The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-12-03

ie7o appropriate WOruSI the Hdheu LaSl
of the world.
Especially is this failure conspicuous
When we turn to man. Man, by virtue
OF mis- personality, so transcends the
physical world as to leave him being
much by himself. If there is no per-
sonal life higher than his, embracing
ms, and making him a single member
IN spiritual universe as comprehensive
IN its scope as the physical universe
winch sustains it and rises into 1t, then
man becomes fragmentary, solitary,
visionary in all that most distinguishes
his life from the lives about him. If we
make nature a sufficient and final ex-
preston of God, man stands bereft of
guidance, purpose and support. He has
been pushed to the surface by forces
beneath him, but into no light genial
to him, into no warmth that will bring
his spiritual powers into pale blossom.
The lily floats in the water and opens
heavenword it's fragrant flower, but no
divine love loosens the heart of man in
it's overcharged affections. The concep-
ton of God as enclosed in nature, bring
ing refreshment to neither mind nor
heart, will loom obscurely in the back
ground, till the spiritual barrenness
consequent therein shall compel us to
attempt new solution.
In the reconstruction of faith we are
brought to the point at which there
must be fresh reconciliation of terms
which have fallen apart-nature and
God. We cannot leave nature, nature
IN which we are enveloped as fish in
the sea, as something alien to the
divine mind, something to be pushed
this way, or that way, made or unmade,
at pleasure.
So thinking, we lose the terms Of
daily discipline. We grope after the
Kingdom of heaven. We hang impo-
tently and indolently in a supernatural,
which mocks us with unfulflled hopes.
Nature obstinately remains as an OBJ
struction in our path; is vanquished
neither from within nor from without.
| Instead of finding the world wonder
| fully plant intermediate term between
us and God, we are left exclaiming
with st. Paul, who shall deliver me
| from the body of this death.
The new conception we are to reach
while it will supercede the old one, must
| also be its fulfillment. It must sub
| serve the same purposes of faith in a
| higher form. No belief which contra
| diets the spiritual experience which has
| led up to it can itself have a strong
hold on the facts, or satisfy the
thoughts for any considerable period.
| Faith is too distinctly and positively a
| growth to be for moment negligent of
the stages by which it passes into a
new position. A faith that has been
| fundamentally wrong in the past can
give us no pledge for the future. 1t is
| astonishing with what a light heart
many set aside the history of the world
as if they could make another and bet
ter one, standing tip toe on this very
moment. The presumption is more be-
wildering when it's catchword is evolu-
ton; evolution that takes the future
out Of the heart of the present, that
throws nothing away. That role, the
thing that is over and overlies it be-
comes the thing that is to be. Wher-
ever we stand we stand by virtue of
the steps which mount up to the posi-
ton. Every successive revelation nee
essarily fulfills the law and the pro-
phets. In no other terms can it be a
revelation.
The weakness in cur previous and in
our present faith has been that we had
no discriminating hold on either the
natural or the supernatural, or on their
relation to each other. Nature should
stand with us for causes, forces already
definite in quantity and quality, crea-
lions that have left the creative hand
as words that have gone forth from
our mouths. Reason has done it's work
in them and it gives them a flnality OF
fatality. They are something to be
dealt with, not altered.
The supernatural on the other hand
should stand with us for the inner
realm of reason, where thoughts and
all the activities Of a free spirit flow
into each other, shape and reshape each
other and make of consciousness the
eternal womb Of time. A disposition tt
commingle and confound these two
things has wrought endless confusion ir
philosophy, and leaves no basis for spir
itual life. We may fight this conflict
out either in psychology or in religion
but it is vital in either field. We may
cripple ourselves in our dealing with
truth and so lose the conception Of
God; or we may make this conception
Of God unintelligible and thereby main
our own powers.
It is no more difficult to regard Goo
as immanent in nature and yet con
stantly transcending it than it is to &C
cept the human spirit as limited by the
body and as yet ruling it in a potent
way. We are thus in the image of God
The kingdom of heaven is rehearsed fol
us in our own lives. An undeniable en-.
trance is given us to the spiritual world
Nor need we be disturbed by any asser
ton that our method is anthropomor
phic Undoubtedly, but is unbelief any
less anthropomorphic? What advan
| age has it over belief, unless it be tina
, / it plants itself in it's own assertion
, pushing the weakness of the mind into
, the foreground. An odd objection thi.
. ! to vision-that we are found in it usins
our own eyes
, Our bodies at once limit and enlarg,
our powers. The mind is omnipresen
in the body, and by means of it becomes
| a physical factor in the world about it.
The spirit finds attachment at this poin
: to things and gains footing anon:
: causes. Here is an interlock Of thought
and things in mans psycho-physical be
ing. Causes flow inward and choice
: flow outward and we can neglect Meth
: er the one nor the other, nor rend then
} apart 1t thus becomes to us no longe
on rI;,tniDlya h1a tbino that natural Law