The Anaconda standard., 1897-12-20

| pass this point-this life" But what
! right have we to stop here? Evolution
| knows no terminal of progress.
| What. then. is the measure of this
! thing which we call human life-what
is the goal of it's achievement? Infinity.
| And even the weakest most common
/ place life reaches out into the un-
fathomable depths of eternity.
You think you know that man, YOU
have stood beside him at the counter or
the desk. you have heard him speak
But do you think he has let you see all
his life? There are sacred places there,
memories of early love and purity.
shrines where his soul has struggled in
| lonely vigil. from whence he has
breathed vows which no earthly ear
has heard There are sanctuaries of
| hope and peace too high and sacred to
| be shared with any other-unless you
have visited these sacred places of his
heart, you know only the outside of his
| life.
Not on the vulgar mass
Called word must sentence pass
Things done that took the eye and had
the price,
But all the worlds coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
All | could never be,
All men ignored in me
This, | was worth to God"
| Far beyond the sumit Of any mans
| achievement CLEANS his ideal
And. "'Tis not what man does which
| exalts him, but what man would do
l am not seeking to throw any false
! glamour over human life-to make it's
| sins less real-it's shame and weakness
less pitiful. But here we are attempt
| ing to judge Of humanity from the
! standpoint of religion. And religion
| should rise above the discord of the
| market place and look at life as it APP
pears in Gods eternal plan.
| Religion is human life on it's absolute
| side-in the expression of it's highest
| hope and most sacred inner faith. Re
! ligion is the escape of mans soul from
| limitations of time and environment,
out into the universe Of absolute truth
| and goodness.
Religion can never be contented With
| the world as it is. or with humanity
as it is. A religion which does not
| tower above mans ordinary life to the
seemingly unattainable could not long
satisfy his soul.
The soul of faith stretches eagerly
forward to the world, and to the man
that shall be.
Religion can require of human life
nothing less than it's own ideal.
'.Ye shall be perfect even as your
Father in heaven is perfect"
But the measure of it's requirement
is also the measure of it's promise for
the future. For coordinate with it's
faith in God must always be it's faith
in man. Mans God is always his own
ideal That he believes in truth and
goodness on the throne of heaven
means that there is truth in their own
soul.
As the apostle cries in an inspired
moment: Beloved. now are we the
sons of God, and it doth not yet ap-
pear what we shall be, but we know
that we shall be like HIM" Nothing
less than this can be the destiny of
evolution.
Men have sought to prove the eter-
nal duration of their existence. That is
nothing. That is not eternal life. Eter-
nal life is the life of the eternal. which
transcends space and time. which acts
for the moment. thinks for the moment,
feels for the moment like the apostle
One such moment is eternal life 1t is
the escape even for an instants space
of the finite from it's letters
One conviction. one CLEAN of truth. is
enough to redeem man. In this lies
mans highest hope and present assur-
ance of Immortality The greatest
proof that humanity is stamped with
the imperishable signet of divinity lies
in this sense of the absolute right and
truth. duty which rises suddenly with
in him and dominates his thought and
action.
That I can for an instant rise To the
absolute is proof of immortality, shows
there is something within me which
can't he measured Mems whole lives
are to be measured by their few sub
lime moments. These are the only mo-
ments when we shall live
The story of Jacobs vision is the true
allegory of humanity. While men pill
low their heads on the rocks of hard
reality there come to them ever and
anon angels descending from a world of
beauty, who bring their promise Of the
larger possession which shall some day
come to him.
As long as we live under the limita-
tions of physical life. the two-fold ma
ture Of human life viii continue-there
will always be the strife between the
common place and the divine.
For the body loves as he loved in the
past.
When he welded the soul. and he holds
her fast.
And swears that he viii not lose her:
That he viii keep her and hide her
away
Forever and ever and for a day from
the arms death. the seducer.
All this is the strife that is wearying
me.
The strife 'twixt a soul that would be
free
And a body that viii not let her.
And / say TO my soul. BE calm and
wait.
For l tell We truly that soon or late We
surely shall drop each fetter "
This as ] understand IT, is the mes
sage IF religion ta the human heart
not TO teach men ~ listen for the sound