The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-04-11
THE LIFE OF DIVINE LOVE
PAST EVOLUTION AND PROSPECT
FOR THE FUTURE.
Only Personal Immortality Can Full
fill the Promise of All the Crea-
ton of Life-Spiritual Awakening
Needed-Time to Press Nearer to
the Heart of God.

large audience She spoke as follows:
so We also might walk in newness OF
life" Roman, vi. T.
THE years at the spring
And days at the morn,
Gods in his heaven
AIS right with the world
I had thought to speak 10 you today OF
the various nationalist views of the
resurrection of Jesus; to enter DainStak-
ingly into the probable facts. spiritual OF
spiritualistic. which might have been the
cornerstone for the great superstructure
of miracle which has been built up about
the death of Jesus. 1t seems, however,
too great a sacrifice. We should not this
morning neglect the sweet assurances OF
our unCueStioned faith to pry into the
/ foundations of that faith which builds its
\ hopes upon miracles of past centuries.
/ While there are many liberal thinkers
/ who believe that Jesus was seen by his
! disciples after burial. they are very
| largely those who think that many
others have appeared in the same way;
they thus believe that it represented no
miracle. but q law of spirit manifestation
( which is in operation in now as well as
I long ago. For myself | doubt the eff
| f1cacy for spiritual comfort OF external
| demonstrations, either past or present,
but let those who regard 1t as important.
! give respectful attention to the hundreds
! of modern cases affirmed on respect
worthy authority. What is more i'm
portant and utterly unQuestionable is
I that the modern faith in personal i'm
mortality, the most triumphant the world
! has ever known, is associated with the
! life and death of earth's most glorious
I child. No miracle can compare in con-
vfnctng force with the unanSwerable
argument of a life of divine love and
] goodness The life of Jesus in itself was
enough to bring the supreme assurance:
/ What is excellent
/ AS God lives is permanent.
Hearts are dust, hearts love remains,
Hearts love will meet again.
The most convincing argument for per-
of evolution offers is bound up with this
fact, the eternal value of the life of
moral conquest. l mean briefly TO out
! line this in a moment, but let me nrSt
say that arguments, as arguments. have
as little spiritual value as have the
marvels of physical miracle. Arguments
satisfaction ever came from a demonstra-
ton. 1t is a great relief TO remember
that the truth of a matter is not deter
mined by our laundering efforts to prove
what is true The sun shone on Just as
gloriously when the people on the earth
thought that IL was a little window in
great glass dome. The seasons came and
went just as joyouSly and faithfully
when men thought that the earth was
standing perfectly still. and could not
at all account for the seasons changes.
We do not know how TO account for
any of the most blessed facts that en-
fold us-it is not strange that we are not
troubled because We can not prove mathe-
matically that the individual lives etern-
ally How IS it that the earth is now
all alive with growth and coming beauty
and gladness: how does it happen that
all the winters baroness will soon be
covered with flood of green and
blossoms? Simply because pulsing every
where there is that mysterious thing
we call life" What is it?
We do not know Spring has come be
cause the sun has mounted little higher
in the heavens. and that means that a
little more of the unaccountable thing we
call light has travelled here on that ut
terly mysterious, perhaps imaginary,
medium we call ether and started into
new activity that still more unfathomable
mystery, life. We know little about them
ALI But such exquisite mysteries, The
marvel of that system of rapid transit
which the light knows the quiet swift
ness of the On-rushing greenness, the
daintinesS of the flowers Hght-woven
garment. The blessed prophecy under it
all that the seed is coming with its power
to nOurish other life and make eternal
its own beauty. Harmony. order beauty
at every stage of every part of natures
life. if we but see far enough and know
of all the processes.
Who does not feel. as he rests in the
glory OF day in summers childhood
that all is well. that no mystery of dis
aster or suffering, of decay or death. can
shake that calm trust in the underlying
sanity OF life in all its parts.
Some time | shall try to show the way
in which every part of our life makes
necessary an absolute trust in the uni
verse. UnconSciouSly in every act of life
We are forced 10 trust. as the very condi-
ton of existence. To wonder. then. that
the prompting of the human heart has
been to rest calmly in the faith that ell
is right. Under much of the old theology
there seemed little reason for trust but
the hearts interest has been superior to
all creeds- The simple. truthful. duty
ought not. It has more within itself
than the brain of the wisest philosopher
could supply to give the universe mean
ing. That nature is beauty, that men can
glOrify nature even more by a loving I'M
SelhshnesS and loyalty to the great Il
ought These are the blessed facts upon
which all our theories must be based.
20, world as God has made it, All is
beauty;
And knowing this is love. and lose is
duty.
What further may be sought for or de-
clared? ?"
Yes. there is little to be added to the
trust which knows not and cares not to
know of special reasons for its faith II
would be no cause for doubt if thers
were no proofs for a larger life beyond
Our tiny brains. with their little wisdom
might easily miss the pathway of inf
But we do find that mems thinking has
usually given strong reasons to supple
ment the unreasoned faith, and never
as today.
And now let me briefly suggest the
moral argument of evolution of which
/ spoke. | wish to remind Won of this
not as a proof of immortality, but be-
cause it is so full of inspiration and help
full stimulus to fullest life. The conceD-
tion.i this: The life of God. which has
been pressing the universe from less to
more throughout the ages, is now work
ing in humanity to bring about higher
and higher forms of moral and intelIec-
tual ire me tendency which sent this
little single cell on to its work of divid-
ing and sub-divfding. growing and chang
ing, until complicated difficult animal
structures came into life. is the same
tendency which for the past centuries
has been quickening the minds and
morals of humanity. The climax of
creative life is the moral and spiritual
life now growing to fitness in man
In other words the purpose of the
world is to attain moral ends This uni
verse itself is pulsating from its center
TO its circumference in the infinities with
intelligence and love. Not an atom
bus partakes of the infi=ite life
of God. and is in some way max
ing toward the eternal purposes OF
spiritual life. Back of it all, within IL
all. there is the infinite and eternal one
the self that is higher than ourselves .
The person who is so much more than
we can conceive of personality. but
which we can only express i'm terms of
our own natures. magnified to infnity.
This divine life has been manifesting
itself more and more, in higher and
higher forms until It has come to the
more perfect expression in the conscious
life of man. In the reason. conscience
and symoathies of human life there is
the key to all that has gone before. Man
reveals God. In man are the attributes
of the universal life Observation-Disclosures
fectly. with much deformity: but man
gives by his aspirations, ideals and
struggles some revelation of that in
finite purpose that is tending onward
eternally. For many eras that onward
sweep has been within the brain of man.
II has found room for unlimited advance
and growth in the human soul Now the
Question Is will the evolution of The f,1