Kansas City daily journal., 1897-01-17
How to Live Nobly.

How to Live NObly.
G. H. Hepworth. in New York Herald.
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is
he.'-Proverbs xxii:7.
This is one of the many grand but mys-
teriouS sayings of the Bible. the full mean
ing of which we have failed TO apprehend.
If We had the courage to follow the logic
of this text to the utmost limit of its sig
nificance we should be a good deal startled.
1t means, of course. that mans thoughts
affect him in his entirety. his life. his char
acter and also his body, for a man is not
body with a soul in it. but a soul with a
body attached. The soul is the great fact;
the body is unimportant incident. We
can readily get on without bodies. but we
are as nothing without souls. The body Is
the least part Of us the part which lasts
only few years at the longest, while the
soul begins with the cradle and does not
end until eternity ends
And yet, oddly enough, 1t has been our
custom-a custom running back to the be-
ginning OF the race-to suppose that the
dominating element in man is his body
rather than his soul. This sort OF material
ism has pervaded 10th our science and our
religion. We see bodies, while souls are
invisible, and so the one has seemed real,
while the other has been more or less un-
real to us all, and to 4 greater number even
chimerical.
The physician will tell you that a mans
physical system affects his mental facul-
ties and his moral nature, and there
fore he doses the body of the sick, but does
not attempt to produce any change in the
mind. There is certainly some truth in
what he says. but he looks at only one side
of the golden coin. If he will examine the
other side he will discover what the seer
hints at in the text-namely, that the mind
has so imperial Il control over the body
that it can produce a physical disease. In
deed, large proportion of the maladies
from which we suffer could be cured IL the
sufferers mind were set at ease, for when
the mind is in agony and cries out the bod
lily pain is nothing more than the echo of
that cry. No physician can cure a real
pain by giving medicine to its echo, for
one must touch the cause before ne can
change the effect-not the apparent, but
the real cause. 1t would be foolish to at
tempt TO cleanse the muddy water of the
Mississippi by taking your stand at its
mouth, in lower Louisiana, because you
know we'll enough that the origin of the
trouble is q thousand miles north, where
the Missouri flows into It,
The Christ made His sole appeal to mems
minds and hearts. Right thinking and
right feeling are the arbiters of fate
and as a consequence the whole machinery
of life gets out of order. And such is the
power of thought and feeling that they can
change not only the expression of the face,
but its lines and curves. 1 can't conceive
of Judas, for instance, with handsome
or a benevolent face. Avarice does more
than pinch the soul; it pinches the body,
too; and no one can habitually indulge in
vice without having it betray itself in the
countenance. The Emperor Nero was a
very beautiful child as his bust in Florence
abundantly shows. When he threw him
self in early manhood into the whirlpool of
demoniac pleasures and demoniac cruelties
he could not retain that look of innocence,
and if you will glance from the bust of
Nero as q boy to that of Nero as n man
you will see that the magician's hand has
been at work, for the two faces are totally
unlike.
The fountain whence flows all that is
good and desirable is mind and heart. The
possession Of such thoughts and feelings as
make life beautiful is possible only to him
who is in communication with God and the
Christ. You must have-and l use the
word must in its most imperative sense
you must have the consciousness of Gods
presence and q profound conviction that
the Christ spirit is the secret OF the high
est success before your life will be worth
living. and before you can so till your
ground that October shall bring you a rich
harvest.
Your environment, which you have re-
garded as of the greatest Importance, is
not a primary, but a secondary matter. 1t
is not the palace that makes the man, nor
the hut that unmakes him. Vice amid
rich surroundings is all the more conspic-
| uous as vice. while virtue, resignation, in
tegrity will make the soul beautiful even
when the larder is empty.
Life has many hardships; they seem to be
our inevitable portion. There are great
struggles to be engaged in, and sometimes
| they seem to be so fearfuIly prolonged that
| we call for the pity of God and the SYM
pathy of men. There are churchyards in
our vicinity, and therefore broken hearts
| in our homes.
How can we bear these things and win
| from them sweeter tone of voice and 4
more mellow richness of character? Can
| we climb to heaven on our doubts or shall
we make q ladder of our faith? AS a man
| thinleth, so is he. You can't put your
hand out that the angels may take hold OF
| 1t unless you believe that the angels are
| there. You can't bear your troubles with
| out faith in Him who was forced to go
| home by way of Gethsemane. Set your
| thoughts to the pitch of the overture that
| was sung over Bethlehem, and, such Is the
| worlds magic, you will suddenly find peace
| and good will in your soul. Think toward
| heaven and heaven will come toward you.
|