction, that cannot be hired
from ideal, cannot be tempted to .
smaller life that is afraid of nothing
except that it shall be out of harmony
with the universe-this is a powerful
life, 1t is a life according to the meas
\ IL.
life of the monk is ordered, but it is an
effort to be perfect in loneliness; there
is no cloister large enough for the
universal soul but the universe; the
life of the penitent in New Mexico is
ordered, as he plies the cactus rope
upon his flesh until he stands in a
pool of his own blood. But it is but
the substitution of self-inflicted tor
lures for self-devotion to the beauti-
full order of the world. 1t is not nee
essary to be less a man to be more
like God.
The use of religion is to permanently
raise the temperature of the human
soul, not to fever but to potency and
action. So to whom religion has come,
finds life so beautiful that it is in no
danger Of spending it's strength upon
self-pity, and is not likely to forget
the unheroic but sacramental details
of common duty. Old men who lie down
and say that the end is near, look back
upon such a life, filled with activities
and full of brightest seasons, which it's
struggles cannot impair, and say to me.
as one said not ten days ago,"I think
have got through, but 1 am not afraid"
Life is the most beautiful thing that
we have to look upon. We realize in it
the joyousness of children, whose per-
feet grace IS witness of their Cncon-
SciouSnesS; we realize it in the glad
prospects OF the young man, that feels
that the book of life has been opened
to the first pages, and it is interesting
to the last degree; and in the man of
business and affairs, in his strong grasp
of situations that are difficult, and his
daring enterprises that are just travel
ing upon the verge of constant danger.
To all these life is beautiful in it's joy
BUSINESS, in it's interest, in it's strength.
Aye, it is beautiful in it's decline; just
as all the fields presently shall be rud-
dy with autumn grass jSt as all the
woods shall be af1ane, like the bush
that Moses saw on Horeb, that burned
and was not consumed" just as all the
furoWs shall lay bare their breasts for
the wheat that in the spring shall rise
anew from underneath the snow; so is
the human character, whose ordered
life finds "a moral use in dark things"
and religion ceases to be to such an
one useful guarantee of a remote
salvation; 1T is already salvation, moral
health and constant power.
The most beautiful people in this
community are the old men and the old
women that are satisfied with life. If
religion does not do this then fer us
make life strong, full of verve in its
activities, and full of peace at it's close.
1t has not served us well, but it is not
the fault Of religion, it is only the fault
Of that phase of religion which has
failed to satisfy.
And now, last of all, the use of re-
ligion a., the instrument of regenera-
ton, again we come to the very cues
ton of use, that we must deal with re-
ligion because it belongs to us, is as
truly the product of evolution as its
Scriptures are the product of itself. No
man sat down in barbarian strength
and uncultured mind and wrote the
prophecy of Isaiah; no man rose from
the crude beginning of life and sat
among the simple Galileans, to whom
were uttered the beautitudes.
Think of the conditions that existed
in the center of Germany. for instance,
between the rush of Caesars cavalry
meeting the stroke of the Gernan's
club and mace, and the same Germany
which, in the last part of the eigh-
teenth century, sung the great orator
los which have for their theme religion
and for their inspiration religion. The
rise IN human life finds thus it's flow
ering in religious art
believe more than all other forces
religion has its impact upon mans
character. He becomes human only
when he becomes a little like God. 1t is
the power of the invisible that is the
source Of all poetry in life The poet
does not sing of the thing he sees, but
or the thing which he sees beyond the